by M. Mabie
The next morning, after I finally wore out my brain thinking about ten thousand things—all starting and ending with Rhett Caraway—I stood at my sink waiting for my coffee to brew. I was up early, but it was Friday.
Finally.
Andy was scratching at the front door for me to let him out, and when I did I had to wipe my eyes for they were surely playing tricks.
Running up my long driveway past the station on the road was Rhett. The sun was barely up and we lived miles apart. Had he run the whole way?
“Are you crazy?” I asked. “Do you know how far apart we live?”
“Seven and a half miles,” he said, winded, but he didn’t look too worn out.
“Is everything okay?” I asked.
Why would he run all the way here? We had phones. He had a truck. In fact, more than one.
“I was out for my run and came this way.” He’d stopped at the bottom of my front porch steps with his hands on his hips, his bright hazel eyes shining like he’d slept much better than I had. “Happy Friday, Sunny.”
That made me smile everywhere. “Happy Friday,” I returned. Thankful I’d already brushed my teeth, I stepped forward.
He added, “Good morning, too.”
“Good morning,” I replied in turn. “Do you need anything? Coffee? Water?”
He shook his head slowly and a clever grin tipped one side of his mouth. “No. Come here. I’ll show you what I need.”
There was that feeling again. The one that made me feel like my stomach was flipping inside out. The one I’d always known was out there somewhere waiting for me to find.
He stepped up the first step so that we were about eye level, cupped my cheek with one hand, and planted one on me. “You gonna be ready for me later?” he asked only a breath away from my lips, his voice heavy with a quiet masculine rasp to it, the tone just above a whisper.
I was ready for him right then, but nodded that I’d be ready for later.
He kissed me again then backed away after giving my ass a good swat. I yelped and remembered I was still only wearing the long tank top I’d put on for bed. His hand only briefly connecting with a small piece of my ass, the rest hitting my boy cut underwear.
“I’ll be back,” he said. He ran backwards for a few steps and patted Andy on the head as he passed him before turning around and running off the way he came.
At nine thirty that morning, I got flowers. White lilies with a card that said: “Wear a little dress for me.”
He was good, and that mounting excitement inside me only grew throughout the day.
At two thirty, I put a little dress on for him. It had a nude, fitted inside and a lacy outer layer that made it almost look like I was only wearing lace. I hoped he liked it as I pulled out my favorite boots, deciding that even though they looked good, they’d be a practical choice, too.
Cute boots were always practical.
I took a deep lungful of air, a practice that was feeling more normal in those fading hours of the long week I’d had. I was tense with nerves, but mostly I was eager to see him and find out what he had planned.
It didn’t really matter one way or the other what we did. Somehow, regardless of the circumstances, he always left me with a smile on my face. The thrill of not knowing was driving me wild, but it also kept me busy.
I decided to curl my hair into loose waves and pull half of it up into a little bun thing. I had a nice tan, and if we were going to be outside I didn’t want a bunch of makeup to get all cakey and gross. So, I dusted my cheeks with a peachy color, plucked a few stray eyebrows, and put on a few patiently applied layers of mascara so my lashes wouldn’t look clumpy.
Mascara was my friend.
He’d seen me without it that morning. Dammit. I bet I’d looked like Powder from that movie. Without mascara my face was freakish. I held out for hope, praying he hadn’t noticed—which was unlikely, but whatever.
By three thirty, I was ready and pacing the floor in my living room as I watched the road from my window. Andy paced with me; he was a good dog. He knew what I was going through.
I looked in my refrigerator for the hundredth time, but all I had was beer, which unfortunately didn’t sound all that great yet. Instead, I poured myself a glass of tea and took special care not to dribble on my white lace.
Minutes finally passed, slow as all hell, and soon I heard the rumble of a vehicle come down my road.
