Reservoir Of Power Ch 02

My great uncle Fergus used to pat me on the knee and he'd say, "Me boy, some thin's just smell right." I was just a lad, how was I to know that he didn't mean pie? ~ J. Milton O'Leary

Reservoir of Power Chapter 2

Lena swatted at whatever was tickling her cheek. She growled in irritation and tried to reach out for her blankets, thinking to bury her head underneath those soft, warm sheets. Her hand struck rough wooden slats however, rather than the comfy cotton that she'd been hoping to find and it occurred to her, there weren't any blankets here. Come to think of it, the curtains were not safely closed to block out that annoying morning sun either. Who had opened her freaking curtains? Shit!

Lena's eyes snapped open in irritation and she instantly realized why it was so bright here and more to the point, why her back was now sore; she'd fallen asleep on the damned porch swing while waiting for Ylva to come home from her victory party.

The bitch left me out here all night long! At least she could have woken me when she came crawling home last night.

Then something darker occurred to her, something that caused her to bolt upright in fear for her friend. Maybe Ylva hadn't made it home at all! Lena had warned her and warned her that she should be more careful!

She lurched to her feet and charged into the small rental cottage that she shared with her best friend in the whole world, but she skidded to a stop when she saw Ylva sleeping quite comfortably on their couch, evidently without a care in the world. In an instant, Lena's panic morphed into an incendiary anger instead. She screamed, "Ylva, you heinous bitch"!

Ylva awoke with a start and seeing her angry friend towering over her, she said, "What's wrong?"

"You left me outside all night? Damn it Ylva! I thought something had happened to you; I panicked and ran in here only to find you lying there all snug and warm while you left me outside in the cold!"

"Now don't you get all mad at me," Ylva began, "I tried to wake you when I came in, but you just wouldn't wake up. You know how hard you are to wake up most of the time! This time it was even worse than usual; it was like you were hibernating or something. Hell, I thought that maybe you were drunk and sleeping one off. I really wanted to tell you about this guy that I met!"

"No you don't! Don't go there; don't even try to change the subject on me now! You left me outside when I'd obviously fallen asleep waiting for you."

"Lena, I'm telling you, you

wouldn't

wake up! I yelled at you; I shook you. Hell, I finally just covered you up with your comforter and left you out there. There was nothing else that I could do; heck, I slept out here so I could try to keep an eye on you. I really thought that maybe you'd just had too much to drink!"

"Wait...you say that you covered me up? I didn't have any blankets out there!"

Ylva started, "Lena, I'm telling you that..." but she didn't get a chance to finish her defense as Lena had stopped listening to her and had instead stormed back out the front door. Irritated, Ylva rose to follow her large, angry friend.

Lena calmed quickly however when she spotted her favourite comforter lying underneath the porch swing. "See!" Ylva said with some anger in her voice.

"I'm sorry Ylva," Lena said, clearly chastened by her outburst. "I know I know...I got angry again; I'm so sorry."

Ylva reached out and put her hand on her friend's arm and said, "How much did you have to drink anyway?"

"Not a drop. You know that I don't drink much."

"Yeah, but that's why I figured that you were so hard to wake this time. It's like you were unconscious or something, I mean...you were completely out of it!"

"Ylva, I don't know what was going on; I'm not sure why I was so dead to the world. Maybe it was because it was just so relaxing out there on that swing. The stars were just so beautiful last night!"

"Maybe you were just tired from the derby, but anyway... Can I tell you about the guy now?"

Lena rolled her eyes at this, but since she was still pretty embarrassed about her behavior earlier, instead of saying 'no' outright, she instead pleaded with Ylva to let her use the bathroom first and then maybe even get some breakfast before hearing her story.

Ylva instantly accepted this offer. The two girls had been room mates for several years now, and she knew from sad experience that while she herself could get by with a piece of dry toast and a dose of caffeine, Lena would require a large breakfast before all of her synapses would be firing in the right directions. She waved Lena towards the bathroom before heading into the kitchen to prepare breakfast for the two of them.

When Lena eventually dragged herself back from the bathroom, now with her long brown hair dripping wet from the shower, Ylva had managed to have breakfast waiting for the two of them on the table. She'd made nine large pancakes, one for herself, and eight for Lena. There was fresh butter and a pot of real honey for the flapjacks. She'd also placed blackberries and a pint of cream on Lena's side of the table.

