by Sam Crescent
“So, do you want to go to your parents or home?”
“Home. I’m not going to interrupt their date. You know how they get,” she said.
Everyone in town knew how they got. They were the loved-up couple.
“That I do. Okay, put your seatbelt on.” Just how lame do I sound right now? Totally lame.
He didn’t do anything else but pull back onto the road and start to make his way into town. It was all he could do up to this point.
There’s no way he could ask Casey out on her first hour of being back home. That would be tacky.
Chapter Two
One day later, Rusty was checking over a different car when his friend Buster arrived.
“So, have you heard?” Buster said, jumping onto one of the work counters and biting into his apple.
“What could I possibly hear?” he asked.
“About Casey Jones being back in town.” Buster chewed on his apple, and it sounded really loud to Rusty.
“I know. That’s her car out there.” He pointed to where he’d placed the car, seeing as he’d not gotten around to working on it yet. He’d not seen her since he dropped her off at her house, but that didn’t mean he had stopped thinking about her. Of course he couldn’t stop thinking about her. When had he ever been able to stop thinking about Casey when she was in town? Her being away made it a little easier, but not by much.
“And you didn’t tell me and I had to see her in the diner for breakfast because?” Buster asked.
“It didn’t seem noteworthy to tell you. Besides, she came in yesterday. Not a lot of time to you know, say anything.”
This time Buster threw back his head and laughed.
“I don’t see what’s funny.”
“What is funny is that you don’t think it’s important that Casey Jones is here in town, and you don’t see the significance of that.” Buster kept on biting into his apple, and it was grating on his nerves.
“Don’t see your point, so why don’t you tell me?” Rusty folded his arms across his chest.
“Oh, come on, you can’t be serious right now. You really want to do this. Fine. The reason it is such a big deal, you and Casey have this off-the-chart chemistry, and don’t even pretend not to know what I’m talking about. You both know what I’m getting at. So, here it is. I’m going to blow your mind, you ready?”
“Sure.”
“Fine. You two were always meant to be together.”
This time Rusty burst out laughing. “You think Casey and I are supposed to be together?”
“Hell yeah.”
Rusty chuckled. “Good one, Buster.”
“You’re seriously going to tell me you don’t have a hard-on for her being here.”
“I don’t have to tell you shit,” he said.
“Oh, come on, man, be serious for, like, two seconds.” Buster jumped off the counter and tossed the core of his apple into the trash can. “You’ve always had a thing for Casey and for some strange reason never acted on it. Now is your chance. You’re not kids anymore, and you can do this. You both can.”
“I’m not interested.”
“I know you say you’re not interested, but I don’t know. Casey’s here for a while from what I was told, and you two together, I mean, it could be fate.”
“It’s not going to happen. She’s a city girl, and I’m married to the town,” he said.
“For a woman from the city, she sure looks like she fits in just fine,” Buster said, looking past Rusty’s shoulder.
He had no choice but to see what had gained Buster’s attention, and he shouldn’t have been shocked to see the woman they were talking about was right there.
She was laughing and joking, and looking like she was having a whole lot of fun as she did so.
“She’s pretty,” Buster said.
“Stay away from her.”
“Ah, but you’re not going to be doing anything about that, are you, Rusty? So maybe I should have a little go and see what she likes.”
“You’re going to stay away from her.” There was no way he was going to be able to watch Buster try to pursue Casey.
She was stopped by a couple of women. He couldn’t make them out, but clearly, they knew Casey. She let out a laugh and threw herself at the women.
Casey was a stunning beauty. She wore a pair of shorts that showcased her juicy thighs, a shirt that clung to her body. Her large tits would be on full display if the women would just let her go.
She had a curvy body, made for loving, and boy, had he thought about her in the last few hours and just what he could do to that amazing body. He wanted her, there was no denying that.
Especially the hit of jealousy that rushed over him at catching his best friend drooling all over her.
“She is hot,” Buster said.
“Close your fucking mouth.” He wiped his hands on his cloth, seeing her heading his way.
She walked around the gate and went straight to her car.
“Hey, guys,” she said, looking over at them. “Do you know what is wrong with him?”
“No, not yet. I’ve not gotten a chance to have a look,” Rusty said.
“I was hoping it was just some pipes or something.” She stood up, running fingers through her long brown hair. “Thank you for coming to pick me up yesterday. I couldn’t be sure if I had said thank you. I appreciated it.”
“You didn’t say anything, but that’s fine. Everything is all good.”
“Awesome. What do I owe you?” she asked, reaching into the back pocket of her shorts and it thrust her chest right out.
“How about dinner?” he asked.
The words rolled off his tongue quickly, before he could stop them.
“Dinner?”
He heard Buster chuckle in the background, but refused to break eye contact with Casey.
“Yeah. We can catch up. That way you don’t have to worry about paying me.”
“I can pay.”
“I know, but I’d like to have dinner with you.”
“You would?”
