by Caisey Quinn
“Great. No pressure then.”
Dallas nods. “So there’s that. And also, Afton Tate should be here any second now. Robyn’s a big fan so he’s coming straight here after a concert in Oklahoma to sing us off onto our honeymoon.”
“Fantastic. I can hardly wait.”
Dallas smirks at my tone. “If you ask real nice he’ll probably give you an autograph. Maybe sign your tits.”
“Eat a dick, Dallas.”
Between McKinley and Tate, if I don’t end up drunk or high or screwing a random waitress tonight, it will literally be a miracle. My nerves are frayed as fuck and what I really want is to toss the woman coming my way over my shoulder and tell everyone else to back the hell off.
“Come on, boys. Robyn’s changing into her leaving dress!” Dixie flicks remnants of shaving cream off her fingers in our direction.
She’s lucky it’s not whipped cream or I would be following through on my desire to carry her ass out of here.
“Come see me off, man. Throw some rice or blow some bubbles or whatever Robyn picked out. Relax for a change.” Dallas shoulder-checks me as we walk. “I’ll be back in one week. I’ll expect an answer when I return about the battle. Whatever she decides, whatever she wants, we respect that, okay?”
“Always,” I answer honestly.
My mind whirs back to what feels like a lifetime ago, when I had her in my arms so wet and warm and willing in the bathroom.
I meant what I said. I will always respect what she wants. Even when she wants all the wrong things.
7 | Dixie
“YOU HAVE A good time tonight?”
I shrug off Jag’s question because what can I say? I had an awful time until Gavin almost screwed me on the bathroom counter. Then we got interrupted and I bailed because I couldn’t face him after humiliating myself like that.
Seems like TMI for the moment.
“It was nice. I’m just tired is all,” I tell him. “You?”
Jaggerd is usually pretty even-keeled so I can’t help but notice he gets a little twitchy and squirmy in his seat when I volley his own question back to him.
“Yeah. Pretty good.”
“Thanks for coming tonight.” I turn on the leather bench of his Mustang and notice that his eyes look like they might bulge out of his head. “Jag . . . something you want to talk about?”
“You’re welcome.” He continues staring out the windshield as if driving requires every ounce of his attention. “And nah. I’m good.”
“You sure? ’Cause you seem a little . . . off.” I vaguely recall Gavin saying something about Jag and Cassidy but I was slightly distracted during that conversation.
He clears his throat, probably to buy himself some time. I wait patiently, deciding to start the long, arduous process of removing bobby pins from my wedding hairdo.
“I’ll just sit quietly over here untangling my tangled rat’s nest while you decide if you want to tell me why you seem so bajigity.”
“Not even a word, Lark.”
“Don’t care, McKinley.”
Houses blur and I don’t even bother trying to count them. I’m not actually able to focus very well at the moment. He’s adjusting himself in his seat, so whatever he’s stressing about obviously is having an effect on his man parts. If he tells me he wants to get back together I might punch him in the throat. He knows a little about my Gavin drama and that the last thing I need right now is him wanting to be more than friends.
“So . . . your friend Cassidy . . . she’s single?”
Oh, thank God. I breathe an audible sigh of relief. “Yeah, as far as I know. Why? You got a crush?”
“Something like that,” he answers low, but the corners of his mouth quirk up.
“She’s a sweet girl. Got a raw deal in Nashville and had to come home to deal with stuff. Her parents moved away years ago, though. Basically said that if she moved to Nashville instead of going to the Ivy League college she was accepted to, she was dead to them. She crashed with Robyn at one point and now . . . huh. Now I don’t actually know where she’s staying.” I make a mental note to ask her the next time I talk to her.
“Wow. Ivy League. Smart girl.”
I nod, becoming increasingly curious about Jag’s new love interest. It’s nice to have someone else’s complicated situation to focus on. I can always analyze the relationships of others so much better than my own. Go figure.
“She is smart. She’s also super-impulsive and kind of overly trusting. Or at least she used to be. Life has a way of sucking the hope and trust and free spirit out of some of us.”
“Including you?”
I don’t answer right away because he already knows from our talks in the garage. Seeing Gavin in the bar that night, realizing he’d been here the whole time and hadn’t bothered to so much as shoot me a text to let me know, it changed me. Not that I’m ruined or anything but it hurt and I know I’ve become more careful and withdrawn. Jag and my brother have both pointed it out and Robyn is pretty much constantly on my case about it. “Talk to him,” she says. “Tell him how you feel. Demand answers.”
Right. If only it were that easy. I talked to him for five minutes tonight and look how well that turned out.
“Especially me,” I say quietly into the darkened car interior without checking to see if Jag heard me.
In my head, it’s black-and-white.
Gavin and I had a fling. One I pushed him into. He got me out of his system and moved on with his life without any further thoughts of me. Sadly, I’m not quite that detached and I was hurt and, well . . . heartbroken. But I’m a big girl. I’m no stranger to pain. Just wish I understood the purpose behind it sometimes.
In my heart, though, it’s one big Technicolor mess.
I love him with everything that I am and there isn’t much I wouldn’t give to make him love me back. In that way. The reason I don’t push him for answers is that I know what he’d say. Or something close to it.
