Like one time when we were in junior high, the special education kids used to join us for home economics class. One of the special ed girls, Heather, was carrying a bowl of pancake batter across the room and tripped. Half a bowl full of batter spilled all over Tara, who smiled politely and helped clean everything up. I thought nothing of it until two weeks later. We were passing an art display by the special ed kids, and we both saw Heather hanging up her piece and talking to the teacher about showing her parents when they came for parent teacher night later that week.
I still don’t know if it was her, but I saw something in Tara’s eyes as we passed that gave me a sick feeling. Sure enough, the next day the artwork was torn to pieces and left on the floor. Heather cried for hours and had to be taken home. Tara never mentioned it, but I still suspect it was her. The sweet teacher’s pet with a nasty side. That’s Tara.
My past with her is littered with small memories like that. Moments where her perfect veil nearly slips. Her cheating on Reid was really the first time I ever saw it out in the open. People aren’t perfect. They make mistakes. They do shitty things to others for no reason. And whether she has a nasty streak or not, she’s my friend.
“It’s still your place,” says Tara. “Come on in, make yourself at home. Roman’s at his friend’s house playing right now.”
My plans to stay civil had started to erode on my long walk over here from my new place, but as usual, Tara’s sweetness is making me forgive her already.
“It’s Sunday, right? Where’s Roman?”
“He’s over at a friend’s house.”
“Oh, Is Mark around?” I ask, sweeping my eyes around, taking in the way she has arranged furniture and set the place up.
“He’s out of town, actually. He’s doing something with the mayor.” There’s a slight hint of pride in her voice.
“Wow, so he’s pretty connected?” I ask, helping myself to a seat on the couch.
“Yeah. I’ve met so many people since he and I started seeing each other. I never thought an architectural planner would have so many connections, but he really does. It’s wild. The politicians he works with treat him like a superstar.”
“Huh,” I say a little distractedly. “Must be nice.” They probably treat him so well because his projects could bring tons of money to their districts and cities. I’m sure they are all bending over backwards to offer him the right to uproot businesses and people if that’s what it takes to get his development company looking their way.
“Uh, you okay?” asks Tara.
I let my head fall back against the couch, staring at the ceiling as I try to resist saying something. Just let it rest, Sandra. Don’t make a big deal out of this. “I’m fine,” I say.
She moves to sit beside me, leaning forward. “You’re not fine. Is this about the bakery?”
I straighten, feeling my heartbeat quicken. “You knew?”
She looks down at her hands, clasping them in her lap. “Mark told me. I tried to talk him out of it.”
I breathe out, frowning in disbelief. A cold, sharp pain seeps into my chest. “And you let me find out with a letter on the door of the bakery? You didn’t think to call me?”
Tara reaches to hug me, but I push back off the couch, standing. “Don’t touch me,” I say, voice shaking with anger. It’s all rising up now. The feelings of betrayal I felt. Not just from this, but from the way she brought Mark into her life and let him become her priority, blowing me off to spend time with him. It’s far from the first time, too.
“Sandra,” she says, pleading. “Mark said he was going to offer a fair price for your bakery. I thought it’d be okay.”
“Wow,” I say, backing away and grabbing my bag by the door. “You really don’t know me at all, do you?”
“Sandra… Don’t say that. Come on, I’ve got ice cream in the freezer. Let’s put on a movie and--”
“No,” I say. “Save the ice cream for your slimebag of a boyfriend.” I step outside, hand still on the doorknob when a thought occurs to me. It’s a dark, black thought I’ve never let reach the surface of my mind before, but now in the heat of my anger it rises up, too strong to push down or control. Too strong to stop. “Reid deserved better than you,” I say over my shoulder.
I slam the door and squeeze my eyes shut, breathing heavy. God. Everything is falling apart. Everything I’ve spent so long building and worked so hard for. It’s all falling away and I can’t see how I’m going to stop it.
