by A. S. Green
My gut constricts with bitterness. Italy? Shit. “I stand by what I said. That kind of life…spontaneous trips to Europe, charity events, country clubs, standing Saturday appointment at the nail salon…” She holds my gaze, and I pinch the bridge of my nose. “It’s nice for some, I suppose. If that’s what you want…have at it.”
“Do you think I’m right or wrong to want that?”
“Doesn’t matter what I think.”
At those words, Katherine smiles huge, like I just won some sort of quiz bowl.
“What you were right about, D’Arcy, was pushing me away the other day. We shouldn’t have let things go this far.” I look down and swallow the lump in my throat. “Now finish this up. I’ve got shit to do.”
“Talking to Andrew,” she says, “well, it did make me realize a few things.”
My shoulders are square and stiff. I look at her quickly, then to the side. A fissure runs through my heart. “Say it.”
“I’m saying…I love him, but I’m not in love with him.”
My head jerks. I don’t dare hope. “Have you told him you’re not interested in all he’s been planning for you?”
She fidgets. So there’s her denial, and the crack in my heart breaks wider. Great. I veer around her, heading for the door.
“But I will,” she says quickly, grabbing my elbow and repositioning herself between me and the door. “He’s in Europe now, and I don’t think it’s something I should say in a text. I’ll tell him when I go back home after Labor Day.”
Then she takes my free hand and refuses to let me pull it back. Eventually my hand softens in hers. It’s not a surrender, only a retreat.
“You’re probably right,” I say. “You should talk in person. Tell him how you really feel about things. No need to mention me. Leave me out of it, but you do have to have that conversation before you move on. That is, if you’re moving on. Until then, we should only be friends.”
The word is bitter on my tongue. For such a nice word, it sounds like blasphemy. Still holding her hand, I slip it behind my back and draw her close. I lean in slowly, slowly, and kiss her on the top of her head.
“You’re an honorable guy,” she says.
“That,” I say, releasing her, “is a matter of opinion, and believe me there are plenty of opinions to go around on that point.”
“So for now we’re just friends,” she says, blinking back the shine in her eyes. “But definitely friends, right?” She looks like she has something more she meant to say. I give her a second, but nothing more comes.
“Friends,” I say, fighting my lip from curling. I walk past her toward the house, and my body explodes with heat when her shoulder brushes against my arm. I try not to let my reaction show and slap my thigh, calling Sam to me.
That gesture, like a punctuation mark, brings our conversation to an end. Sam comes running and we go inside, sliding the glass door closed behind us.
When I look back over my shoulder, Katherine is stepping off the deck. She’s moving slowly, but her head is high. I know that posture of hers; it’s one of decisiveness, of stubbornness. It gives me something to hold on to. It gives me reason to hope that somewhere in the future she grabs onto for herself, somewhere in that world, there’s me.
Chapter Forty-Three
Bennet
Natalie roped me into this. Said she needed to use my truck, knowing I’d never let her drive it. The other thing she knew: I would have never agreed to this if she’d told me Katherine was coming along. It was too late by the time I figured out what was going on.
Now, and for the last torturous hour, the three of us have been driving around town in the rain, asking neighbors if we can borrow their wheelbarrows for Summer Fest. I have no idea what the girls want them for, but they seem to think they’ll be essential. I don’t ask.
The girls prattle on, oblivious to the awkward tension that is palpable in the cramped quarters of the cab. When it comes to the party, Katherine has moved past “serious planning mode” and is now in what she calls “execution phase.” Of course, she has to be seated in the middle spot. I can’t tell if she’s purposefully bumping her knee against mine, or if it’s just because this damn road is so rutted.
By the time we’re done, we’ve collected six wheelbarrows, which is about all the back of my truck will hold anyway. We’re now at Natalie’s house. She’s standing outside in a yellow rain jacket, directing a soaked Bruce and Ryan to unload the wheelbarrows into her back shed.
