No Ordinary Joe

by Michelle Celmer

  Although, at that moment he was so hot for her, he may have actually done it. But her exaggerated sigh and wry smile told him she was definitely teasing. He took his shorts and boxers off—as unsexfully as always—and the hungry look she gave him, the way her eyes took in every inch of his body, said she didn’t need a striptease to get her motor running.

  She grinned and summoned him with a crooked finger. “Get over here.”

  Technically he was supposed to be calling the shots, but this time, he would make an exception.

  He crawled up over her, feeling a bit like a tiger stalking its prey. If he had his way, he did intend to ravage her.

  Reily opened her arms to him, wrapped them around his shoulders, pulled him against her. And all he could think was perfect. They were a perfect fit.

  “You know what I just realized?” Reily said.

  “What?”

  “We’re finally alone.”

  “I know.”

  “And naked.”

  They certainly were. “Yep.”

  “Together,” she added, as if there had been any question.

  “And it’s about damned time,” he said.

  “So why aren’t you kissing me?”

  He smiled. “I was just getting to that.”

  Though he had kissed Reily on a pretty regular basis lately—on the couch, in his truck, in the storage room at the bar and even once in the walk-in freezer—there was just no comparison to doing it naked. He felt almost as if he were kissing her again for the first time. It was exciting and erotic, and it just plain old felt good. But there was something else, too. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Something almost…comforting. Which seemed like a pretty weird feeling to have when making love to a woman for the first time, and one that he couldn’t remember ever having before.

  But he liked it.

  He wanted to capture it and hold on to it, make it last all night. He tried to take things slow, but Reily, with her moaning and her grinding and her hands that kept finding new places to touch and explore, was making it really difficult to hold anything back.

  “Please tell me you have a condom,” she said breathlessly.

  Did she really think he wouldn’t have planned ahead for this? He reached over and pulled the drawer on the bedside table open and grabbed the box. She snatched it away from him.

  “Let me do it.”

  “We don’t have to rush this,” he said.

  “It’s been over a month, Joe,” she said, taking a condom out and tossing the box aside. “I would hardly call that rushing it. Especially if you consider the fact that I’ve wanted to do this since the first day I met you.”

  “You have?”

  “Yeah, when I wasn’t cursing you for being such a big jerk.” She ripped the package open with her teeth. “Now, sit up so I can put this on you.”

  Even though he was supposedly the one calling the shots, he let her suit him up. And when she leaned back and pulled him on top of her, and he sank deep inside of her, out of the blue it hit him, that feeling of comfort that had seemed so strange. It was love.

  He loved her.

  He actually felt a little stupid for not realizing it sooner, and he considered it pretty darned amazing, because he’d honestly questioned whether he even had it in him to love a woman that way again. And at the same time it totally sucked because she was leaving. And even if she felt anything even remotely close to love for him, she wouldn’t be around long enough for that love to grow to something worth holding on to.

  But they had right now, and when Reily moaned his name and shuddered in his arms as she found her release, he found his too. And later, after making love again, and then a third time, when they lay in each other’s arms and her breathing was deep and even and he was sure she was asleep, he told her that he loved her.

  For the first and possibly the last time.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Reily stood in the living room of her tiny apartment, the duffel bag she’d picked up at the secondhand store stuffed with her belongings, her guitar tucked safely into the secondhand case the guys of Thunder Sky had given her during her going-away party last night at the bar. For six weeks this had been home, and it was hard to imagine that she would never see it again.

  Leaving this town, and all the wonderful friends she had made, would be the hardest thing she’d ever had to do. For all the years she had lived in Montana, leaving hadn’t really been that difficult. Since she lost her parents, she’d always felt a little bit like a visitor in her own life, as if home was a place, a concept, that eluded her. Stuck in the corner of her aunt’s apartment or slotted as the “surrogate” daughter, who would never and could never be as special as the “real” one. She’d never felt as if she truly belonged anywhere. Not until she’d met Joe and Sue and Lindy and Lily Ann, and all of her other friends in Paradise. For the first time in a long time, she finally began to feel as if she were home. And now she had to leave that. For a new home, because she was going to make it big, she was going to be a star. Isn’t that what she’d spent the last sixteen years convincing every person she knew? She couldn’t back down now.

  “Need some help?”

  Reily turned to find Joe standing in the doorway. She hadn’t even heard him come up the stairs. “I just have the one bag.”

  “We’re going to have to leave soon or you’ll miss your bus.”

  It was true that she’d been procrastinating all afternoon. She wanted to savor every last minute she had left here.

  She took a deep breath, squaring her shoulders. “Well then, we’d better go.”

  Sue, Lily Ann and Lindy were waiting for them next to the ’Cuda, which Joe had taken out special for the occasion. “It’s where we had our first kiss, so it only makes sense that we have our last one there, too,” he’d reasoned, which of course had only made her feel terrible. The idea that she would never kiss Joe again, never feel his arms around her, made her heart sting.

  She was surprised to see Lindy there since they had already said goodbye last night. It seemed as though most of the town had shown up. When she left Montana she’d had a grand total of fifteen people at the party Abe threw for her, and probably half of them had only come for the free beer and hot wings.

