Sweet Talk Me

by Kieran Kramer

  She pushed a lock of hair off his brow. “You don’t need to worry. He’s leaving tomorrow, okay?”

  “Good. I don’t want him around when I’m gone. He’s a troublemaker.”

  “Wait.” Her pulse quickened. “What do you mean, when you’re gone?”

  He frowned. “I’m going to New York.”

  “You are?” she whispered.

  “Tomorrow morning.” Dubose never apologized about work requirements. “I have to get a couple of depositions and attend a big trial. It’s going to seriously impact one of our cases.”

  “When are you coming back?”

  He paused. “Not until two days before the wedding. Just in time for my bachelor party.”

  “You’re kidding.” She’d begged him, begged him to clear his travel calendar the two weeks before the ceremony. “They can’t get someone else?”

  “Ned’s back went out. He’s getting surgery next week. He was the only one who could’ve taken my place.” He caressed his thumbs over her shoulders. “This is the price I have to pay if I want to be partner someday. Remember?”

  “I know.” It didn’t make any difference, though. It still felt as if everything were unraveling somehow. She never should have gone to Atlanta. She should have had her dress repaired in Charleston. Maybe the effects of that panic attack were still lingering …

  “You can hold down the fort,” Dubose said. “What’s there left to do anyway?”

  A lot. Although there was no point in complaining. He was going. “We have a couple more pre-wedding parties,” she said, “one at the Sawyers’ and one at your godmother’s.” Special celebrations in their honor. It was going to be awful going without him.

  “Lola will understand, and so will the Sawyers. Ben’s an attorney. Anything else?”

  True swallowed. “Your fraternity brothers need a beach house since your mother’s is already being used.”

  “Really? She told me she was saving it for them.”

  “Well, she forgot.” True couldn’t believe Penn had been so careless. Then again, she had a lot going on. She was a busy surgeon, in and out of Charleston all the time. “She’s already given it to a few girlfriends of hers from college.”

  “That sucks. Call Island Realty. They’ll hook us up.”

  “Can’t your friends just stay in a hotel or find their own beach house?”

  “True, we made them a promise. We have to make it right since it didn’t work out. I know Mom got us into this mess, but she’s got an important job. We can’t ask her to help.” He pulled her close. “Besides, it would mean so much to me if you found a house for them. I can’t just hand them a number to a hotel. These guys are my best friends.”

  “I know.”

  “Hey.” He spoke softly. “Who’s always there for you?”

  “You are.” True tried to smile, but it was hard. “We were going to talk to the band about the songs, too, remember?”

  “You can text me when you’re there, and I’ll chime in with a few favorites. At least we both know how to dance.” He’d gone to cotillion in Charleston, too.

  “Yes, but—what about finalizing things with the caterer and photographer? And the restaurant for the rehearsal dinner?”

  “I thought we’d already worked all that out.”

  “We have, basically. But there are a few little details—”

  “True.” He cupped her face between his hands. “You’ve got this.”

  She closed her eyes and sighed. “Of course I do. Although”—she opened her eyes and couldn’t help feeling a bit lost—“you were going with me and Weezie to Trident Technical College’s open house.” They’d both agreed that even though it was a week before the wedding, they’d attend. It would be an ideal time for Dubose to bond with Weezie.

  His gaze became distant, as if he were Superman looking over his city. He did this in the courtroom, too. Whenever he felt as if he needed to think. To connect the dots. To put something into words. “I know how important that is to you,” he said slowly. It was the closest he’d come to apologizing, she knew. “Of course, you two girls will still go. Weezie won’t mind my being gone.”

  No, she wouldn’t. But True was glad he showed some misgivings about missing their special night with her.

  “All right.” She gave him a wobbly smile. It really wasn’t his fault he had to go. And as for Weezie, she’d change her mind about him. Just as soon as she realized True wasn’t going to stop loving her just because she was getting married.

  “Life’s not fair, sugar.” Dubose chucked her on the chin. “Once you learn that, you’ll do less fretting and more enjoying.”