“Yes.” This wasn’t exactly going how he hoped. Dinner was a nice invitation. It showed interest, and she looked like he just asked her to run around naked or something.
“I can do dinner if you’d like. I honestly don’t mind paying though.”
“I know, and I can see that. Please, do not worry about it.”
“Okay, I won’t worry about it. When do you want to have dinner?” she asked.
“How about tonight?” He didn’t want to give her a chance to change her mind.
“I can do tonight.”
“Good, tonight it is. I will pick you up.”
She smiled at him again, and he was stunned. She always had the nicest smile he’d ever seen, and the years apart, he’d missed it.
“See you later. Nice to see you again, Buster.”
“You too.”
Casey turned on her heel and walked out of his yard. Well, his father’s yard, but he worked at it the most right now.
“Dinner?” Buster asked.
“You’re the one that suggested it.”
“No, no, no, you’re not going to put your disaster date on my hands.”
“We haven’t even been on a date yet, and you don’t know if it will be a disaster.”
“It’s going to be a nightmare. I can see it now. What happened to the smooth and cool Rusty?”
“He grew up,” he said. “I couldn’t take her money.” He didn’t want to take from Casey but to give.
“Are you going to ask her for sex when you actually finish her car?”
“No, of course not.”
“At some point you’re going to have to take money from her, and when you do, well, it’s going to be interesting. I need to stock this place up with some popcorn and beer. Does your dad still keep a cooler in the back?”
“You’re not going to be getting off on whatever it is I have going on with Casey.”
“That’s a tongue twister, isn�
�t it,” he said.
“Don’t you have a job to do?”
“Yep, but my clients love me and so I can turn up late.” Buster was a general repair guy in town just like him, only Buster often got called out of town because his reputation was that good. “You do know the entire town is going to know about this before the end of dinner.”
“I don’t care. If you were any kind of friend, you’d keep it to yourself.”
“I am the best kind of friend you’re ever going to have. Not only will I tell every single person that I see that I watched Rusty ask Casey out on a date, I’m going to make sure they knew of the sexual tension between you two.”
“There was no sexual tension.”
“Oh, yeah, there was, and believe me when I say this, it was off the charts, smoking hot, and so fucking good.” Buster burst out laughing. “Catch ya later.”
Rusty watched him go and ran a hand down his face. When had his life gotten so complicated?
Is it really complicated?
You asked a woman out on a date. It’s going to be fine. It’ll be more than fine.
****
“I’m terrified,” Casey said, trying on the tenth dress her mother had brought her.
“Why? It’s so easy, and you don’t have anything to worry about.” Abby smiled at her, going to her back and gripping her shoulders. “You look so beautiful. The red really brings out your eyes. He will love this one.”
“I haven’t been on a date in a really, really long time.”
“Then stop worrying about it. There’s nothing to really worry over. Let’s face it, Rusty is a good guy. I’m so pleased you said yes to going on a date with him.”
“Mom, his name is Daniel.”
“Sweetie, everyone has been calling him Rusty for as long as I can remember. He’s good at what he does, and I know for a fact he’s a nice guy. No one has ever said anything bad about him.”
“I didn’t come back home to date.”
“I thought I raised you a lot better than this,” Abby said, folding her arms.
“You did. You totally did, and I’m so sorry.” She pushed some hair off her face. “I shouldn’t even be worrying about this. I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be a pain in the ass.”
“Watch your language, dear. No one likes a bad mouth.” Her mother hugged her close. “I’m so pleased you’re back home.”
“It’s good to be back.” She held her mother close and inhaled her sweet, lemony scent. She always smelled like baked goods, especially lemon cake. Her father’s favorite was lemon cake.
“Ugh, I don’t want to cry, but I can already feel myself welling up.”
“It’s fine, Mom.” She chuckled. “I’m here to stay for some time. You know that.”
“I do. I’ve missed you so much. I wanted to be supportive, but you living out in the big bad city all by yourself, it wasn’t healthy. You’ve just admitted to me you didn’t even date. I mean, how can that even be? You’re my daughter, and I love you so much and you didn’t date.”
She laughed. “It’s fine, Mom.”
“No, it’s not fine to me.” She cupped her cheeks. “I love you, sweetheart, so much.”
“I know. I know.” Since she had been back in town and her parents had gotten home from their date, they had spent the entire time telling her just how much they loved and missed her. It was nice, more than nice, but she didn’t need to hear it every second. Then, of course, she felt bad.
“Do you know where he’s taking you?”
“Not a clue. I’m guessing it’s going to be out to the bar, you know. Cole’s place.”
“Ah, yes, he’s done a lot with the place in the last few years. He even has live bands come and play a couple of times a month. It’s all really modern,” Abby said.
She laughed, but it died in her mouth as she heard the doorbell ring.
“Your father will get it.”
Casey groaned. “Will he do the whole bad cop thing where he promises to hurt Rusty if anything happens to me?”