Ylva knew that Lena would start in on the fruit after she'd polished off all of her pancakes. Her friend had eaten like this for years now, and yet, she still thought it was an amazing sight to see. She'd told Lena that she ate like a sumo wrestler. It was also true that the large girl was indeed huge, but there was barely an ounce of fat on her. Ylva had no idea how Lena managed the trick, all of those calories must be going somewhere; she ate enough to feed an entire hockey team.

When the pancakes were finally gone, Ylva leaned forward eagerly and said, "Okay, are you ready to listen to me now?" Lena merely nodded her assent and reached for the blackberries.

"First of all...he's huge! I mean, bigger than you even. One of the other girls said that he used to play on the offensive line in college football somewhere. He gave me a ride home last night; we are going to have a barbeque dinner with him tomorrow."

Lena just raised her eyebrows questioningly; well aware that trying to get a word in edgewise when Ylva was wound up would be a fruitless waste of time.

Ylva saw her friend's expression and said, "When we drove by his place, I saw that he had a deep pit, so I invited us over for dinner".

Lena held her finger up in the universal sign of 'shut the hell up for a moment, I want to ask you something...', but Ylva waved Lena's gesture away impatiently and continued, "Yes,

we

invited ourselves over; he wasn't going to do it. I hadn't even kissed him yet. My God girlfriend, he was calling me 'ma'am'! I had to kiss him; he wasn't going to kiss me!"

Lena mouthed, '

we?

', but she didn't say anything aloud. Ylva saw this gesture and just waved her friend away dismissively once again before continuing, "He is the bartender down at Mike's Tavern...I guess he is the bouncer too. I watched him break up a fistfight by just grabbing the two men by the backs of their necks and holding them so that their feet couldn't touch the ground. He didn't even break a sweat; he looked like some sort of massive Viking warrior. He's got long red hair and these old-school Celtic beads woven into his beard. I got wet just watching him; he's kinda shy though. I think he was afraid that he'd break me."

"Like he could break 106 pounds of gristle," Lena mumbled.

Ylva stuck out her tongue at her friend, but she barely slowed before continuing, "Anyway... I told him that we'd be there about 7:30 and we'd bring beer. So buy Moosehead, he said that he'd drink Canadian beer. Okay...I'm done."

Lena waited a moment longer to see if her hyperactive friend really was done ranting, and upon seeing Ylva patiently waiting, she hazarded, "Okay, let me see if I've got this right... You barely spoke to this man because he was working in a packed tavern, and anyway, you were busy gossiping with the girls, and yet, you hustled him for a ride home and then invited us over for a free dinner before jumping him for a kiss? Yes?"

Ylva batted her eyes coquettishly and said, "You are welcome."

Lena snorted before saying, "So how much beer do I have to buy? How many people are going to be there for this dinner?"

Ylva said quickly, "Oh I think that it'll just be the three of us, so we only need to bring two twelve packs. That will probably be enough."

"You want a case of beer for three people?" Lena said in disbelief.

"Yeah, well, he's really big and he's feeding us, so we gotta bring enough."

Lena rolled her eyes, but she could see that this was Ylva's final answer, so instead, she changed the subject, "I was thinking...:

"Yeah, that's why your sorry ass fell asleep on the porch swing," Ylva snapped out quickly.

"Shut up bitch!" Lena responded with amusement. "I was thinking that I had a few ideas for my track name, but I'm unsure about them, I am going to need your help. Okay?"

Ylva nodded vigorously.

"K...I was thinking that for once I need to embrace my size. Have some fun with it; base my track persona around the way that I'm being perceived anyway. So, I was thinking that some king of bear name, Grizzly Mama or something like that; but I'm not good with words like you are, so I need some help. Something sillier than your name though. I don't think I'm ready to be a sadistic prison guard."

"You mean a happy name, rather than a scary one? Something like Yogi's Daughter or Rainbow Care-bear?"

"Umm... maybe not

that

happy!"

"Ylva exhaled, "Thank God!"

"C'mon Ylva, I know that it has to be a rough, tough skater name, but can't we hide a joke in there some place? I've been wracking my brain, but I'm completely stuck and we have another match next week. I'm running out of time; Mary wanted our applications turned in by Tuesday's practice."