  All her focus on being stoic and gracious dissolved. She turned from him and began walking up the stairs. Damned man. Wait. Damned men. She’d include Harrison in that observation, too.

  “Don’t condescend to me, all right?” she said over her shoulder. “I already know life’s not fair.”

  “Duly noted.” Dubose caught up with her, took her by the hand, and pulled her to the top of the stairs. “I’m just trying to get you happy again, is all.” He bestowed a slow kiss on her temple. He always smelled like Polo cologne, starch, and cotton.

  His sexy intentions came through loud and clear. But he was kidding, right?

  Of course he wasn’t kidding. He was a guy.

  “Well, you went about it the wrong way.” She knew she sounded sulky, but it hurt when he didn’t take her seriously.

  “Let me make it up to you,” he said immediately, in a serious, mature-man voice.

  But then he laid an entirely outrageous kiss on her. Good Lord! Did he really think having sex right now would make her feel better?

  She gave him a tight smile. “I’ve got to take that shower. Sorry.”

  “I need one, too. I left my bag in the car. I’ll be right back.”

  He still didn’t get it. “Weezie’s due inside any minute. We have a few people picking tomatoes.”

  “Oh.” The syllable couldn’t have fallen any flatter. “I thought she was out somewhere.”

  “Nope.” True sighed, and a beat of awkward silence went by. His irritation was palpable. She decided to try to get cheerful again for both their sakes. “But we’ll have fun tonight in Charleston, won’t we?”

  “Yeah. I guess.”

  She’d try a little harder. “Come on, Dubose. It’s a party for us. And it’s on the Battery in a house overlooking the harbor with a lot of good friends.” Well, his good friends. “We’ll have a great time.”

  He eyed his watch. “I was really looking forward to some alone time with you.”

  “Me, too,” she lied. She actually hadn’t had much time to do anything but think of wedding details.

  “Especially now. After the party, I have to go straight home and pack.” He frowned, and she could see it in his eyes—he was trying to calculate if he had time to see her in the morning for a quickie before he left.

  She folded her arms over her chest. “What a shame I have to be up and out early tomorrow to get ready for the ladies from St. George’s. They’re coming over at eight to pick enough tomatoes to can a hundred jars of spaghetti sauce for the church bazaar.”

  Feeling guilty, she stood on tiptoe and kissed him quickly on the lips—nothing special, as she obviously wasn’t following through. “Maybe this is a good thing. We can wait for our honeymoon.”

  “That’s too long—”

  She took his hand. “I think we should wait. Why not? We have a whole lifetime after the wedding to enjoy each other.”

  He looked none too happy about that. “Is this really necessary?”

  “It’s romantic.” She squeezed his hand. “Please?”

  “All right,” he muttered.

  “Thanks. That means a lot to me.” And it did. There had been only one time in her life when she’d made love because the craving had been as relentless and intense as a swift summer storm—when she’d been with Harrison that night at the Isle of Palms.

  S
he’d put it behind her, but today it had all come roaring back in vivid color.

  Snack on this …

  Maybe after she married Dubose and all this stress about staying afloat was behind her, they’d have the same sort of relationship.

  He lifted her hair and placed a kiss on her neck, and his lips were hot and dry, like a man with a fever. “Now hurry up out of that shower. And you’d better lock the door. I’ll watch ESPN in the meanwhile.”

  “And maybe talk to Weezie when she comes in?”

  “Sure.”

  So all was well. A little glitch here, a blip there … that was what real relationships were like. And when True got herself ready for the party, she reminded herself that she had only two weeks to go before the wedding. Surely she could manage that.

  But all night long in Charleston, while she sipped champagne with Dubose’s arm around her, she couldn’t help wishing that she’d said yes to breakfast with Harrison.

