by S. L. Scott
Since he has a bouquet in the other, I add, “If you’re looking to get laid, you came to the wrong house.”
“I brought your mother the flowers, fucker.”
I cross my arms over my chest defensively. “Umm, back up there. Why?”
He starts laughing. “I’m not hitting on your mom. She may be pretty, but yeah, not my speed.” He hands me the beer. “Brought your girly beer for you. The flowers are for the last time I was here. I ran over her flower bed, and she was pissed.”
Chuckling, I say, “I remember that.”
“Figured I’d make amends. Better late than never.”
Amends. Can a sinner of my stature make amends, or am I a boot too deep into hell already? I force my thoughts back to the here and now. “Come on.”
After he schmoozes my mom with the flowers, we pop the top on two beers and grab a seat out back. He sits on the patio steps, and I sit on a plastic white chair near the rusting swing where I used to sit with Delilah.
Her fingerprints are still on every part of my old life. It’s only a dumb swing from my childhood, but the only memories I seem to recall are the ones where she sat next to me, resting her cheek against the cold metal while the tips of her sneakers dug into the dirt.
She’d been the only one who could get me to open up about my feelings. I shared so much with her—my fears about football, the loss of my father, my worries about my mom. We saw shooting stars sitting on this swing. We laughed, and we fell in love. I thought those times mattered to her like they did me, but I guess having your first love break your heart is just another part of growing up.
One good thing about Billy is he never needed to fill the quiet. I didn’t, either. Still don’t. We talk when we have something worth mentioning. Other than that, it’s just good to have the company. I finally ask, “What are you doing these days?”
“I’m part-time coaching out at the high school. Assisting the offensive line coach.”
“No shit?”
He laughs. “Yeah, no shit. The extra money saved my parents’ place from foreclosure.”
“What’s going on with the farm?”
“They were turned down a few years back for an extension on a loan. I was already full-time at the plant in Cedars, so I sold my stuff, moved back home, and added coach onto the résumé.”
“Sorry to hear about your folks. How’s everything now?”
“Good. Besides the coaching, I’m still working at the plant but moved to supervisor, and I help a friend out on their farm as much as I can. We gotta look out for our neighbors.”
“Yeah,” I say, nodding. That small-town spirit shines in his words. “Congrats on all that. It’s good to keep busy.”
“It is. We’ve changed our crops. We used to be straight corn. Now it’s all about the soybean. At least this year.”
“Wow, that is a big change.”
“Corn syrup’s out. Soy milk’s in.”
“We do what we have to do to survive.” I know this better than anyone.
I’ll never forget finding that sweet girl I met in the mountains curled on the gravel, on the paler side of death. Any innocence she’d managed to hold on to was gone as she gasped for life. That fucker stole her hope and nearly her life.
It’s the only time my professional life became personal.
The actions of vengeance have a way of sticking with you. That fucker who shot her slept with his arm stretched toward the nightstand. I could put money down that his gun was in the top drawer. I took the shot. No, I’ll never forget, but I refuse to sink into the abyss of guilt or remorse. He deserves neither.
I’m starting to think I sold more than my soul that night, if surviving was only something I did physically.
He finishes a beer and grabs another. “So, what have you been doing?”
For anyone else, this would be an easy question to answer, but for me, it’s one I’m always thinking about how I’ll answer. I give him the rehearsed response, “Odd jobs here and there. Worked on a fishing boat in Alaska and a mini-mart in the northeast. Hauled lumber in Northern California, and worked on a cattle farm in Oklahoma.”
“Never used your business degree?”
“You know,” I say, thinking about this harder than I should, “I kind of use it all the time. I just don’t get the bragging rights around the water cooler.”
“Ah.” He drinks more and then leans back on the screen door.
I’m not sure if the chair is going to hold much longer, so I don’t tempt it by readjusting. “What happened with you and Lou?”
“Too much to remember. It’s just easier to say we were together too young, and I couldn’t give her the life she wanted.” He doesn’t sound as regretful as I feel over my screwed-up relationship with Delilah.
“Yeah, sometimes I wonder . . . Ah, fuck it. It’s not worth the effort to worry about what could’ve been.”
“That’s for sure.” He tosses the first can toward a bin a little ways away from where he’s sitting but misses. “I still see Cole every now and again.” His humorless laugh leaves me curious, but he adds, “Not by choice.”
I toss my can from across the yard and make it in the bin. “What an asshole.” I laugh. I thought I could hide my disdain better. Guess not.
“Every time I see him, I wanna punch his fucking lights out. Hands up.” He tosses me a beer.
“You should, the fucking wife beater. If I’d been around—” Fuck. I crack it open and chug the first half, trying to drown the anger growing inside.
He lifts his hat and scratches his head. “I hear ya. I paid him a visit two times to make sure the shit would stop.”
“Apparently, it didn’t work.”
His eyes hit mine. “She was good at hiding behind lies.”
“Can’t hide bruises,” I snap back.
“She wasn’t my wife, and I wasn’t inspecting her body. You got a problem with me, Koster?”