I stop by the bakery on my way home because I don’t know what else to do. The girls are happy to see me. I spend close to thirty minutes listening to Julia go on about how she handled an unhappy customer and try my best to sound like the properly proud boss I should be. I help the girls roll out dough for croissants and spread the butter on them. I top some cakes. It’s all work that normally brings me more joy than I can describe and yet it feels empty and meaningless today. It feels like I’m just going through the motions.
I never started this business for the money. My only goal was to create something worthwhile. I wanted a business that people enjoyed coming to and I wanted to be doing something I enjoy. I found all that here. Knowing the end is inevitable strips all the satisfaction from that. So what if I do a good job? So what if I make the recipe just that much better by experimenting? It’s all going away.
I decide to leave early. I apologize to Lauren and Jennifer, but other than a few sarcastic remarks from Lauren, they seem to understand. It’s only on my walk home that a shameful thought starts to coalesce in my mind.
I could hook up with Reid to get back at Tara for letting this happen. Even though she cheated on him and complained all the time, I know for a fact she’s still not over him. She told me as much. Tara thought she deserved to have the most gorgeous guy in town. It was part of the fantasy she built up around herself, and she ended up making it a reality. But when the most gorgeous guy in town didn’t fulfill all her desire to be rich, she went and slept around, hoping to scare him into submission. Instead he got a lawyer and divorced her ass.
The thought makes me grin. Reid doesn’t play around.
I shake my head in disbelief at how low my thoughts have turned. Did I really just consider hooking up with a guy to get back at my best friend? Even if Reid was interested in me, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I thought that’s why I was doing it. As much as I’ve tried to tell myself he’s not the one for me, I still keep coming back to the idea of him. The memory of his touch and how it felt. The scent of him, manly, strong, and sexual. More than that, I recall the look in his eye when he gazed out over the hills. I saw for the first time the depth of Reid Riggins. He’s more than just a beautiful face and body, he’s thoughtful, even if he goes out of his way to hide that from the world.
34
Reid
“Daddy, please?” asks Roman. I just picked him up from his mom’s and he’s been trying to convince me to take him to the Fourth of July festival tomorrow.
I look down into his little face and feel my resolve thaw. He’s the only one who ever seems to get me to change my mind, and damn is the little guy good at it. I don’t want to let him off too easy though, so I make a show of resisting. I want my little man to grow up strong and decisive. I want him to learn he has to fight for what he wants, that the only way to get anything worth having is through work.
“Can’t do it, bud. Remember that F-150 Jerry Hill brought in?”
Roman’s little face scrunches as he thinks. “Broken axle?”
I beam, pulling him in and giving him a rough hug. “Damn, son. You may be the only four-year-old in the world who knows as much about cars as you do.”
“I’m almost five,” he says testily.
I smirk. “Yeah. Don’t go growing up too fast on me, Roman. Don’t go changing,” I add a little more solemnly, my thoughts drifting to Mark. As odd as it is, raising Roman feels like raising my second child. I spent so much of my youth mentoring and taking care of my brother that none of
this has really felt new for me. Unfortunately, that also means I constantly struggle with the thought that Roman is going to turn on me some day too. Maybe I’m a shit father and he’s just too young to know it yet.
“So can we go?” he asks.
“You remember how hard it is to fix a broken axle?”
“You don’t pay Tyler and Garry for nothin’,” says Roman, repeating a line he’s heard me say a dozen times.
“Yeah,” I say, looking out the window and tracing the hills beyond with my eyes. I grin back at him. “Good point. We can go.”
I arrive at the town square with Roman about an hour after the festival starts. It’s a town tradition. Jason Tills and Cameron Stillwalter were local kids about my age who always used to put on impromptu country concerts at the town square for free. A few years later they made it big, and now their faces are all over television and magazines. Tickets to see their shows cost hundreds, but once a year they come back on the Fourth of July and give us a personal concert for free. They even pay to have it catered and bring their stage crews to set the place up.
