A Perfect Mess

by Zoe Dawson

  She looked good, though. Really good. But I felt a pang that she had not only avoided me and Suttontowne, but her aunt, too. Poor Lottie. She was upset about Aubree’s all-too-transparent excuses not to come home, not even for the holidays. Aubree was all Lottie had. I hoped this wasn’t about me. I would hate that. People should never abandon the ones they love. My father popped into my head, but I pushed that thought away. The old man didn’t deserve even one thought from this son.

  The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

  Time to get moving. When my thoughts started down this ole tired road, it was time to find something else to occupy my mind.

  In the bathroom I splashed cold water on my face, and then stood in front of the sink, forcing myself to keep my hands relaxed. No matter what my feverish little brain could come up with, wooing Aubree into bed was not going to happen. That much I knew.

  After another minute of just standing there, watching the water drip off my face, it hit me. That was the only goddamned plan I was going to come up with—not sleeping with her.

  I was a fucking genius.

  I wasn’t the heart-breaking skirt chaser. I left that up to my brother Braxton. I’d had my share of sex when it was right, so I wasn’t any kind of angel. But in the end I always came back to Aubree. At least in my head.

  I changed into my running clothes, tying the laces with practiced flicks of my wrist. An hour sweating in the early morning mist would cleanse Aubree Walker right out of my system. Outside the sky was a mottled gray, hanging heavy and low over the bayou, signaling more rain.

  As I moved along, I started to get into a rhythm. An old guy fishing in the bayou among the spider lilies and the water lettuce waved to me as I passed. I waved back. The air was heavy, but being a native swamp rat, I sucked it right in like nectar.

  Back at my house, I headed up the stairs, checking my watch, my breathing already regulating. I always had plenty to do, and I made a great effort to keep my mind on my work, on breakfast, on anything but Aubree Walker. I showered, and sat down to answer fan mail and post to the numerous social media sites that were now a big part of my life as a writer. I was happy to hide behind a pen name, but if someone really wanted to find me, they could. Especially in this day of electronics, GPS, and the Internet.

  I had several contest prizes I needed to mail out and planned a late-morning trip to the post office. But first it was time for two hours of research. Without warning, my mind flashed back. I felt the heaviness of the air, sweat dripping into my eyes, the sound of a shovel striking dirt. Her panic, her scent, the fact that I would do anything for her.

  I snapped out of it, dragging my focus back to my computer and the Internet. I needed to get away. The Greek Isles trip—both a vacation and a research trip—couldn’t have come at a better time. My new book was ready to be released at the end of the month. The last in the trilogy. I expected it would hit the New York Times and make me more thousands of dollars a month.

  And as much as I tried to distract myself with all the very busy and important aspects of my life, she remained a glow in the back of my mind.

  Aubree freaking Walker.

  #

  In town I parked my Mustang Shelby GT 500 in front of the post office, hopped out, and mailed out my packages. Mrs. Leone, one of the town’s longest-lived members, and a major busybody, stood behind the counter like she owned the U.S. Mail. I grinned like I had my hand in the cookie jar and winked at her. Mmmm cookies. Warm, gooey, chocolate chip cookies. Made me want some. I’d have to get Brax to make me up a batch. She gave me the evil eye. But she took my packages and my money.

  I’ve endured much worse.

  As I came out of the post office, I happened to glance across the street to the diner. Windswept red hair captured my attention, long and silky, along with a breezy yellow sundress with tiny white polka dots. Aubree. The dress was pretty, really pretty, especially on her, with lace along the straps that left her silky shoulders bare. Before this morning if anyone had asked me if I liked lace, I’d have told them only if it was black, skimpy, and coming off.

  Now I was actively expanding on the possibilities.

  The same went for little buttons. I was ready to prostrate myself at the altar of nice yellow buttons like the ones running all the way down the front of that dress.

  And her delicate features haunted my dreams in ever-changing patterns. I could spend a millennium on her mouth alone.