My hand starts crushing the can. I’ve learned what I’m capable of. I’ve learned that it’s hard to come back from the darkness once it gets a hold on you. Anger is a surefire way to have me seeing red, to dig deep and let that darkness back in. That red will turn to gray, and the rest of the world will fade away, except for one thing—my target.
Cole Cutler.
My former best fucking friend.
He saw his chance to take my place and took it, stabbing me in the back like we didn’t have a long history behind us.
I may not have had many years with my dad, but his life always revolved around my mom, me, and his love of sports. From coaching me in T-ball at three to tackle football at five right before he died, he told me to always work hard and to do my best, but if you’re not having fun, then it’s not worth it.
When he died, I did my best. It helped that playing sports was the only fun I had left. It became my escape, and I became even better. Thinking back on those sports and every team I played on, Cole had always been right there next to me. Football was an escape for Cole. My house. Our friendship. He’d made for a good partner and a great teammate. He’d been someone I counted on. His father had been an asshole, but we’d been like brothers. Why the fuck he went after Delilah . . . Can’t go there.
We make a beer run just after eight and keep driving like the days he might recall as the good old days. I’m not feeling nostalgic quite yet, but I can get on board with a few good times we had. I look over at Billy, and suddenly, I feel like I’m eighteen again with the world at my feet. “Remember when we used to go fishing every Sunday? The sun hadn’t even come up, and we’d be heading out.”
“We were still drunk.”
“Were we ever sober?”
“I don’t know,” he replies. “I was too drunk to remember.”
His Dodge slows to a crawl, and he switches the headlights off. I don’t have to look out across that field to know where we are. I know this route better than any. I know her like the back of my hand.
The truck stops, and he turns off the engin
e. I take a long pull of my beer before I turn my attention to the farmhouse. The living room and kitchen lights are on, and the TV casts a blue tint across the corner windows.
Letting my gaze wander up a story to the second floor, I see her bedroom light on and the bathroom connected to it lit up. She owns that farm now, her parents long passed. Does she still sleep in that room? The one with pink-striped wallpaper and a full-sized bed atop a squeaky metal frame? I can’t see the side of the house where I used to climb up the trellis to the roof and run across to sneak into her bedroom. Wonder if that trellis is still there?
He looks at me, his jovial mood wiped from his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“Why?”
“I took her to the emergency room once.”
I’m not ready to dig this deep, but since he’s brought it up . . . “Why?” My stomach tenses as my grip around the can tightens, crushing the aluminum before I toss it out the window into the bed of the truck.
“I should have stopped him.”
“Were you there?”
“No, but my warnings weren’t enough. I knew he had a drinking problem. He’d picked a fight with me earlier that night outside Red River. She’d just gotten back into town, so I guess he decided to take it out on her later.”
Staring out the window, I avoid looking at him. I don’t want to hear his confession. I don’t want to see his guilt. Because then it’ll become mine, and I don’t owe anybody anything.
Lies.
Lies.
Lies.
I owe her. I owe her better than she got. I was across the country when I first heard the rumor. Cutler hit his wife. The same girl he claimed to want enough to screw me over.
Back in school, Cole never struggled to get a girl’s attention if he wanted it. He’d tell everyone how he hooked up with the popular girls and then ventured across county lines for what he called fresh meat. He was the guy who bragged in the locker rooms and teased you relentlessly if you didn’t score with a girl.
Except for me.
We had a silent agreement—the bullshit put on for others didn’t fly between us. I knew beneath that attitude he was a good guy. He’d only slept with two girls, but I kept his secret safe to protect his rep.
“He knew we had a fight. He was waiting for that moment and then pursued her. But after kicking my heart to the sidelines, why did she want him?”
She still owns parts of me that others will never see, and I’m left wondering why. Why him over me? Why didn’t she fight for us? Those questions were packed away with the baggage I carried with me. The details weighing down my rucksack with emotional bullshit I’ve tried to shed across the miles.
“I don’t know.” Billy says, “The night he hit her, he only spent one night in jail for it.”
“One night?” I repeat. One fucking night for hitting the love of my life.
Why’d she fucking stay?
She had eight hours to get the fuck out of there, but she stayed. I rub my hand over my forehead in frustration. “I don’t understand why you didn’t get her out. He hit the woman I love.”
He glances my way but then turns toward the steering wheel. “Love?”
“Huh?”
“You said the woman you love.”
Love. Present tense. Shit. “Loved. Anyway, this is about you. He hit a woman you’ve been friends with for years.”
“Delilah’s forgiven me.”
“I haven’t.”
“Join the club, because I haven’t either.”
The cicadas fill the air, and we’ve drank enough. Too much has been stirred up for one night. “We should go.”
6
Jason
The love of my life has bounced around my head since the errant thought last night.
The love of my life.
The love of my life.
What the . . .? No.
It makes no sense. I loved Delilah, but the love of my life? I’m twenty-six. I have a lot of life left to live. It’s a stretch to call the girl I started dating when I was seventeen the love of my life. My logical side can argue that it was nothing more than teenage lust mixed with hormones. That makes sense. But love of my life? Not so much.