Pretty much everyone in town is here, and everyone is a few drinks in by the time I arrive. I scan the crowd, eyes searching for Sandra’s dark curls. I only stop to wonder why I’m looking for her a few moments later. I’m looking for her because I can’t stop thinking about her. It has crossed my mind a few times that I might just suddenly be opening up to her now because the need to save my shop is looming. Getting hitched would solve all my problems, assuming a baby came shortly after, but if that’s the only reason I want to be with her, I can’t. Maybe before I started to get to know her, but now, I can’t do that to her. I won’t do that to her.
Only problem is I still don’t know for sure what has me so up the wall about her.
One thing I do know is the contract on my shop. If I get full ownership, there’s no way my brother can touch it. The shop is on private land, unlike Sandra’s bakery. The only way it’s coming down is if I’m not married with another kid when I turn thirty-five. My grandfather’s will passes the shop on to my brother if that happens.
I rake a hand through my hair, nearly bumping into a young teenage girl as I lead Roman down the path. She doesn’t notice though as she smiles up at me. “Hey, Mr. Riggins. And hey there, Mr. Roman,” she says, kneeling to ruffle Roman’s hair.
He clutches my leg and peeks out at her. My little man has a huge crush on Lyla Stevens. She’s fourteen though, so I think his chances are minimal at best, even if he does have Riggins blood in him.
“Hey Lyla,” I say, fishing in my back pocket for my wallet. I slap a twenty in her hand. “Mind watching Roman tonight? I was thinking I might indulge some. You’d need to get him home when he’s done and tuck him in.”
She smiles down at the twenty. “Sure! Come on, Romeo. Wanna go up to the stage and see Cameron?”
Roman scuttles out from behind me and grabs her hand, not even looking back as she leads him through the crowds. Little traitor, I think, smirking after him.
A crowd of people are dancing near the stage, where Jason and Cameron are already strumming out an upbeat tune perfect for dancing. Jason’s raspy country twang punctuates the beat as he drawls a story about lost love and fried chicken into the microphone. I recognize almost everyone. Our town isn’t middle-of-nowhere small, but there are only just above a thousand residents. Of those thousand, a little over half come to things like this. It doesn’t take long until everyone’s face starts to look familiar.
I see Landon Taylor dancing with Amy Stalls. He’s trying far, far too hard, and she’s politely trying to avoid getting bumped by his gyrating hips. There’s the Waverly’s, who are watching with a judgmental seriousness from the sidelines as usual. Their gray eyebrows seem permanently drawn down in a look of disappointment. Roxy Pierce is swaying and slowly dragging her hands over her young body as she dances by herself, completely ignoring the feel of the music and opting for something more sexual.
I catch a glimpse of Timmy Page and his girl, Becca Stipe, arguing behind the stage. From the looks of it, Timmy fucked up again and he’s trying to talk his way out of it. Becca is stony faced and doesn’t seem to be budging. They’ll be hand in hand sipping milkshakes at Red’s by tomorrow though.
I sigh, making my way through the crowd toward the coolers where I know I’ll be able to find some beer. Jason and Cameron always bring more than enough booze for everyone.
I twist the bottle open and turn, surveying the crowd as I swill down a few gulps. I spot Tara and Mark. Seeing them doesn’t strike up any feelings of jealousy. The only feeling is protectiveness for Roman. My brother isn’t the kind of man I want in my son’s life. Mark and Tara are dancing toward the edge of the crowd. Mark is behind Tara. His hands are pressed to her hips, fingertips inching toward her crotch as she presses her ass into him, swaying her hips and closing her eyes.
I grunt in disgust and down another gulp of the beer.
“Real nice, isn’t it?” asks a voice beside me.
I turn to see Sandra. She’s holding a beer by the throat and looking toward Tara and Mark too. Sandra wears a turquoise dress that is just tight enough around her ass to make me want to stare. There’s a chill in the night and it has her nipples hard. Looking at the bulge of her tits and the perfect point of her nipples is almost too much. I’ve been able to resist seriously considering fucking her so far, but I feel like I can practically picture her naked. And fuck. I’m tired of imagining. I want the real thing. It was only a few days ago that she moved in, and I’m already almost out of willpower. Not a good sign.