Katherine and I are still in the truck. Alone. My Cottoneze commercial comes on the radio. You gotta go. You’re on the run. Let Cottoneze… I quickly turn the channel, picking up a country station as Katherine smothers a laugh.
After a second, she says, “Thumb wars?”
I shoot her a look that says it’s a really bad idea to hold hands.
“What? It’s just thumb wars. It’s what friends do,” she says, as if I’m the one who’s being unreasonable.
She doesn’t give me time to protest and curls her fingers into those on my right hand. We start playing the game, moving our thumbs back and forth over our joined fists, trying to capture each other.
A Luke Bryan song comes on the radio, and Katherine asks, “Any more news about Nashville?”
“Just what you already know.”
“Have you told your parents about it yet?”
My thumb stops moving, hovering above her hand. Is she hinting at something? Could she have discovered my secret? I test the waters. “Why would I?”
“Just curious.”
She makes a few more strategic moves and captures my thumb under hers. Then, apparently the game is over, because she pulls back and faces me, straight on.
“I guess I don’t like the idea of my friend not being able to share things with his family, especially when good things are happening with his music.”
I pick at the peeling vinyl on my steering wheel. “It’s more complicated than that.”
“You and your dad had one fight. You should all be able to get over that.”
This isn’t something I like to talk about, but if I can’t talk about it with Katherine as a friend, then who can I talk to? Still, I don’t want her to think of me as someone who runs away from his problems. I left home by choice. It was my choice. I was in control. Not him.
She starts to turn away, but I stop her.
“My grandfather was a musician—my dad’s dad.” Her eyebrows pull together because, obviously, this isn’t much of an explanation.
“All the more reason for your dad to like music then,” she says.
I shift my body toward her as much as the steering wheel will allow. “My grandfather sang backup for a bunch of bands before getting his own contract with Atlantic Records when he was twenty-three. This was back in the sixties, and it was a huge deal. So huge, he walked out on my grandmother to pursue his music. My dad was barely five years old.”
“Oh,” she says, her voice dropping low. “I can understand how being abandoned would leave a bad taste in his mouth.”
And in that moment, I remember what she told me about her own father leaving. Of course, she’d understand what it felt like for my dad to have his father walk out on him. I hate to see that pain so evident on her face, but I love her sensitivity and how she’s letting herself feel it.
What I don’t love is the idea of her having empathy for my father. In fact, I would hate for there to be any connection between the two of them, and it’s not like this is the first time I’ve thought about that.
“A few years later,” I continue, scrubbing the thoughts from my mind, “Atlantic dropped him and he went over to the Red Bird label, but then that closed after only a couple years. He went back to playing in honky-tonks, but wasn’t on the radio again. Still, he never came back home. Whether that was pride or shame…”
It’s not pride or shame keeping me from going home. It’s not like that with me.
“That’s terrible,” she says, “but why should your dad ho
ld it against you? It’s not your fault what your grandpa did. It’s not your dad’s fault, either, for that matter. He’s got to see—”
“Who sees clearly when love is involved? My grandmother saw it as her husband loving music more than his family. She blamed her son, my dad—said if he hadn’t been born, she could have traveled with her husband. Dad doesn’t talk about it, but I can guess how things were for him at home based on how he treated me.”
“Bennet.”
I stare into her face and consider telling her everything. Then she’d understand. But after all I’ve told her about standing up for herself, what would she think of me? What would she think, knowing I let all that bad stuff happen to me? That, even after I wasn’t a little kid anymore, I still waited over a year to take control of my life?
“See this scar?” I ask, placing my index finger along my eyebrow. “I got that for auditioning for choir instead of forensics, like my dad told me to do. He backhanded me and his ring got me.”
Katherine’s face contorts with dismay. “I’m sure he—”
I pull back my T-shirt and show her my tattoo. “See there? In the E?”