I care about you, Dixie. You’re like family to me.
Basically, “I love you, too, but not in that way.”
My Nana used to say for everything there was a season. My season with Gavin wasn’t a season at all but more like a sunny spring day that appears too early, promising sunshine and warmth, only to tease you before an avalanche falls on your head and buries you in the cold, unforgiving snow for the foreseeable future.
“So, um, who was that guy? The singer that showed up and sang and then monopolized all of your friend’s attention?”
It takes me a second to catch up. My friend meaning Cassidy.
“Afton Tate. He’s a nice guy. I met him in Austin, and Dallas toured with him for a bit. Robyn’s a big fan.”
Jag’s mouth twists into a sneer. “I gathered that when she nearly fell over. Nice of him to come all this way.”
“Mmhm.”
The silence feels heavy and suffocating. I’ve kept quiet about so much for so long and I feel like I’ve outgrown the need to be a weed in the breeze. I want to sway and move of my own accord. I want to grow. So here goes.
“Jag?”
“Yeah?”
“True or false, you have a thing for Cassidy?”
Wide hazel eyes regard me as if I am a foreign species in his vehicle. “Um . . . true. I guess. Sort of.”
“No. Man up and grow a pair. It’s simple. I’m super tired of half-ass answers and folks hemming and hawing around. You’re either interested in her or you aren’t. Which is it?”
“I am,” he answers, like a soldier on command.
“So. What are you going to do about it?”
He scratches the light scruff on his jaw. “Um, ask her out sometime?”
“Are you asking me?”
He chuckles low and the sound reverberates like the car engine. “No. I’m going to ask her out. I should, right?”
“Stop asking me and decide. For the love of God, man.” We laugh and I mimic ringing his neck. “Guys kill me. You’re all tough as nails and
manly men but then when confronted with a woman, particularly one who is openly interested in you, suddenly you’re mute and confused.”
“She’s probably too good for me. I mean, Ivy League? And then that Tate guy makes a beeline to chat her up. If Robyn nearly fainting dead away was any indication, dude is a big damn deal. I can’t compete with that.”
I roll my eyes. “Who says it’s a competition? Ask her out. If she’s into you she’ll say yes. If she’s not, she’ll say thanks, but no thanks. What’s so complicated?”
“Rejection is complicated, Dix. It messes with your head and confidence and self-esteem and all that shit. I feel like she got what she wanted tonight, then she moved on to the next guy. Seems to be a pattern with me.”
“Whoa there, cowboy. Do not hang your wussing out on me.” I jab a finger in his direction.
“It’s not just you. I’ve dated other girls, you know. I didn’t just sit around and pine for you, Lark.”
“Good. Life’s too short to pine. Believe me.”
Jag nods as we pull into my driveway. “Seems someone else got tired of it also.”
Standing under the golden glow of the porch light is Gavin Garrison in all of his half-removed-tuxedo-clad glory.
“He must’ve hauled ass to beat us here,” Jag remarks under his breath, and I know he’s wondering about the size of Gavin’s engine compared to his. Boys.
“Wonder what’s wrong.” I don’t make a move to get out of the car. I can’t. I’m not ready to face him unexpectedly. He missed the rehearsal dinner because he had to work and I was braced to deal with him at the wedding, but this, this beat-down yet still beautiful and sure of himself version currently lowering himself onto my weathered wooden porch swing, I’m not ready for him.
“If you’re waiting for a good-night kiss, I’m going to have to take a rain check. You’re a great girl and you know I’m always here for almost anything you need, but I’ve grown pretty attached to my teeth. All of them. So . . .”
“Shut it, McKinley. I’m thinking.”
“About?”
Getting him to admit he was interested in Cassidy was like pulling teeth. When it’s my business he’s chatty all of the sudden.
“About what he’s doing here. What he wants and why it couldn’t wait. About what I should say to him and how I should approach this particular—”
“You’re overthinking it.”
I make a noise of agreement in my throat. “I do that.”
“Get out of my car, Lark. Man up and grow a pair, as you said.”
I shake my head. “That advice doesn’t work on women.” I stare at Gavin as he leisurely begins to swing back and forth, swaying slightly. A man on the outside, still kind of a little boy on the inside.
I love them both. All of him.
Probably not going to lead with that, though.
“All right. I’m going.”
“Later, babe. Good luck with . . . that.”
“Good night, Jag. Good luck with Cass. Oh! She likes that Greek place, the one with the awesome hummus.”
He laughs gently. “Thanks. I’ll make a note of it.”
Maybe my tip earned me some gentlemanly behavior or maybe he’s delaying calling Cassidy, but Jaggerd gets out of the car before I can and walks around and opens my door.
“Wow. Now it’s like a real date.”
His cheeks pink just a little. “Nah. Like I said. Old habits.”
I smile as he nods curtly to Gavin, who nods slowly back while stretching his arms across the back of the swing. How Gavin Garrison manages to exude such constant calm, I will never know. Even in the bathroom tonight, he totally had his shit together while I was coming apart at the seams.
Wait. No. Seams.