  I needed to get a grip. Aubree Walker probably hadn’t given me a second thought, and the only reason she’d ever given me the time of day was because she was in trouble. I made her nervous as hell, and I didn’t blame her. The situation we were in made me nervous as hell, too.

  The temperature had already gone from mild to sultry. I smelled the rain on the wind.

  Acting on pure, gut instinct, I pocketed the keys I’d just taken out of my jeans pocket and crossed the street. From the entrance to the diner, I saw Aubree through the window, sliding into a booth and getting a menu. I stood there like a creep watching her. There were many options here. I could just walk away and leave her alone like I thought she wanted. I could go in, sit down, talk to her. I could stop thinking about her.

  Playing the option game helped me feel like I could walk away whenever I wanted to. I’ve always needed that freedom, even when I already knew what my choice would be if I could have what I wanted. Aubree always looked too busy, too stressed, as if fun wasn’t a word she would ever entertain in her vocabulary. That’s what got me all wound up about her. Didn’t she ever have any fun?

  I couldn’t stand there and stare at her. My reputation in town was bad enough. I didn’t need to add perv to it. I shifted and started to dig for the keys in my pocket, turning away. Then she did it. Reached up and brushed at her eye. I couldn’t stand it. Couldn’t tolerate that she was alone and hurting and the memory of her ravaged face only hours ago hit me in the heart…hard. I didn’t like dealing with other people’s problems. I mostly kept to myself and my brothers, Boone and Braxton, the three of us like a small wagon train circled against this town of hostiles. But fuck, the girl got to me.

  She fucking got to me.

  Fuck!

  I pushed through the door of the diner and found it filled with locals. It was a weekday morning, so there were mostly old-timers and mothers with children. Some glanced my way and scowled, but I let their glances bounce off me like Superman. I stopped behind her booth. But she was so engrossed in her menu, she didn’t notice me. And I knew it wasn’t the menu she was seeing.

  “It’s just breakfast, Aubree,” I said close to her ear. “Not rocket science.”

  She gasped and turned. Her startled, thickly-lashed green eyes focused on me and flashed with renewed anger. At least that was a reaction.

  Breathless, she said, “Booker!”

  It shouldn’t have felt so goddamn good, the way she said my name.

  I circled the booth and squatted down, folding my arms along the edge of her table. “Is this seat taken?” I gave her my best bad boy stare.

  She looked over at the empty booth, and then back at me blankly, like someone who’d been stumped in Jeopardy. She frowned.

  I shouldn’t have been surprised when she hesitated. But even though I didn’t want to admit it, she had a way of hitting me where it hurts. She was my kryptonite. She made me weak.

  I rose, thinking this was a bad idea and stepped back, my own anger renewed.

  “What’s the matter, Aubree? You don’t want to get…dirty?”

  Her lips tightened and her eyes flashed green fire. Was it messed up that I wanted to get burned?

  I turned. “I got shit to do anyway.”

  “Booker, wait.”

  She bit her lip and that action sent a direct signal to my dick. I was trying hard not to think with that head today, but she wasn’t making it easy.

  I had a feeling nothing with Aubree Walker would be easy.

  “Sit down,” she finally said. “Please.”
<
br />   I grinned and slid into the booth. Betty Sue came over to wait on us and glared at me. “Booker Outlaw, you causin’ trouble?”

  “Who, me?” I asked innocently. “I’m just bein’ neighborly to Aubree, here.”

  Betty Sue looked at Aubree and Aubree shot back a long-suffering look with a side of he’s harmless.

  I wasn’t harmless, but I wasn’t about to tell them that.

  After Betty Sue left with our orders, Aubree leaned forward and hissed. “My hesitation doesn’t have anything to do with your reputation, Booker. That’s offensive, and you did it on purpose to get a rise out of me. It’s just…you remind me of that night.”

  Ouch. That was brutally honest. Sick inside that she associated me with what happened, I couldn’t help saying, “Then you and I should make some new memories. I’m having a party next Saturday. Why don’t you come on by?”

  She shook her head and my pulse jumped like frog legs on a skillet. Aubree posed a challenge I couldn’t resist.