She leans in. Her breath is warm on my skin. I know she can see it. The round scar, now nearly obscured by the black and gray lettering. “That’s from a cigarette being put out against my skin. That’s what you get when you win Battle of the Bands at my house.”
I hear the air catch in her throat, but I go on.
“Remember you asked me about my little finger?” I lift my left hand off the steering wheel to remind her, but she doesn’t look at it, so I guess she’s noticed the weird way it juts out.
I hold my hand there in front of me and directly in her line of vision. She takes it in hers, turning it over, running her fingers over the bump where my little finger meets my hand. I watch while her eyes glass over.
“My dad sees his own father in me, and he sees that as a huge betrayal. When I told him I was leaving college to pursue my music…”
I give the finger as much of a wiggle as I can. I mean to make light of it, but Katherine looks horrified. I shrug.
“I told you about the night he threw the bourbon bottle at my head? Well, it was a bigger fight than just that. He kept going on and on about how he was going to ‘break the cycle’ once and for all. But all he ended up breaking was my hand. It hurt like hell, but I didn’t realize it was actually broken right away. Maybe if I’d gone to see a doctor, but…anyway, I woke up one morning and it didn’t hurt anymore, but it was stuck like this. This one was bad, too,” I say, indicating my ring finger, “but it healed up better.”
Katherine lifts my hand to her mouth and kisses my knuckles. Her lips are warm, and the windows are fogging over, and the rain is still coming down, and it drowns out all other sounds but the pounding of my heart against my sternum.
“I was so pissed—terrified, really—when it happened, and Dad was like, ‘That’s justice,’ or karma, or whatever he said. I’m sure he hoped I wouldn’t be able to play guitar anymore, but I found a way to compensate. I don’t even think about it anymore. Much.”
Two fat tears are hovering inside Katherine’s lower lids. They’re the first she’s ever shown me. She blinks once, and they tumble over her cheeks.
“Your mom?” she asks, and for a second I don’t understand the question.
“Oh. My mom… Her problem with me has less to do with the music and more to do with me upsetting the family boat. She’s all about how things look on the outside. Control, D’Arcy.” I give her a meaningful look. “Control means don’t cry. Don’t laugh too loud. Make sure the lawn doesn’t get too long, or your hair, or even the story you want to tell her. Her single goal in life is to give the neighbors nothing to talk about. She’ll never forgive me for leaving.”
Just then, the truck door creaks open on its hinges and Natalie pops back into the cab. Rain runs off her onto the seat. She gives us a big grin, unaware that I’ve just laid everything bare in front of Katherine. And she’s still here with me. She hasn’t run. She’s still here, holding my hand, giving me her silent support.
My body sags with relief against the truck door. I’m done with our separation. No more of this “just friends” bullshit. We’re going to make things right again.
“That should do it! Thank you!” Natalie glances down at Katherine’s and my joined hands, then to Katherine’s face. If I’m not mistaken, I see a little bit of my own relief reflected in Natalie’s eyes.
She leans into Katherine and gives her a one-armed, sopping hug. “Now it’s on to the big day. This is going to be the best Summer Fest ever.”
Chapter Forty-Four
Katherine
The next evening, as I sit reading on the couch, trying to figure out how to break off my future plans with Andrew without losing him as a friend, a beam of light swings across the windows as the familiar crunch of gravel signals the arrival of someone’s car. I’m not expecting anyone, so it’s with some caution that I get up and peer through the kitchen window.
“Weird.” I don’t see anyone. I can’t even see a car. But I did hear one; I’m almost sure of it.
Curious, I crack open the front door to find Bennet already hovering in the doorway, his hand raised to knock. At the sight of him, I fling open the door.
His eyes go wide and his mouth pops open. I can’t help but notice that he’s clean-shaven, and there’s a small nick on his jaw like he’s out of practice or had been in a hurry.
He glances over his shoulder to his truck that’s parked on the road then rakes his hand through his hair.