I want to see her curly brown hair between my legs as she takes me in her mouth. I want to feel her soft skin under my fingertips, against my hips as I pound into her. I want her. The fact that getting hitched to her would solve all my problems doesn’t hurt, either. But that’s a shitty thought, and I try not to dwell on it. She’d have to know what was really going on, but what woman is going to agree to get married under those conditions?
I make a dismissive sound. “She’s a big girl. She can do what she wants.”
Sandra looks at me in that irritating way women do, like she knows I’m not saying exactly what I mean. From the looks of it, she’s not going to stop staring at me like that unless I just talk.
“She’s making a fucking mistake, obviously,” I add grudgingly. “I guess if it was anyone other than my brother I really wouldn’t give a shit.”
“So you do care?” asks Sandra.
I shrug. “Not about her, no. I care that my brother is apparently a bigger prick than I realized. I care that him being with her means he’s in Roman’s life.”
“Yeah,” says Sandra, sipping down some of her beer. “He is that.”
The music blares over us and people move past, making me feel like we’re rocks in a stream, unmoved by the current. Separate from the rest.
“Was he always like this with you?” asks Sandra. “Your brother, I mean.”
I eye her. Why is she trying to get me to open up? I’m starting to consider the possibility that she and I could start something casual. Sex with no strings attached, maybe. I don’t plan to start spilling my guts out for her though. If that’s what she wants, she can look somewhere else.
I shrug.
She purses her lips, laughing a little. “Right. I forgot the silent part of the strong silent type. I get it. You don’t want to talk about it.”
“Yeah, something like that.”
“Am I allowed to ask how you’ve been? I mean, since the divorce. I spent so much time talking to Tara about it and never really thought about your side, until…”
“I’ve been fine. Better.” Except for the part where I divorced her before getting full ownership of my shop. I wasn’t going to subject Roman to that shit for a day longer than I had to. After I found out she cheated it just got worse. Fast. It wasn’t a good environment for a kid, and I had to do something. Besides, there was no way in hell I wanted to have another baby with her
once I saw the real her. Trying to control the damage she can do to Roman is a big enough job as it is.”
“That’s why you practically live in your garage and never go out anymore?”
I clutch my beer bottle a little tighter, looking down at her. She shrinks back some from my gaze, but still holds my eyes. “That’s none of your business.”
Sandra sighs. “Look, Reid. As far as I see it, we have a common enemy, and he’s currently groping your ex-wife and my best friend. He’s also threatening to destroy something we both love. This town. So maybe we can just… I don’t know, agree to play nice for a while?”
“Play nice…” I say softly, smirking. “You want to play?”
She swallows, looking down. “I didn’t mean like that. I just mean--”
I feel the beer tingling through me, dulling my inhibitions and my good sense. Normally, I wouldn’t be petty enough to dance with my ex-wife’s best friend just to piss her off. But I’ve already had a few beers, and I’m having a hard time with the whole, ‘why not’ question. The part of me that would never consider leading a girl on because I need to get married or I lose my shop is quiet, too. All that’s left is the pulsing of my cock and the knowledge that the woman in front of me is fucking gorgeous.
“I know what you meant. Let’s dance,” I say, grabbing her and pulling her toward the dance floor.
“But--” she stammers.
Her voice is drowned out as we get closer to the speakers and the stage. The song has a driving beat, and I fall into it effortlessly, my hands finding Sandra’s body. Her eyelids go heavy as I touch her, mouth slightly open as she looks down to where our hips meet. She’s stiff at first, but I let my hands and body guide her, coaxing her into loosening up, inch by inch. Sandra bites her lip slowly, keeping her eyes down in the most irresistibly sexy way before flicking them up to meet mine. She runs a hand through her hair and lets herself go, rocking her shoulders and hips, finding the rhythm and riding it with me. The people around us blur into insignificance. There’s only her and those dark blue eyes locked on mine. Nothing else.
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