  It was a good thing he was leaving.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  From Maybank Hall, Harrison headed to a mobile home park called Sand Dollar Heaven, his childhood home. There weren’t any sand dollars. You needed a beach for that. But they had fiddler crabs, pluff mud, and Biscuit Creek, which were way better. And it sure wasn’t heaven, at least for the grown-ups. If it was between May and December, some of them, like his father did in the old days, got up before dawn to drive their pickups down a skinny two-lane road to get to the wharf and the trawlers to work the shrimp trade. Sometimes they didn’t come back for days.

  And then there were the ones who worked at the restaurants, at the dry cleaners, or at keeping people’s houses clean and making ’em dinner, like his mother used to. Most of the adults came back way after dark, when the locusts were buzzing hard.

  “You sure you don’t want me to stop and get something to eat?” he asked Gage on his cell. He really wanted to turn around, take True out instead, and catch up on what had happened to her since she’d been on her own.

  “I’ve got a mess of crabs,” Gage replied in his sandpaper southern drawl.

  Harrison would like to kiss True again, too, to see if the old spark was there. Strip her clothes off and make love to her. Sing her a good song afterward. And maybe before, too, because she was always his best audience.

  In your dreams, boy.

  “Got beer?” he asked Gage.

  “Michelob. And crackers.”

  “I’ll bet you’re working on a puzzle.”

  “Yep. A Tuesday one for the Times.”

  “Got a theme?”

  “James Bond Disco.”

  “I can only imagine what that’s about.” Harrison felt like an idiot when it came to crossword puzzles. Although he did have a gift with rhyme and song lyrics. So somewhere back in their gene pool was a writer or poet. “See you in a few minutes.”

  He clicked off and pretended, as usual, that the short conversation with Gage was just the way guys talked.

  The trailer park still had the old painted plywood arch over the entrance. It was so faded, the giant sand dollar had lost all its details and looked like a faceless moon. The rutted dirt road snaked between tall yellow pines, and Harrison could swear each pothole was in the same place. He evaded them without thought, like Luke navigating the Death Star.

  On the well-tended lots, sturdy mobile homes with attached porches nestled discreetly between old oaks. A thriving vegetable garden or a bright new swing set advertised a happy family inside, or at least one that got outdoors to enjoy the abundant Carolina sunshine.

  Other lots looked as if a zombie apocalypse had swept through and wreaked havoc: old cars strewn everywhere, storage sheds falling down, tires in piles beneath trees. Gage’s lot was one of these minus the flotsam.

  Harrison got out of the car in front of their parents’ ancient trailer and slammed the door. Hell and damnation. His brother had lied. He’d said years ago he’d gotten a new mobile home.

  The same old latticework at the bottom that Harrison remembered as a kid was still there, warped and broken in places. God knows what was lurking underneath. A familiar dent above the kitchen window reminded him that he’d had once thrown a football wildly off target after he’d consumed too many beers with a friend in high school.

  He knocked. Just to be safe. Wouldn’t want to offend Gage, who was particular about having everything in its place. There was the whine and scrabble of dogs charging toward the door. Everyone around here kept dogs, and that was one thing Harrison really missed. His old mutts Private and Sergeant were buried out back.

  The door finally opened, and two hairy canine faces about a foot off the floor pushed out and snorted and snuffed around his legs, getting particularly enthusiastic when they picked up the scent of Weezie’s dogs. They looked like some sort of combination of boxer and Jack Russell with a little bit of Pikachu, a Japanese anime character, thrown in.

  Gage stood frowning above the dogs with a pair of reading glasses on the tip of his nose. He looked like Keanu Reeves might if he were a college professor. They’d had a beautiful blond mother, but their father had in him a trace of Sewee, a Native American tribe that had lived in these parts long before the white man came. Gage was a throwback—short ebony hair swept off his forehead, dark brows and coal-brown eyes, wide cheekbones. He was in his usual white buttondown, Levi’s, brown leather belt, and Sperrys.

  “Entrez.” A Lowcountry accent and French didn’t mix too well, but Gage was always dropping short foreign words and phrases. He probably dreamed them all the time, those and the names of rivers, countries, rare breeds of animals, ancient leaders, and whatever other words a crossword constructor couldn’t escape in his profession.