  “It’s best we don’t make any memories at all. I intend to go back to Tulane, and you will surely stay here in Suttontowne and do…whatever…it is you do.”

  She said it like I was an idiot for not going to college. She didn’t know that I made it big. I smirked and she huffed. “Well, not all of us can go to college. I find pounding sand to be most enlightening.”

  Her lips tightened and I wondered for one glorious moment how they would soften with my mouth fused to hers. How her body would melt.

  “Just like you not to take me seriously,” she said, her jaw tightening. “Education is so important, vital in fact. Don’t you want to live up to your potential?”

  I leaned back. Intense was the only way to describe Aubree right now. She was able to get this amazing holier-than-thou-attitude, as if I was some kinda slack-jawed moron. “Bullshit. I don’t need some teacher or college degree to tell me I’ve measured up. I get my education from just laying back and living life.”

  Aubree took a deep breath and rolled her eyes. “Lying back is for hound dogs and old men on porches. For one, you’re the wrong species, and for the other, you’re not old enough for a rocking chair yet. A university offers structure and disciplined study for civilized men.”

  I leaned forward, enjoying the debate, enjoying her. I gave her a direct stare, capturing that green fire all for myself. “I’m not exactly a civilized man.”

  Her eyes widened and she licked her full, pink lips. Goddamn. I salivated, waiting for her response.

  Just then Betty Sue slammed down our orders.

  I dug right in, but eventually noticed that Aubree was barely touching her food. “What are you studying at Tulane?”

  She looked up. Her chin lifted like she had a chip on her shoulder. “Statistics.”

  I made a face and she looked irritated. “What?” she said in a demanding voice.

  “What the hell kind of major is that, sugar?”

  Her voice was carefully controlled when she responded, which said to me that she was offended by my question. Aubree got more buttoned up and uptight when she felt threatened. But I believe in being tested. What was the point if there was no challenge?

  “It’s mathematics, only the foundation of everything. There is math in the clothes we wear, the things that we use to make our lives convenient. It’s in the very air we breathe. So how can statistics not be a good major? Math is the framework of the universe.”

  “It sounds boring. How is it going to get you to your potential? Do you have an equation for that?”

  She tilted her head like she was trying to figure out if I was really dense or just being contrary. “By applying myself. I’m a whiz at it. I can relate it to a number of real-life problems”

  “If it comes so easily, how does that test you?”

  For a moment she stared at me like I’d just stood on my head and started making monkey noises. Then she took a bite of her eggs. I was almost finished with mine.

  “So, how about that party?”

  “I don’t go to parties. I have to work.” Her politeness was pathological. At that point I’d really expected her to either flip me off or tell me to go screw myself.

  “Work? I thought this was your summer vacation.” I leaned forward, making sure I had a pleasant smile on my face. “How will you write that essay the first day of class if you don’t experience some fun over the summer?”

  “What essay?”

  She said it like I was serious and she’d somehow missed an assignment. This girl really needed to lighten up. “Well, the one in home room. You know. ‘What I did on my summer vacation.’?”

  She tried to hide it, but I saw the slight smile. I felt like I’d just accomplished Mission Impossible. Aubree Walker had smiled.

  “We’re not in grade school anymore, Booker.”

  “No, but we also don’t have to act like all the fun that ever existed in the world is gone, either, just because we’re no longer in high school. ‘The best and safest thing is to keep a balance in your life, acknowledge the great powers around us and in us. If you can do that, and live that way, you are really a wise man.’”

  “Euripides.” She sighed. “Doesn’t surprise me that you would quote from a rebel playwright and philosopher. I believe in hard work. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “If hard work is all you do, then you’re not acknowledging the great power around us and in us.”

  Looking mutinous, she said, “Do they have to be mutually exclusive?”

  I released a breath, a pretty exasperated-sounding breath, and her face only got more mutinous. “Because it’s a narrow view, Aubree. It gives you no choices, no options. Hard work is it.”