That thought mixed with the pouring rain has really put a damper on my day.
Sundays are supposed to be lazy, but I’m not used to sitting around. I only bought supplies to fix the issues out back, so by four o’clock, I’m going stir-crazy. Standing abruptly, I accidentally scare my mom in the process when I storm through the living room. She jumps, her book flying from her hands. “What are you doing?” she asks, holding her chest over her heart.
“I’m going for a ride.”
Turning behind her, she looks out the window, then turns back. “It’s pouring out there.”
“I’m used to riding in all kinds of weather.”
“I don’t want you getting sick, Jason.”
“I won’t. I just need to burn off some of this energy. I’m not used to sitting around doing nothing.”
She’s staring at me with concern written through the soft lines of her face. “You can relax here, son.”
My shoulders drop some of the burden they were holding. “I know. I’m just going for a ride.” After working all those years for my last boss, hanging around and watching, I should have gotten used to being still. Patient. But not here. My mind is active and on alert as though I’m still on someone’s payroll. I don’t feel like I’m home. Not like I used to. I need something to alleviate the restlessness in my veins. I need out. Fresh air. A new view.
“Okay. Will you be home for dinner?”
“I’m not sure. Don’t wait for me. I can always make a sandwich when I get back.”
“All right.” She’s done trying to talk me out of it, and I appreciate the space she’s giving me. Kicking her feet on the coffee table, she opens her book again. “Be careful. Those curves get dangerous when wet.”
“Don’t worry.”
“I always worry,” she replies.
“Sorry about that.”
“Don’t be sorry.” Her eyes return to her book. “Just be safe.”
I slip on my leather jacket and tighten the laces on my black shoes before leaving. The loud muffler of my Harley is a musical masterpiece, owning the chorus of the road while I ride.
The thing about small towns, though, is they’re small. There aren’t a lot of places to get away from it all unless you find a cranny down by the river to hide inside. Or you own property that doesn’t back up to the main roads. No, privacy isn’t a specialty of small towns, so I decide it’s time to stop hiding and make my presence known. With my chest puffed out and my emotional armor in place, I drive straight to the Noelle farm.
I even rev the engine when I drive up the muddy driveway as if to prove some point I’ve already forgotten.
She always loved rainy days, so I shouldn’t be surprised to find her outside. The bike is stopped before I take a good long look at her sitting on that front porch.
Delilah Rae Noelle looks younger than her years. Always did, but damn, if seeing her now doesn’t make a million memories come back as if they were yesterday.
Her hair is twisted on top of her head, but that blond still shines. She moves to the railing, leaning against it as if she sees me every damn day. Even from here, I can see that sparkle in her blue eyes, an expectation I always hoped I could fulfill when she looked at me. I would have done anything for her.
Except the one time I didn’t think twice, never thought of her or how my choices would affect us. I was selfish, but I’ve learned a lot since then. I’m curious whether she still smells of vanilla, or if she’s changed to her usual summer scent. I run my fingers through my hair, hoping to tame what must look a mess from the rain and riding, and take a deep breath.
When she smiles and waves at me as though we’re old friends, I cut the engine and swing my leg off the bike. Shoving my hands into the pockets of my wet leather jacket, I start walking. With only four steps di
viding us, I grab the railing. It needs a good paint job, and it’s unstable. I add it to my mental list of tasks to take care of, though I know good and well that taking care of her is no longer my job.
Four years is a long damn time not to see the beauty who stands before me. Not even knowing why I’m here, I say, “Hi,” to see where it leads.
She rocks back on her bare feet and smiles so wide the rain has trouble hiding her sunshine. “What took you so long?”
“I got here as fast as I could.” I take another step up, and she turns as if I’m welcome on that rickety old porch of hers. “With a few minor detours along the way.”
“I’d say.”
I cover the last two steps, which leaves only a few feet between us. Leaning her backside against the railing, she says, “I never thought I’d see you again, but here you are, looking like all sorts of trouble in all black.”
Little flowers against a white background, straps that wrap over her shoulders . . . I shouldn’t like the sight of her as much as I do. “I like your dress.”
Her cheeks pinken like the color of my mom’s roses in her backyard. “Well, are you gonna give me a proper hello, Jason Koster, or are we going to pretend we never danced in the moonlight?”
There’s my Delilah.
He didn’t destroy her.
“No pretending over here.” I go to her and wrap my arms around her, my eyes closing, my senses on high alert. She always awakened all of me, and today is no different as my whole body responds to her. Vanilla with a hint of orange—the perfect combination. She smells so good, like home and sunshine. But she’s not my home to lay claim to anymore.
I feel her cheek rub against my neck before she lowers back on her feet and our arms return to our sides. Her eyes are cast down when she steps back. I want to lift her chin, to touch her again just to feel the surge through my body, but I don’t.
“I’m all wet.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” It sounds like it is too. When she finally looks up, she asks, “I heard you were back and had to see for myself. What brings you by the farm?”