He did tear my panties completely off, so maybe he didn’t have it as together as I thought.
Walking with carefully measured steps up my front walk toward him, my body heats at the memory.
Is he here to finish what he started?
Do I want him to be here for that?
“Hey,” I say in greeting when I step onto the porch and remove my heels, holding the pair in one hand.
“Hey.” He rolls his lower lip between his teeth and every memory I have of his mouth comes flooding to the forefront of my mind.
I wonder what his lips taste like right now. Do they taste like me? Like wedding cake? Like liquor?
My attention has dropped noticeably to his mouth and when I recover my sanity his eyes gleam as he takes notice of my slip.
He stands, rattling the porch and causing my entire body to vibrate with need. My cheeks flare with the same heat that spreads across the rest of my flesh from the inside out.
The glow of the dim porch light catches the glint in his eye. The darkness surrounding him makes him look even more like a threat to my sanity. I finally see what other people see now, people who don’t know him or don’t know what he’s lived through.
Gavin Garrison is dangerous. Seductive and complicated and made entirely of muscles and ink and testosterone. Or at least it seems that way at the moment. Because he exudes maleness the way some women leave traces of their perfume everywhere they go.
“Can we talk?” Even his voice is a low rumble laced with the promise of dark pleasure.
I nod dumbly. “We can try.”
“Want to stay out here or can I come in?”
My thighs want to clench and give me away. I want him to come inside. Deep, deep inside. I want the dark pleasure and the pain only he can give me. I want it badly.
“Um.” I swallow and attempt to moisten my mouth as all of my bodily fluids seemed to have fled to a locale farther south. “It’s up to you. You’re the one who came by to talk, so you can decide.”
He glances at the door with a wistful expression on his face. “I should stay out here. For now.”
Disappointment weighs on my chest. “Okay.”
“Come,” he says evenly, making his demand sound more like a request for a favor while stepping backward in retreat toward the swing. “Sit with me?”
I comply, lowering myself onto the creaky old swing and groaning a little myself because it’s been a long day.
“You were right here. Right here where you are now the first time I saw you.”
I watch him remembering. His eyes glaze a little and the hint of a sad smile plays at his mouth.
“You and Dallas looked so . . . I don’t know. Clean. Perfect. Like kids from one of those black-and-white photos in the picture frames at the drugstore.”
My mind travels back in time along with his. The day of my parents’ funeral. People came, a lot of people, in and out carrying covered dishes and desserts and remarking just a little too loudly on what a shame it was our grandparents had to spend their golden years raising children who weren’t even theirs.
“It was a tough day. My aunt Sheila dressed us. She nearly tore all of my hair out trying to brush it.” Straight-haired people so do not understand the plight of those of us born with naturally curly locks. The struggle is real, people.
“You looked beautiful. And I was not the kind of kid who thought of girls as beautiful.”
“Did you think they were icky and had cooties?” I tease.
Gavin doesn’t smile back. He shakes his head. “No. I’d seen things. Seen men and women doing things. In my house. On my couch. My mom was too high to really care or pay attention. I knew how it worked, and frankly, it seemed gross and kind of terrifying and I planned to steer clear of females forever.”
A gripping sense of dread overtakes me and I forget to be upset with him or nervous around him. Gavin doesn’t talk about his childhood much and when he does, my heart aches to make it better.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, unable to imagine what that must have been like, to witness those kinds of things at such a young age.
“Don’t be. I’m not telling you to make you feel sorry for me. You know I don’t do pity or charity.”
“I know.”
/> “The reason I was telling you was because that day, things changed for me. For the first time in as long as I could remember, I saw a girl that didn’t terrify me, didn’t make me feel strange or confused, or slightly sick to my stomach.”
“What did that girl make you feel?” Chills break out across my skin as I wait for his answer.
“Hope.” There is so much emotion behind his answer I’m almost overcome with the need to kiss him, climb him, cover and smother him with love and kisses and whatever else I have to give. Somehow I remain still, and he continues. “I saw you and I felt hopeful. You were like no one I’d ever seen before. Wild and still all at once. Kind and selfless and beautiful. It’s a rarer combination than you realize.”
“You were hungry. Looking for food. Maybe your eyes were playing tricks on you.”
It might be the wrong thing to say or too sensitive an issue to bring up, but I have to lighten the mood or I’m going to combust. Or completely humiliate myself with a profession of undying love.
“They weren’t.” He’s smiling, and God, I love that smile. His dimples, his lips, the way his eyes crinkle at the corners. “And it wasn’t just my eyes, Bluebird. I felt different. When you ran inside, I thought maybe you were running away from me because I was a mess and I’d scared you or something. But you came back out with food and I knew it was for me, but you didn’t make me ask for it or even act like it was a big deal. You didn’t treat me like a stray dog or a charity case. You and Dallas treated me like a person when no one else did. That meant something to me.” After a beat of silence, he goes on. “It still means something to me. Which is why—”
“Which is why you and I can never be anything more than friends that are like family. Right. I got it. You made that perfectly clear a long time ago and I should’ve listened.”
He’s opening up to me and as good as that feels, this “here’s why we can never be together” speech is breaking me apart on the inside.