I quickly looked to make sure Andy had food and water. He’d be fine for a while. I gave him a scratch behind the ear. “You look handsome, Andy. How about me? Good enough?” He sneezed and I took that for a yes. “I’ll be back later, okay? Be a good boy?” As always, his brown eyes looked at me somewhere between you’re leaving me forever and just go already so I can take a nap in peace. I’d kept him up half the night, too.
I let him pull all the way up the drive and gave myself one last quick look and fixed a few weird hairs before I stepped out of my front door.
When I stepped outside, he was out of his truck, which looked freshly washed. Then he walked my way.
“Damn, you look so good,” he said, sporting a genuine smile.
He looked fine, too. Freshly shaved, the whiskers I’d thought I liked so much the day before were easily forgotten in place of his bare, smooth skin. His tan made his hazel eyes look bright green.
Jeans, just right.
Black V-neck, just right.
Hair combed and styled, kind of off to one side, kind of messy. All of it, just right.
The look in his eyes was hungry and satisfied and ready for anything. I felt the same way.
“You telling me where we’re going yet?”
He grinned with his mouth closed and answered, “Nope.” Cocky.
Like I cared. He looked so good, I’d go wherever he wanted. Gladly.
“Thank you for the flowers. They’re gorgeous.” I kissed him on the cheek. He grabbed my hand and gave it a squeeze, then opened his door and I climbed in and sat right in the middle.
“We’ve got a little drive, so I brought you a sweet tea and a Twix for the road.” I didn’t know what to say, but again he’d surprised me into speechlessness. “You still like Twix, right?”
How did something so small like a candy bar cause such a seriously gigantic feeling inside my chest? A sensation so strong, in fact, all I could do was look at him and blink.
He searched my face, looking in one eye and then the other for what I was thinking, but even I didn’t know.
It was just so thoughtful to have my favorite drink and my favorite candy. He’d just done it. All on his own. It made me tingle with anticipation to see what else he came up with.
“I also got back-ups just in case. They’re in the glove box.” He frowned a little when I still didn’t say anything. “Are you okay?”
Okay? I wanted to climb on his lap and devour him. I wanted to go back in my house and show him how just his sweet treats had propelled me into wanting to please him. How already, two minutes into it, this was surely the best date I’d ever been on.
“Thank you, Rhett,” I said. “I love Twix.” I scooted closer so that our legs were touching.
“Good,” he said. Then he shifted gears on the column and we backed out of my drive.
After only a few minutes of driving and finally processing what he’d told me, I realized we really weren’t going to Wynne. We were headed south and my mind tried to guess the different places he might be taking me in that direction. We hit blacktop, then highway, and I sipped my sweet tea and just enjoyed the ride.
When we got outside of my radio station’s reach, he plugged an auxiliary jack into his radio and started playing songs off his phone. I recognized a lot of them. I’d played a few on the station—granted all later at night.
“Do you like seafood?” he asked.
What little I’d had I liked, so I said, “Yes, but I’ve only had a few different kinds.”
His hand had been on my leg for a while and his fingers raked slow,
tenderly drawn rows over my skin. “What about shrimp?”
We were almost finished with my candy bar. Instead of just giving him one of the sticks to have on his own, I’d shared both. Alternating my bites with his. I silently offered the last bit of the last stick to him and he took it. “Oh, yeah. I can eat my weight in shrimp.”
I started to lick the chocolate off my fingers, when he grabbed my hand and did it for me. “Crab legs?” he asked with three of my fingers in his mouth.
I giggled. “Never had them.”
He pulled them out for a quick inspection and then asked, “Oysters?” before sucking one last spot on my middle finger.
“Like fried oysters?”
His face grew into a perfectly wicked smile. I was getting suspicious. He quirked an eyebrow at me and answered, “Raw.”
Why did the word raw sound so sexy?
“No. I don’t think so. I’ve never tried them, but they sound gross.”
His hand found my leg again, and he gave it a gentle squeeze. “Trust me, they’re good.”