"Okay, okay, but that means that I get to do your costume too," the small girl said deviously.

"I am not skating in satin panties!"

"Of course not," Ylva sniffed, "you'd clash with my costume!"

"Lord help me," Lena sighed.

~~~~~

Lochlainn had shown up for work as scheduled on Sunday, but Mike had just told the big man that he was giving him three days off and then he promptly shooed his bartender out of the tavern for the day. "Go explore Kalispell," he'd said, "Go find a reason to stay here with us. Quit living your life just one day at a time. After what I saw last night, I'd like to keep you for awhile, and I know that I won't be able unless you find yourself a reason to stay here."

Lochlainn had been surprised that Mike had seen right through him, but he hadn't complained. He'd just thanked his boss and quietly walked back out to his van. He stood by the battered old truck, and he wondered what he should be doing next, but then again, he knew that this had been the problem with his life for quite awhile now. He'd entered the university in Missoula eight years ago, fully intending to find himself and to decide which world he'd join, and now here he was—standing on a corner in Kalispell Montana, and he still had no clue what he should do next.

Then he remembered the crazy little skater from the previous night; she might be willing to help him look for his reason. If nothing else, she'd provide a temporary diversion as he'd agreed to feed two girls a barbequed dinner. This would require quite a bit of work because he was sure that the deep pit desperately needed to be cleaned before he'd actually be willing to put food into it.

He hadn't used the pit since he'd moved into the rental; he thought,

"I might as well go get the tools to clean that thing out. I'll need a wire brush and a long handled set of tongs at the very least...and some mesquite charcoal, not to mentions some food to cook for dinner."

"That crazy girl, what was her name again? Ylsa? No, it was Ylva wasn't it? Ylva had been knocking back shots of tequila at the tavern. I might as well buy a bottle of Patron too."

Now armed with a plan, Lochlainn climbed in back into the Econovan and headed for the hardware store. Next he headed to the grocery store, where he found that he had a harder time making decisions about what he should purchase. Kalispell wasn't exactly blessed with a super store. The selections on the shelves weren't great and the prices were higher than he'd expected.

It was not as expensive as if he had been shopping somewhere inside of the National Park boundaries, but he quickly realized that he'd have to be careful with his money. He eventually picked out a bag of raw potatoes, a few cans of this and that, and a bottle of Patron Silver. He froze up again once he got to the meat aisle though; he had no idea what to buy his guests for dinner.

Then inspiration struck. He grabbed a bag of chicken quarters to serve as an easy fall-back plan before he headed over to the tourist section where he found some fishing supplies and a couple bottles of bait. He'd decided to catch tomorrow's dinner. Hell, he hadn't been fishing in months! If nothing else, he'd kill the day checking out the supposedly secret spots that Jimmy and Earl had been going on about. Maybe fishing would be his reason to stay in Kalispell.

Happier now that he was carrying out a plan; Lochlainn decided to spend the rest of his day preparing his home for guests. If he were going to entertain for the very first time in his life, he was going to do it right. He'd make sure that his uninvited guests would have more creature comforts than a part-time lumberjack thought necessary.

Then he headed home and began to clean his mess... and that took quite awhile. He hadn't lived in this cottage long, but it already looked more like a lair than a home. His laundry consisted of two piles, one for clean and one for dirty. He never could figure out why people folded the stuff or bothered to put it away. Doing all of that was for amateurs, everyone knew that you'd just have to get the clothes out again when you wore them again.

His garbage needed to be taken out, all three bags of it, and after he'd done that, he detected a bit of a smell left behind, so he decided that the entire cottage needed to be aired. He was happy to see that the windows still looked reasonably clean and he was thankful for that. He'd never cleaned a window in his life and he had no firm idea how one went about doing that. It was a mystery that seemed best left unsolved.

He'd left the deep pit for his last task, and when he saw its condition, he was glad that he'd waited; the thing had not been shoveled out in ages. Indeed, the family of raccoons who had moved in to it was not happy to see Lochlainn show up armed with his wire brush and shovel. Still chittering at him, they had disappeared into the surrounding bushes while Lochlainn began to work in earnest.