  As Reily approached her, Lindy stepped forward and threw her arms around her. “I am going to miss you so much, Reily. Make sure you email me and tell me how you’re doing, and don’t forget about us little people when you’re playing to sold-out stadiums.” She held Reily at arm’s length and grinned. “I expect free tickets, and they’d better be front row.”

  “Absolutely.” She turned to Joe’s aunt, who had big fat tears running down her cheeks. “Sue…”

  “Oh, don’t mind me,” she said, giving Reily a firm squeeze. “Goodbyes always make me cry. Just promise you’ll keep in touch and visit if you can.”

  “I will,” she said, but it was a lie. Once she left here, she knew she could never come back. It would be too hard, too painful. Especially if Joe was seeing someone new. Not that she didn’t want him to be happy. She did. But selfish as it was, she wanted the person he was happy with to be her. Which would be tough if they lived over a thousand miles away from each other.

  Reily turned to Lily Ann, who was standing off to the side, eyes on the ground, lips stuck out in a pout, kicking at the concrete with the toe of her purple tennis shoe. The shoes they had picked out together.

  “Goodbye, Lily Ann.”

  Lily Ann folded her arms stubbornly. When Reily crouched down to her level, she turned away.

  “Lily Ann,” Joe scolded. “Say goodbye to Reily.”

  Lily Ann shook her head, her blond curls swinging.

  “That’s okay,” Reily said. It broke her heart, but she understood. She wanted Reily to stay, and in
her young mind, not saying goodbye meant Reily wouldn’t really go. She’d felt the same way at her parents’ funeral; when everyone was ready to leave the graveside and her aunt told her to say goodbye, she’d refused because it meant that she would never see them again. She’d believed that by refusing to say the words out loud, to even think them, her parents might magically return. Of course they hadn’t, and goodbyes had never gotten much easier for her.

  “We better go,” Joe said. He put her things in the trunk and opened the door for her. She slid into the front seat and buckled her seat belt, barely able to contain the tears stinging her eyes as he started the engine. She looked straight ahead as he pulled out of the driveway.

  “She’ll be okay,” Joe said.

  “I just hate that I’m hurting her.”

  He reached out, covered her hand with his own and laced his fingers through hers. “I know.”

  “She knew I was leaving. We even kept a calendar counting down the days. We made it into a game. I thought she would be more prepared.”

  He squeezed her hand. “She was. But knowing that a person is leaving doesn’t make it any easier when they actually go.”

  He said that like he was speaking from experience. He’d been putting on a good face all day. All week. But she could tell that he was hurting, even if he was too proud to admit it.

  “This is so unfair,” she said.

  “What is?”

  “That I have to choose. You and Lily Ann or my singing career.”

  “You’ve worked too hard to quit now.”

  “Maybe…maybe I don’t have to. I could split my time. People do it all the time. What if I stayed in Nashville during the week, then flew back here on the weekends? Or spent three weeks there and one week here?”

  Joe sighed, not taking his eyes off the road. “I can’t do this halfway, Reily. Lily Ann needs someone stable, someone who has time for her. And so do I. I just can’t put us in a position where we’re second place again. I won’t do that to her, and I won’t do it to myself.”

  But you love me, right? He’d said the words that first night they made love. He had thought she was asleep, and she had pretended to be, so she wouldn’t have to say what she was feeling in her heart, what she had been feeling almost since the day she met him. That she loved him, too. What would it have accomplished when he knew that she was leaving? Now she wondered if that had been a mistake. Because she felt that, if he would only say the words, if he would just ask her to stay, just one time, she would. And she would be happy, and never regret it, not for a single minute.

  Or would she?

  Would she begin to feel cheated and unfulfilled? Would she grow to resent Joe and Lily Ann, until it eventually became too painful to stay? Would she hurt them the way Beth had? And was that a risk she could take?

  If only she could see the future. If she could predict what she would be feeling a year from now or five years or ten.

  Joe headed down Main Street in the direction of Blue Hills, the next city over, where she would catch the bus. It was only a fifteen-minute drive and the closer they got, the harder it was to breathe, as though some invisible force was compressing her lungs and not enough air was getting through. Her hands started to shake and her knees felt funny.

  She realized she was having a panic attack. She was off to start her new life and instead of being excited, she was hyperventilating and sweating bullets.

  Relax. Slow, shallow breaths.

  She kept that up until they pulled into town. The bus was already there, loading passengers. Joe parked in a spot a few yards away.

  He was about to get out when she blurted, “Joe, do you want me to stay?”

  The blunt question seemed to surprise him, and for several seconds he just sat there, looking conflicted. Then he said, “What difference does it make what I want?”

  It made one hell of a difference to her. “Let’s put it this way. If I were to say, ‘Joe, I’ve changed my mind and I don’t want to go to Nashville anymore,’ then you would say…?”

  “It doesn’t matter what I’d say, because you haven’t changed your mind. You’re leaving.”