That was a big clue, but by the time I figured it out, we were pulling into Shank’s Shells and Tails. The restaurant sat on a little lake close to a town called Knob Ferry about an hour away from home.
He parked and got out, then helped me down.
“I thought since it was still pretty early we’d take a drive and get a little snack.”
I’d never been to that restaurant, but from the outside it looked safe enough, although I was still a little worried about the mention of oysters.
We walked in past buoys draped in nets and were greeted by a young girl—well, she was probably barely younger than my date. I had to start considering new ways of description. Lately, I’d been connecting age with every person I ran into.
So, the athletic looking, redheaded young woman showed us to a few seats in the back patio bar area where Rhett had asked to be taken.
It was really cool. There were large industrial doors rolled up all the way instead of walls flanking the very back wall. The bar area was open to the air and where some seats were outside of them on the large wooden patio, some were under the roof closer to the bar that was servicing that side of the restaurant.
The chairs were fun, too. Made out of old tractor seats.
The tables were smaller but hosted a variety of things. A roll of paper towels. The normal salt, pepper, mustard, and ketchup. Then a container with wet naps and about five different kinds of sauces.
“Hey guys, I’m Nick. I’m working the lake bar this afternoon on this beautifully not rainy day. What’s your poison?” Nick wore a trimmed salt and pepper colored beard and a backwards ball cap, but he looked clean and obliging.
Rhett’s eyebrows rose and he leaned toward my side of the table. “You trust me?” he asked.
But, I didn’t have a chance to answer.
Nick asked, with a new level of excitement in his voice, “Oh, never been here before?”
“I have, she hasn’t,” Rhett answered.
“Do you guys want menus?” Nick looked around for the closest ones.
Quickly, Rhett asked again, “Do you trust me?”
I hesitated, not knowing what I was getting into, but I wanted to say yes. “I think so,” was the more honest answer.
“Good enough,” Rhett said decisively. “Two Bloody Mary Chapin Carpenters, a tray of Minnie Pearls with extra horseradish and sauce, and a bucket of Jimmy Dickens.” I was thoroughly confused, but it was so silly that I laughed. Rhett laughed with me as Nick walked away to place our orders.
“Okay, I think I can guess what the Bloody Mary Chapin Carpenter is, but what else did you get?”
He beamed and I melted, the warmth of his smile causing me to squirm in my bright red tractor seat.
“I’ll have him bring you a menu so you can read it. It’s pretty funny. All of their foods and drinks are named after country music stars. I got a tray of oysters on the half shell and a bucket of peel and eat shrimp.”
I’d always dreamed of being on a date where it just felt like a ride, but if I could have held on to this one and made it last forever, even though it had just started, I would have.
When Nick came back with our drinks, which looked like meals in themselves, Rhett asked for two Crystal Gayles. I learned that was ice water.
I didn’t care if oysters tasted like hell. I’d eat them. I’d eat all of them.
And, after some expertly taught lessons in how to properly dress a raw oyster from my date, I just about did. The first went down a little funny and he mocked my face several times, but I didn’t care. I could see how much he was enjoying himself.
“I think it’s the process that people like about eating oysters. There’s a ritual to it,” I commented as I doctored up my sixth one. Dabbing my preferred amount of horseradish, which was considerably less than his, I spooned on the red sauce and squeezed the second half of my last piece of lemon.
We’d fallen into a pattern of doing them at the same time, so I waited as he worked on his. Rhett didn’t drink from the straw on his Bloody Whoever, but he tipped back what was left before we locked eyes, both ready to go.
We shot them back, and then we laughed. I couldn’t tell you what was funny, but it just felt so good doing it that it was now part of our oyster eating routine.
“Maybe. I think they taste good,” he said and dipped a shrimp in the sauce and bit off its body, discarding the tail into a bucket that was there for our disposal of shells and things.
I argued, “They just taste like whatever you put on them. I don’t think they have a taste.”
“Sure they do,” he argued. “They taste like oysters.”