  “Hey.” Harrison reached out and slapped his shoulder. Hard as a rock. The military training had stuck with him. “Glad to see me? You wouldn’t know it from that zombie stare. Your ear gonna drop off next?”

  “Ergo?” Gage’s tone was dry as he lifted a hand to touch his left ear.

  Ear go. Harrison grinned. “Damn, you’re clever.” If a bit odd, he didn’t add. But that was Gage for you.

  Gage’s mouth tilted up on one side, as if he had a stomachache, his version of a welcoming smile. He turned and went back inside, the marble-pattern vinyl floor protesting loudly beneath his feet.

  Harrison followed after him, uninvited, into the main living space, and was instantly depressed. The trailer was neat as a pin. But almost everything inside was from another era.

  To his left was a sitting area with an ancient TV with a channel dial, a banged-up black metal desk, a file cabinet, a vinyl couch—puke green—a nubby red-and-orange plaid armchair, and cheap canned track lighting above an Ikea bookshelf with sagging shelves. On his right was the kitchen—vintage ’80s with faux wood cabinets, faded red-flowered curtains with ruffles up top, and a laminate counter of indeterminate color with the edges worn away.

  The walls were a dreary beige. Gray-black water stains loomed on the ceiling like threatening storm clouds. And in the corner by the TV, a piece of plywood stuck out from under Mama’s oval rag rug.

  “What’s that?” Harrison asked, his heart beating a fast tattoo against his rib cage.

  “A piece of plywood.”

  “No shit.” Harrison glared at his brother. “What’s it for?”

  “A hole in the floor.”

  “You gotta be kidding me.” You trusted him. You stupid, dadgum fool. He scratched his ear to buy himself some temper-cool-down time. “I believed you when you told me you got a new trailer.”

  Dammit, he should have put the concerts and studio time aside and come back to check on Gage in his own space. He shouldn’t have made up all those excuses, that Gage was a grown man, that he pulled in seventy-five thousand dollars a year with his puzzles. He’d seen the world with the navy, and he could cook and clean and didn’t have any dangerous vices that Harrison knew of.

  So what? He obviously needed a friend.

  Or a brother.

 
When Harrison felt guilty, he was like a pacing lion in a cage at the zoo. Ready to roar and shake something to pieces. Anything but focus on the guilt.

  Gage shrugged. “I knew you’d be worried. So why not stop that from happening?” He walked into the kitchen. “Now, what would the famous country music singer from South Carolina like? Coffee or a beer?”

  “Darius Rucker’s not here. Is that the best clue you can come up with for me?” Harrison sauntered into the kitchen, looking for further evidence of his brother’s overwhelming aversion to change. “Speaking of which, why haven’t you put me in any of your puzzles? Or at least one of my song titles?”

  Gage held up a K-Cup, his face smooth and untroubled. “This?”

  Harrison knocked it out of his hands. “I’m pissed.”

  The little plastic cup rolled across the floor until it came to a slight depression and got trapped. He’d been angry for years—his whole life—because he was confused. And worried. He hated being either one. But around Gage, he was always one or the other or both.

  “I didn’t know you had a fragile ego,” Gage said without any heat. “I haven’t put you or one of your song titles in a puzzle because neither your name nor those song titles have ever come up during the construction process.”

  Harrison ran both his hands down his face. “I don’t care about the goddamned puzzles. I know you see them in your head—not the whole thing at once, but corners. And you use those mental images as inspiration.”

  “Exactly.” Gage opened the refrigerator. “So what’s the problem?”

  “This place, man.” Harrison lifted his hands and let them drop like heavy weights against his thighs. “Sorry I went all cyborg on you. But I can’t believe you’ve been living here. Except for college, and a couple years on a ship, you’ve been in this trailer your entire life. It’s time to move on.” He walked a few steps—squeak! squeak! went the floor—bent over, scooped up the K-Cup, and stuck it on the counter.

  “I have new things, too. Like that Keurig machine.” Gage angled his head at the compact machine on the counter.