  He made her want to bang her head against the nearest wall. “Just tell me, do you love me or don’t you?”

  He closed his eyes, let his head fall back against the seat. “I can’t. I can’t tell you that.”

  “Can’t, or won’t?”

  “We better get your things.” He got out of the car and walked around to open the trunk. He pulled out her guitar, which he handed to her, then hiked her duffel up over his shoulder. They walked to the bus, where the driver was stowing the luggage away underneath. He set Reily’s bag down for him to take.

  “Well,” he said, turning to Reily. “I guess this is goodbye.”

  But did it have to be? Because suddenly her heart was racing and her palms were sweating, and right now the idea of actually getting on the bus terrified her far more than the possibility of what might happen if she didn’t.

  It was probably just nerves, she told herself. Who wouldn’t be a little edgy moving to a strange city where they didn’t know a living soul? Or have a job or a place to live? Of course she was nervous. Staying here, that didn’t make her nervous at all. But if she went to Nashville and failed, the only one to get hurt would be her. Then again, if she stayed here, and that turned out to be the wrong thing, there was so much more at stake. A little girl with a fragile heart and a good man who didn’t deserve to be hurt again. Who deserved better than maybes.

  “Have a safe trip,” Joe said, his jaw tense. “Don’t forget to write.”

  She put her hand on his arm. “I love you, Joe.”

  He pressed one last hard kiss to her lips. “Goodbye, Reily.”

  He walked back to his car and she boarded the bus. She found an empty seat somewhere near the middle. She heard Joe’s car start and the rumble of the engine as he hit the gas, but no matter how much she wanted to, no matter how she tried, she couldn’t make herself look as he drove away.

  * * *

  Sometime in the three days since Reily left, Lily Ann had made up her mind that Reily was coming back, and no matter what he said, no matter how many times he told her it wasn’t true, Lily Ann would not be swayed. As if Reily’s leaving wasn’t hard enough, as if he didn’t feel like someone had ripped his heart out of his chest and stomped it with lead boots, he had to constantly remind his daughter that despite what she believed, Reily was not returning.

  “She’s going to walk me to kindergarten,” she told Joe when he tucked her into bed Saturday night. Feeling she probably needed the extra attention, he’d been stopping home to tuck her in every night, but it didn’t seem to be doing much good.

  “Honey, we talked about this. Aunt Sue will be walking you to school.”

  “And she’ll bring her guitar to my school and play for show-and-tell,” she went on as if he hadn’t even spoken. “And I’ll have the prettiest, bestest singing mommy in the whole kindergarten. Probably the whole school.”

  Now Reily was her mommy? “Lily, baby, Reily is in Nashville, far, far away from here. Your mommy is in California.”

  “Beth is my old mommy,” she said, and he was a little taken aback to hear her refer to Beth by her first name. She’d never done that before.

  “Reily will be my new mommy,” she said, as if she had no doubt whatsoever. Then her expression turned thoughtful. “Dakota’s mommy is having a baby and she’s gonna have a brother. If Reily had a baby, do you think she would have a boy, too? Because I think I’d rather have a sister.”

  Either she knew something Joe didn’t, or she was completely losing touch with reality. “I think you should stop worrying about it and go to sleep.”

  “Okay, Daddy. ’Night.”

  She snuggled down into the pillow and Joe pulled th
e covers over her. “You want me to read you a story?”

  She shook her head. “No, thanks.”

  “You sure? I came home from work just so I could.”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Okay. Pleasant dreams.” He kissed her forehead, then got up and walked to the door. As he was closing it behind him, he heard her sing a soft, slightly off-key rendition of one of Reily’s lullabies, and a lump the size of the entire state of Colorado lodged in his throat as he headed down the stairs.

  “I’m worried about her,” he told Sue, who was stretched out on the sofa watching one of her reality shows. “She’s got herself convinced that Reily is coming back, and nothing I say can change her mind.”

  “Maybe she knows something you don’t.”

  “Aunt Sue—”

  “It’s obvious Reily loves you and you love her. Did you really think Lily Ann wouldn’t pick up on that? And you never know, Reily could be sitting in Nashville right now, lonely and miserable, deciding that she wants to come home.”

  “But this isn’t even home. Home is Montana.”

  “Home is where there’s people who love you and you have friends, and Reily has both those things here.”

  For God’s sake, she was just as bad as Lily Ann.

  “Reily is not coming back, and everyone is going to be a lot better off when they just accept that.”

  Aunt Sue shrugged and said, “You’re probably right.”

  Now he had the feeling she was just humoring him.

  “I have to get back to work.”

  “Okay. I’ll see you around two-thirty,” she said, turning back to her show.

  He walked out to his truck and climbed in. Didn’t Aunt Sue understand that until they stopped talking like Reily was on some temporary leave of absence, it was impossible for him to put this to rest, to stop having hope? Not a minute passed when she didn’t cross his mind, when he didn’t miss her with his whole heart. Though he had the feeling she’d taken a pretty good-sized chunk of it with her when she’d left.

  This is going to get easier, he told himself as he drove back to the bar, not knowing for sure if he believed his own spiel.