He chose his next one and did his spoon-shucking trick that I’d also mastered from watching him. “Eat one plain,” he challenged.
That didn’t sound like a good idea, but I was feeling adventurous and so I got one ready. It looked much scarier without all of the condiments. Slimy and wet and ew.
I stuck my tongue out. “Okay. Okay. Okay.” I chanted to prepare myself. “I can do it.”
He lifted his and paused. I mirrored his actions and waited. He held his proudly for what felt like forever, I think to add to the suspense of it … and he liked watching me squirm.
What lay waiting for me in the shell was so disgusting, and I almost reached a point of retreat.
Finally, he asked, “Ready?”
“Is a frog’s ass water-tight? Yes! Just do it already,” I nagged and then chuckled. He was so much fun. Disgusting, spontaneous, adventurous fun.
His eyes squinted, which made me think of Clint Eastwood, or his son. Whoa. Scott Eastwood. I swallowed hard, seeing a slight resemblance.
Then he puckered his lips and sent me a kiss through the air, and our oysters went down the hatch.
I didn’t know what he had planned for after our cocktails and snack stop, but I hoped he’d allowed time for me kissing his head off—because I really wanted to.
To hell with waiting a few dates, I wanted all of him. Whatever he wanted to give me, I’d take. Because, no matter what it was, it was all good.
If I took Hannah and Vaughn’s advice, I’d need to have a conversation with Rhett sooner than later. I liked him a lot. A whole fucking lot.
Beyond his looks. Beyond his body. All the way to his personality and character. The awesomeness of the first two were just bonuses. The good stuff was him. The way he talked to and treated me. How easy it was for him to laugh, and for me to laugh, too.
So many times I’d been attracted to one aspect of a guy, but it never worked out because of all of the other pieces I didn’t like so much.
With Rhett, I liked it all.
After we had our fill of seafood and fancy alcoholic tomato juice, we hopped back in his truck and that was when I noticed he’d covered the truck bed with a black tarp.
“What’s in there?” I asked as I climbed in and looked through the back window to see if I could get a clue.
He h
astily looked back there. Then he took a seat behind the wheel and slammed the door. “Nothing,” he said innocently.
“Lies,” I accused.
“Maybe, but you’ll forgive me.”
“If you kiss me real quick, I’ll think about it.”
It must have been an easy decision for him, because without another word his lips were on mine. I could taste the lemon from earlier and the peppermint he’d grabbed off the counter and eaten as we walked through the parking lot.
I was the liar because I didn’t think about forgiveness at all. I didn’t think of anything outside of how his fingers were holding my face to his at the back of my neck. How his lips never looked as big as they felt when they moved over mine. How I just wanted to let go into that kiss and see where I landed.
He said against my mouth, when the kiss was going to either turn into more or cool off, “There isn’t anything like kissing you. Not a single damn thing.”
I could tolerate holding back in the parking lot at Shank’s Shells and Tails only because I knew where I was taking her we wouldn’t be interrupted. Additionally, I’d had a discussion with my sister about calling before showing up in the future. To her benefit and mine, she agreed.
It was our first legit date, and I’d tried my hardest not to anticipate anything more physical than our times before, but I wanted her so damn bad. And if she wanted me back—oh, God—she could have me.
I meant that, too. Whatever she wanted was there for the taking.
It was just after seven, and she’d taken it upon herself to unplug my phone in exchange for hers to play the music on the way back toward Wynne. We passed my turn off and she looked my way, but didn’t ask where we were going. I supposed she’d learned by then that she’d just have to be patient and see.
What was it about making her wait, even just a little, that was so damn gratifying? Whatever it was, she let me have it and I liked it.
Sunny was starting to trust me, and she could. I’d do anything for her. Anything to keep her sitting in the middle of my pickup’s cab. Anything to keep my arm around her shoulders as she leaned into my side. Anything to ensure she always wanted to be next to me.