“You got it. It’s the whole protective dad gene he’s got. You know he likes to take care of you.”
Grabbing her bag, she hesitated. She hated being the kind of person to always carry a bag. What if Rusty wanted to dance tonight? She’d have to hold her bag.
Pulling out some money from her purse, she stuffed it down her bra to her mother’s chuckle. “I did teach you well.”
She smiled and quickly rushed downstairs to make sure her father wasn’t embarrassing her. Not that she should have worried. Rusty and Rome seemed to be getting on really well, and it sounded like they were talking about a football game.
She hated football.
Abby cleared her throat, and finally the two men looked toward her.
“Hey,” she said.
Rusty turned his attention toward her. “Hey,” he said.
Did he like the outfit? She couldn’t tell.
“Do you like?”
“You look beautiful.”
“Thank you.”
“I mean it.”
“Good. My daughter will always look beautiful,” Rome said, coming to her. He pulled her in for another hug, and she chuckled.
“I’m going to be right back. We’re having dinner, and then I’ll be home. I promise,” she said.
“I’ll keep her safe,” Rusty said. “I’ll have her home by a reasonable hour.”
“Or not,” Abby said.
“Mom.” Casey felt her cheeks starting to heat.
“You’re both adults, and let’s face it, you both look cute together.”
“We better go,” Casey said. She didn’t know how much she could take of her parents embarrassing her. Not right now. This was her first real date in a really long time, and well, she didn’t want to think about what her parents were even implying.
Grabbing Rusty’s arm, she urged him out the door. She hated to seem so eager, but she had no choice. Her parents would start talking about sex, and well, she’d lived through that talk all those years ago, and wasn’t going to put another person through that.
“Have fun,” Abby said.
The door closed as Rusty helped her into his truck. Her hands felt a little clammy as he rounded the car and finally climbed in beside her.
“So, where are we heading?” she said.
“Cole’s place. He’s done it up real nice. Buster and I helped, and I figured it’ll be the one place you haven’t been since you got back here.”
“You’re right. I haven’t. You want me to fall back in with the crowd?” she asked.
“From what I saw today, you never really left.” He turned over the ignition, and she couldn’t help but think of her own car. She missed her car.
“Did you get a chance to look at my baby today?”
“Not today but I’m hoping to have a look over it tomorrow if you can hold on a little longer.”
“Yeah, there’s no rush. I like walking around everywhere.”
“You have no plans to run back to the big city?”
“None at all.”
“That’s nice.”
“Yeah, it is.” She pushed some hair off her face. “So, erm, how is everything with you? I take it you don’t have an ex or anything that I should be worried about.”
“No exes to speak of. I wouldn’t ask you on a date if there was someone else. I’m not a cad.”
“I didn’t think you were.” She smiled. This was fun. She liked this. The silence, though, did feel a little awkward. She didn’t know what to say to him, and she couldn’t help but keep looking at him.
“You know it has felt too long since we’d been in the same room together,” Rusty said. “Your parents screamed from the rooftops when you told them you were coming home.”
“Yeah, they told me they kept it low-key.”
Rusty laughed.
“Nope. Everywhere they went Rome would stand up and gain everyone’s attention as if he was making a toast. You remember how he was growing up? He did t
he same.”
She groaned. “And they all listened?”
“Every single person. It was really cute.”
She laughed.
“They missed you,” he said.
“I missed them as well. I don’t know. On the one hand I think I did the right thing going to the city, attempting to live my dream, and on the other…” She paused. What was on the other?
“On the other?”
“I never got to pursue my dream. I found every single excuse I could to not do something. It was … crazy really now that I think about it.”
“You wanted to write, right?”
“Yes. I wanted to be this big-time author, and in the end, I was only an editor. I was supposed to be experiencing life, so I could write about it, and it could fuel my creativity.”
“You didn’t get to do that?”
“I worked a lot. And if I wasn’t working, I was exploring the city, and then life, and it was not as good as I thought it would be.”
“In most instances, life isn’t. You have to kind of go looking for the good, but you also have to know what is good for you and what is not.”
“Is that why you’ve never left town?” she asked.
“One of the reasons. I’m not a city boy, not that it takes a genius to figure that one out. I like being in a small town, and I know everyone hates it when others know your business, but there’s a community here.”
“It can be judgey at times,” she said.
“It can, but I think if you’d stayed in town, we’d have all forced you to write. There wouldn’t have been times for you to turn your back on your writing.”
“We’ll never know because I can’t rewrite the past, Rusty.”
He smiled. “I thought you’d be the only one to call me Daniel.”
“I don’t know. I think Rusty really works for you.”
“It’s good to have you back, Casey, it really is.”
In the back of her mind, she knew it was really good to be back.
Chapter Three
“I don’t know if you’d be used to something a bit fancier,” Rusty said as they entered Cole’s place.
“Why would you think that?”
“I don’t know. You being in the big city. I bet you’ve been to plenty of bars and clubs and restaurants.”
