by M. Mabie
Like everyone had advised me to do, I was giving it a chance. So, I just went along with it when we never went to Diana’s Diner or the store together.
Things like that didn’t change—not at first.
“We can run to town and get something. Take your time,” I told Sunny over the phone.
That was becoming my motto with her. Take your time.
I was letting her set the pace for nearly everything, and glad to do it. I wasn’t in any rush and had the sense enough to be grateful for each new thing as they came. With her, I wanted everything. When didn’t really matter.
I’d already waited for her for so long, waited and even given up. Being at the beginning of a real relationship with her was something I’d never expected. I was taking it one day at a time. Thankful and feeling quite lucky.
That all said, I secretly wanted more already. I was sure she was who I wanted in my future. Still, I wouldn’t push things. I could only give her the best of me when she was ready for it.
That week, WDKR was getting some pretty cool upgrades, but Sunny made some kind of error installing the new software that morning which, unfortunately, caused her a lot of trouble. Usually, she was out of there around two, but it was close to five, and, according to her, there was still a lot to re-do before she could leave.
“You go ahead and eat. I’ll keep working and just make a pizza in a while. I’m still messing with these jacked up files.”
I understood how needing to get a job finished—the right way—felt.
Sure. I could have eaten and done my own thing, but since the rain had held off for the last few weeks, and everything was getting back to normal, all I’d had to occupy my mind all day was her.
She was always on my mind. The slight way her breasts shook when she laughed, then how they felt in my palms and mouth. The slope of her naked side as she caught her breath before a second round. I never dared complain about how she always wanted me twice. She always took control the second time anyway, and oh how I let her. The look in her eye when she kissed me first thing in the evening. That little something that sometimes flashed in her blue eyes, telling me she was thinking about what we’d done the night before. The way she rubbed my leg with her little foot to wake me up. And, with nothing more than a little motivation, she became an early bird. She’d ride me before the sun came up, often making me late for my run.
When I’d finally get to my circuits, she’d leave behind notes when she left.
R-
The second half of Dexter, Episode 4, tonight. Maybe we’ll actually get through it. Maybe not. I’ll cook. Okay, I’ll get something from Diana’s.
R-
I don’t know how you run so damn early in the morning. Especially when I can barely walk. Ha! Ha!
See you later.
R-
If I get done early today, I’ll let you drive me around in your tractor, and I’ll bring the beer.
Then, she’d sign her name with a little sun-shaped smiley face at the bottom next to a heart.
There weren’t enough hours in the day, and whatever extra time I had was spent with Sunny. I didn’t want to snuff out the spark by smothering her, but when I didn’t mention seeing her next, it wasn’t long before she would make plans with me. The validation of that alone was powerful, and the more it happened the more I craved it.
Some days Sunny volunteered to ride along with me in the tractor or help me wash equipment. She was actually really great help and saved me a lot of time, which I made up to her in fun—but still kind of selfish—ways.
So since she was hard at work, I took matters into my own hands. “You just do your thing,” I said. “I’ll talk to you in a while.”
We didn’t go into town together much. Everyone’s eyes were still on us. The chatter and jokes had stopped—at least in my presence—but it wasn’t hard to tell we had their attention. It wasn’t that strange for me, but I could only imagine what it was like for her. So, I never pressed the issue of making appearances.
When Sunny and I hung up, I loaded a few things into the back of my truck and headed to the store for a few more.
“Two of those big New York strips,” I ordered from the meat counter. I stood there under the fluorescent lights ordering steak—like I had many times before—and browsed the other items under the glass case.
“Two, huh?” Stan, the butcher, asked. “These look okay?” He pointed to a pair of steaks near the front.
“Those are fine,” I answered and took a step down to look at the other ready-made sides they had prepared.
“I’ve got a few stuffed peppers back here, too. She likes them, and she also gets that pasta salad over there sometimes,” Stan said as he weighed and wrapped the meat. He looked me in the eye conspiratorially then cocked his head to the side waiting to see if I’d take his not-so-sneaky suggestions.
Was he butting in or just trying to move some pasta salad?
It didn’t matter. He was there to sell, and I was there to buy. I’d take the tip and stowed my pride, accepting it for what it was. If she really liked stuffed peppers and pasta salad, I’d get them for her.
“Fine. I’ll take both of those, too,” I relented to Stan.
It wasn’t a secret who my extra steak was for—I’d been buying things for her in that store since the very first time I had my own money.
I was used to the grins and winks. Only now, they were different. They lacked the sympathy they’d once held. Their glances and gestures were more excited and contrite, as if they’d been right about something all along. They were probably just as surprised as me.
Maybe, along with trying to be patient, their reactions were why I hadn’t suggested going to Diana’s Diner or the store together very much, but why hadn’t Sunny ever brought it up?
Was she embarrassed?
I didn’t want her to get the same scrutiny I received. It wasn’t that people were ever rude, but many of them lacked the skill of subtlety. We were doing well, and, in some ways, I was afraid they might remind her of all the silly things I used to do to get her attention.