He scooped several decades' worth of ashes and associated slop from the concrete pit, and then relocated all of it carefully into the garbage. Next, he raised the grill out of the main compartment and began to remove the black residue that coated every inch of it. He was forced to work on the pit until almost sundown and by the time that he felt that it was finally clean enough to use, he wasn't. He was now covered in a tarlike mixture of dust, ash, and grease. Looking at the pit, he gave a single grunt of contentment and then headed for his recently cleaned shower. He barely fit inside of the thing, but it was better than nothing.

As the slop was slowly melted from his skin only to reform at his feet in a layer of black silt, he chuckled and wondered to himself why he had worked so willingly today. It wasn't like he really knew these women, and to be honest, he wasn't even really sure that they would show up for their dinner.

"What had that girl been on about anyway?"

The crazy little creature kept changing the time she claimed that she would be arriving.

"Had she just been playing a game?"

He knew that he'd gone to awful lot of work just to be stood-up by a flighty female.

But as he stepped out of the shower, another thought struck him; he'd actually needed to do all of that work anyway. Maybe Ylsa...no,

Ylva

was just the kick in the ass that he'd needed to get started. And on top of that, he'd decided to go fishing tomorrow and he knew that he'd enjoy that even if no one showed up to eat his dinner. He decided to stop worrying about his future; he climbed into his bed and went to sleep.

Lochlainn was up again before daybreak. Grabbing a canteen of water and a box of honey granola bars, he eagerly jumped into his van and headed for the river. He turned on some red-dirt metal music to get his blood pumpin' and smiled when he considered that his music would scare the living Hell out of the fish if he was closer to the river.

He'd taken up listening to aggressively loud music during his years of pumping iron with his college line mates. It was kind of funny to him, a cold-mountain boy listening to the Southwest sound. Now, he preferred to start most of his mornings with the Toadies or the Texas Hillbilly Coalition. He shrugged his shoulders and began singing along with Big Daddy Ritch. "

C'mon c'mon c'mon, Turn it up! Turn it up louder

!"

In no time at all, he'd reached his turn off and he grumbled a bit as he was forced to switch off his music. He didn't want to scare his dinner into the deeper water.

"Ah well...the fish await,"

he thought to himself.

He'd caught his first keeper before Ylva had even climbed out of her bed, and he was close to the legal limit before she managed to roll Lena out of her own bedding.

As usual, Lena had started the day growling, but Ylva was used to that and she had just laughed off the larger girl's threats. She knew that Lena would be more human after she'd been up for awhile, so Ylva just grinned and handed Lena a large cup of coffee. It would quiet the grouchy girl, and Lena would begin to make some sense before too much longer.

When the first cup was gone, Lena handed it back to Ylva and grunted, "Why exactly are you waking me again?"

Ylva carefully refilled Lena's cup and handed it back to her before answering her question, there was no sense in tempting fate. "You said to wake you early because you wanted to go look for a job before tonight's party." Lena grumbled unintelligibly, but Ylva was used to that. She just ignored the growling and continued, "You know that we really don't need the money though."

Lena groused again, but this time she responded with actual words, the coffee seemed to be kicking in nicely. "I'm tired of living off of your money, Ylva. Yes, you are like a sister to me, but I don't want you to be supporting me forever. I need to make my own way soon."

"Fine, fine," Ylva responded quickly. "I'll grant that you need to find your own way 'some day', but 'soon' might be optimistic... ya know? We are only a couple of weeks removed from leaving the sports academy and we really need to take a little time for some fun before we jump right back into the grind."

Lena looked at her friend and responded, dryly, "You said that you were never going to work again."

"Okay fine, I didn't really mean that. You know how bored I would get if we didn't have anything fun to do, but let's take some time to figure out what we

want

to do before we throw our sexy bodies back into a routine!"

"Then...why did you wake me up?" Lena asked with a frown.

"'cuz of our dinner with my Viking warrior of course! We've got a lot to do. Not only do we have to go pick up his beer, but we've got to go have our hair and nails done. Yes, it is time to get our nails did!"

"Done," corrected Lena.

"Did, done...whatever," Ylva replied airily.

"So we can go to a barbeque with a guy that we barely know?"

"What's your point?"

Lena just frowned and Ylva continued, "Lena, I know this is going to surprise you," she said leaning forward conspiratorially, "but...and I mean this in the best possible way, Lena... you are a girl. Yes, yes, I know, you are an awfully big girl, but if you are not gonna play ice hockey anymore, you need to try some girl stuff with me. K?"