“Um…did you want to come in?” I ask quickly before he changes his mind.
He laughs nervously. “I was standing here trying to decide if that was a good idea or not. Do you want me to come in?”
I shrug, playing it cool, even though his words have kicked up a rabble of butterflies in my stomach. I want to leap at him and wrap my legs around his waist. I want to do things that make me blush to say out loud.
“Of course you should come in,” I say nonchalantly. “We’re friends. I was just reading. You want to join me?”
He runs his hand over his face. Finally he says, “Yeah. I could read.”
As he walks to the bookshelves that flank the fireplace, I slide to the floor, resting my back against the couch. I pretend like I’m engrossed in my book, completely unaffected by his presence, because I have no idea how to read his intentions. Are we back to where we left off? Or are we just friends, like he said?
“Nice watercolors,” he says, and I try not to grin too broadly with pride. He draws his finger down the spine of each book in Calloway’s limited selection, now and then pulling one out to read the back cover. He shoves them back in, haphazardly, and they all lean to the left. Not so long ago this would have really bothered me.
When he finally chooses a book, he walks over to the couch with a smirk and sits on the floor beside me. He flashes me the cover—some wild-haired blond woman with her breasts falling out of a loosely tied corset. I have a hard time picturing this book as one of Calloway’s favorites; it was probably left behind by some previous summer girl.
“If you’re getting any ideas about her,” I say, “just so you know, I’m not into threesomes.”
He raises his eyebrows at my lame joke, and I think, Oh, lord, kill me now. But then he chuckles deep in his chest, stirring up those butterflies, and for the next hour we read side by side. The house is quiet except for the soft slip of paper through our fingers, the whine of the refrigerator, and the ticking of the clock. My mouth is dry as wool. My left leg is blazing hot where it presses against Bennet’s right. The electricity between us makes me check my hair to see if there are any strands actually lifting off my head.
But all is well. We sit. We continue to sit. More than once, my hand lifts out of habit to reach over and touch him. When I realize what I’m doing, I pull my hand back and try to play it off as something else. It’s agony, and if this goes on any longer,
it won’t just be my hand lunging for him.
It does go on longer, and Bennet doesn’t seem to be having any of the same impulse control issues.
It’s quite possibly the most awkwardly intense hour of my life. We sit so long that my butt hurts and my feet fall asleep. I move to the couch. Bennet follows, his long, lean body moving languidly. He repositions his body close enough to mine that I can still feel the heat. I wonder how long his patience is going to last with that book, and I wonder why I told him I wanted to spend the evening reading.
How has he interpreted that? What must he be thinking? I can’t imagine anything good. Read! Have I lost my mind?
I glance over at him. He’s staring at the page, his forehead crinkled. Seriously, do I present so little temptation for him that he can read all night long? But maybe that’s true. Maybe his little vacation from me has cooled things for him, more than it did for me.
I lean to my right, resting my book on the armrest of the couch, tucking my bare toes beneath Bennet’s leg. He pulls me by the back of the knees and lets me stretch out so that I’m lying on my back with my legs draped over his lap. I settle in and turn the page.
He lowers his book, resting it on top of my knees. The weight of his elbow presses gently into my groin, and my core starts throbbing. He knows my body so well there’s no question it’s intentional. All my focus is on one tiny point of contact. I’ve read the same paragraph three times now.
After another fifteen minutes of this, Bennet sighs and lays his book on the cushion to his left. “Okay, that’s it,” he says, leaning away from me.
“What’s it?” I ask, blinking myself back to lucidity.
“Put your book down, D’Arcy.”
I lay it open across my chest.
“I can’t do this anymore,” he says, pushing my legs off his lap and getting to his feet. “You’re killing me.”
I look up, eyebrows drawn together. “You’re leaving?”
“Hardly,” he says as he reaches down, and in one fell swoop, scoops me up and throws me over his shoulder.