For the moment, we were in our own little world, and I was sure she wanted to keep it like that since she hadn’t mentioned we do anything too publicly either, yet.
That was the next thing I was waiting patiently for.
When the time came, and she was comfortable being in public with me—with us—she’d be the one to move us there. I’d be ready when she was.
The invitation to her class reunion hung on her refrigerator, and it caught my eye every time I passed it. It wasn’t for another few weeks or so, but she hadn’t asked me to go with her. The little card requesting a call or email with her number of guests remained plastered to the white surface of her freezer with a WDKR magnet.
Then again, maybe Sunny wasn’t planning on going. Sticking to my plan of letting her set the pace, I hadn’t brought it up.
The Nashville race was the same weekend anyway, but since my sister wasn’t going, I wanted to invite her. Had they not been at the same time, I would have already asked her to go. But we’d only been—well, like we were—for a short while.
Although it felt like much longer for me, I was afraid to rock the boat. Not literally. Given the opportunity, I’d rock the bastard over with us both in it. Naked.
But—metaphorically—I was taking it easy.
Right?
On the way to her place, I contemplated if I was actually holding back as much as I should. I was, after all, grilling her dinner at the radio station. In hindsight, that might seem over the top.
The facts remained. I was still me, and she was still the sun I orbited around.
Carefully, I backed up my truck into the lawn of WDKR so I would be closer to the door.
After I got my grill out and set up a few other things, I poked my head inside the building and saw her sitting behind the soundboard in the booth. She didn’t notice me through the glass because she was facing away, but the lights were on in the sma
ll room, and I could see her perfectly.
Her hair was long and wavy down her back, one of her slender legs propped up on the tall chair beside her as she stood at the board. Large headphones cupped her ears while she listened and swayed, in what I could only guess was off-time to the beat of the song—considering her lack of rhythm—but I couldn’t hear to confirm it.
I’d never seen inside WDKR before, but I’d always imagined it differently. I’d imagined neon in the station, but there was none there. Also, I’d grown up feeling like the radio was some magic place where Sunny Wilbanks lived, bad ass and high tech, but two feet inside the door I learned my imagination as a kid was idealistic at best.
Peering behind the curtain at Oz, I hoped everything I’d been feeling and experiencing with her wasn’t also just a fantasy, some twisted version of reality that I only saw how I wanted.
Regardless of how low-key and plain it appeared, it was still pretty damn cool.
Instead of what I’d conjured in my mind, there were plaques and pictures of her and her grandfather, articles from papers about the station, and some signed memorabilia from old country artists.
Actually, the more I looked around, the more I liked the real thing. Kind of like her.
“Hey, what are you doing here?” she asked from behind me where I’d wandered on the other side of the room.
I was studying a picture of her sitting on her Grandpa Sonny’s lap at the soundboard. Off to the side of the frame there was a small typed-out label.
Sonny and Sunny, Summer 1993
“Just looking around,” I answered. “You were a cute little thing.”
“Thanks,” she said. “Flattery will get you everywhere with me.”
For as long as she’d been at it that day, her mood was surprisingly chipper. My mood usually got a little sideways when I was really deep into a stubborn project.
Notably, I liked the way she looked with her headphones around her neck. That image was very similar to my nostalgic fantasies of her and WDKR.
Food, Rhett. You’re here to feed her, not fuck her with her headphones on. Focus.
I scratched the back of my neck and corralled my thoughts.
“I brought my grill. How about some steak?” I asked, turning to face her head-on, which didn’t help the pull she had on me.
When she had that look in her eye, my hands would itch to roam, so I put them in my pockets. I’d heard before that idle hands were the devil’s workshop, and I thought it best to stow them. She still had stuff to do.
“You did?” She arched her eyebrow and added, “But I have a grill.”
She obviously didn’t know what she was talking about. A man’s grill is an extension of himself. There’s a bond there. I swear it.
I laughed. “Mine isn’t just any grill, Sunny. It’s The Grill. I can’t just be flinging my meat around on any old burner. I know how to cook on mine.”
Grills, like women, never took the same to heat up. Just like I wasn’t about to start a fire with another girl, I wasn’t about to waste two prime New York strips to chance on her old, dusty Weber.
“Right,” she said sarcastically, but I knew the truth. “I’m almost done.”
“I’ll get out of your hair. You go finish up, and I’ll be listening out front.”
Resisting the urge to reach out for her, I walked to the doorway, but she leaned out, pitching forward with puckered lips.
It was her move, and one I liked, so I didn’t hesitate. I couldn’t deny myself and her at the same time. I was only so strong.
She kissed me and hummed against my mouth. With her hand on my side, she pulled me closer for the moment.
“Thank you, Rhett,” she said. “I shouldn’t be long. I’m running a safety thing that’s backing up my catalog, then I’m done.”
Rocking back on my heel, lips out of range of each other, I confessed, “You look good with those headphones on.”