  “So expanding my universe, becoming one with it, is all about fun.”

  “Yes, completely.”

  She tilted her head, and I couldn’t help but notice the way it made all those auburn hair of hers tumble about her pale, delicately-defined shoulders. “Okay, thanks, Obi Wan. There’s just one flaw in that.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Only one? And here I had my piece of paper all ready to take notes.”

  She tried to keep her expression serious, but I saw her fight the smile again. “Really, you can count to two? I’m so impressed.”

  I laughed out loud and nudged her under the table. She nudged me back.

  I pantomimed a pencil, wet it with my tongue and pantomimed writing. “One,” I said really slowly. “I’m sure you’ll help me with the next number when I’m ready.”

  This time she kicked me. “Ouch,” I said, grabbing my shin.

  It was her turn to smirk. “I thought you said there needed to be a balance.”

  Aubree wasn’t like other girls. She thought about things and gave me answers that had meaning or challenge. Another thing I already liked about her. “Ha! Tripping me up with my own words. Work plays a part in it, but, Aubree. Let me blow your mind. What if your work is your fun? What then? Would you consider it hard? Fun? Even work at all?”

  She was quiet for a moment, as if she hadn’t even considered that. She looked at me as if she was having some kind of revelation. “You’re dangerous, Booker.”

  “In what way?”

  “In a lot of ways, but you’re a word master—persuasion is powerful. It’s almost magical…if I believed in magic. I would say that was fun for you. But, believing what you say takes conviction. I’m not sure if you’re just feeding me bullshit to get me to go to your party, or if you’re just…”

  “What?”

  “Interesting.”

  My heart tumbled over when she gave me another considering look and reached for the bill. Before she could get it, I snatched it up. “Breakfast is on me.”

  “That’s nice of you, but I really should pay my fair share.”

  “As a word-master, I would suggest that you get that word out of your vocabulary.”

  “What word?”

  “Should.”

  She shook her head at me. “Okay, Booker. I won’
t argue with you, because I need to get to my Aunt Lottie. Uh, thank you.”

  She walked out the door while I stood in line impatiently waiting my turn. Finally, I just dropped a fifty near the register and burst out of the diner door, looking for her. When I found her I froze.

  Aubree had crossed the street, and her path was now blocked by a hulking Daniel Langston, deceptively handsome, and six feet, two inches of just plain mean. Not the kind of ring-your-doorbell-and-run prank kind of mean, but evil mean. He wore his blonde hair combed straight back from his face, drawing attention to his eyes, which were the color of amber, and to his controlled, cruel smile. I wanted to plant my fist in his face. Already, at nineteen, lines of indulgence were etched beside those tawny eyes and around his weak mouth.

  Adrenaline shot into my bloodstream. I crossed the street quickly and heard him say, “Where you been at, Aubree? Too bad about your aunt.”

  Aubree looked up at him, her brows pulling together in annoyance, her face pale. When she reset the Einstein bag on her shoulder, her fingers were trembling. An irritated spark ignited a fire in my belly.

  “You know where I’ve been. This town is always a hotbed of gossip. And you sound soooo sorry about my aunt.”

  When she tried to go around him, he stepped into her path again. “Don’t you have time for an old school buddy?”

  Aubree laughed harshly. “We were never buddies, Daniel, and this is getting old. Move out of my way.”

  “I was just wondering. Back last summer before you left for school, did you happen to see my brother? Damien always had a soft spot for you…or should I say hard spot?”

  I watched her turn paler, and I damned Daniel and his no-account brother to eternal Hell. My own personal philosophy was live and let live. But when Langston messed with people weaker than him, I couldn’t look the other way. And now the bastard had gone too far. He was hurting Aubree.

  “No. I didn’t see him. We both know how your brother felt about me.”

  All pretense of good cheer left Daniel’s voice when she shouldered past him. “You little fucking do-gooder. Don’t turn your back…”

  His tawny eyes were cold and flat as gold coins. She kept walking. He jumped after her and fastened his big, hammy hand over her shoulder, preparing to spin her around.