“Oh, these old things?” She winked. “Maybe I’ll give you a tour of the station after we eat.”
I liked the sound of that. “Get back to work.”
It was a nice evening, and there was a light breeze from the storm front that was moving in, but the weather wasn’t supposed to change until around sunset. It was a good night to be outside, and I enjoyed it as I drank my beer.
With my radio on and truck windows down, I waited for the grill to warm up. The pasta salad was in the cooler, and the steaks were ready to roll. Everything was working out according to plan.
After the lawn chairs were unfolded and the card table was set up, the yard was almost redneck romantic. As I looked around at the scene I’d created on the lawn of her radio station, I began to wonder if I was once again going a little overboard—like I always had when it came to her.
A car came down her lane, and watching it near I was distracted away from my apprehension.
It didn’t take long for me to realize it was her dad.
I’d known Randy Wilbanks my whole life; there was no need to be nervous. However, I hadn’t talked to him since his daughter’s change of heart with regards to me. If fact, our last real conversation had to do with just that—nearly ten years ago.
“Hey, Mr. Wilbanks,” I said, standing at their front door the week after Sunny left for college. It was yet another cloudy, rainy day.
I was starting eighth grade the next morning and it sucked that she wasn’t going to be there. We would have finally been in the same half of the building at school.
“Hi, Rhett,” he said with a polite smile.
“Have you heard from Sunny?” I’d wanted to come over the day after she left, or right before to tell her bye, but I didn’t. I couldn’t.
“You want a Coke?” he asked after glancing at his watch. “I think I need one. Peggy’s got me drinking diet, but I have a few regular cold ones stashed in the garage.”
“Okay,” I answered. Coke sounded good, and maybe we’d talk for a while and I’d find out how she was doing.
“You hang out on the swing. I’ll be right back.” As I took a seat on their front porch and watched the cars splash through the huge puddle out front, he went back into the house. I heard the garage around back open, then after a minute it closed and he was soon walking out of their front door passing me an ice-cold soda.
“Sunny and I used to share a Coke out here in the afternoons, before her mother got home and she’d head to the station for work. It was kind of our thing,” he admitted and opened his can.
I already knew they did that because I’d ridden by on my bike a time or two and saw them. They always waved.
“Does she like school?” I asked. “College is a lot bigger.”
He took another long drink then sucked air through his teeth. “That’s a good Coke. Yeah, I think she’s still getting used to it, but she’ll do fine. How are you holding up, bud?”
Not so good was the right answer, but I fudged it a little.
“I’m doing okay. We’ve got harvest coming soon, and Dad says it’s a good one this year. You know I helped plant this spring, right?” I hoped he was impressed as he listened and kept drinking. “So, I’ve been pretty busy myself.”
He crossed his legs and relaxed into the swinging bench. “Sounds like hard work.”
“It is, and it isn’t, but that’s just what we do.” Then I chugged some of my Coke, enjoying the man-to-man conversation. Luke and I talked a lot, but he was a farm kid, too. What I did wasn’t all that interesting to him because he was doing pretty much the same stuff. Mr. Wilbanks was a businessman, so he probably found farming interesting.
“Got your eye on any new girls yet?”
What? That was crazy.
I leaned over and looked at him like he was losing his mind. “No.” I was quick to correct him. “I still just like Sunny.”
“Even though she’s gone, and you can’t see her all the time like before?”
He was a grown man. He should have known better. “Well, sir, you didn’t stop loving her bec
ause she left, did ya?”
He smiled, probably realizing he’d been temporarily insane.
Forget about Sunny? What a dumb idea.
“You got a good point. So how’s it gonna work out then? She’s a lot older than you. She’s going to be away at college, then you’ll leave and go yourself.”
I’d heard that one before—even from her—but that didn’t change much for me.
“I know everyone thinks I’m crazy, but I don’t care. I’m in love with Sunny. And someday, I’m going to build her a huge farm and I’m going to marry her and make her smile every day.” It was a big step, asking her father for her hand in marriage at such a young age, but we were having a cold one and it seemed like the right time. “If that’s okay with you, that is.”
He thought, which I figured was standard procedure for that kind of thing. So I sat back and crossed my legs like he had and waited for his answer.
If he said no, I’d just have to work hard and change his mind. There was plenty of time for that.
“I don’t know, Rhett. I suppose that’s gonna be up to her, too. Don’t you reckon?”
I couldn’t argue with that.
“Yeah, well, I guess. But anything is possible.”
He pulled in and parked in the two-car lot off to the side, then moseyed over to where I’d parked my truck in the yard.
“Hey there, Rhett. How’s it going?”
I could have answered vaguely—beat around the bush. That’s what I would have done back in the day because Mr. Wilbanks used to seem like such an authority figure when I was a boy. He wore church clothes to work and always drove nice cars. They lived in a great house in the center of town, right on Main Street, and he was her dad.
I’d respected Mr. Wilbanks and always wanted him to like me. Always.
Quickly, I considered giving him a half-truth reply. Something honest, but not really answering the question.
