by Mia Archer
Yeah, it was a good thing mom wasn't up here to poke and prod and see me hiding these away. I might’ve thrown Kirsten to the wolves, but it was necessary to keep the wolf from smelling blood up here.
No, if she saw that she’d know without a doubt that I was going on a date, and she’d put two and two together pretty quick. I hurriedly stuffed the racy underwear into the bottom of my bag and zipped it up.
I moved back down to the kitchen and paused to watch for a moment. Mom was still chatting away at Kirsten. Talking about Ethel, and how much fun it must be to work with her. Meanwhile Kirsten had gotten over her shellshocked look. She had a smile on her face and was laughing easily right along with my mom.
It made me feel warm and fuzzy seeing the two of them together like that. It made me feel good that they could get along, though of course that also brought a frown my face. Seeing the two of them laughing and chatting in there was also a reminder that my time with my mom and with Kirsten was limited. I didn't know how much longer I had with either of them, what with Kirsten’s plans to move off to the city as soon as she had enough experience and my mom in the state she was. Sure she was in good shape now, but everything I'd read said that could change very quickly.
I pushed those thoughts away. This was supposed to be a happy couple of days away in the city with Kirsten. I wasn't going to do myself any favors by starting that happy and fun experience off by thinking about how these relationships were eventually going to end. Everything ended, after all, and it should be about the journey and not what happened at that ending.
I stepped into the kitchen and jingled the keys to the truck. Not the old truck my dad used to drive around the farm. The new one. Well, it was newer at least, though just about anything was new compared to the ancient machine I usually drove. He got it right before he passed, and I’d inherited it even though I hardly ever drove the thing unless I was traveling. It’d gotten a lot of use when I was still in school.
"Are you ready to go?" I asked.
Kirsten looked up in surprise. "Why do you have your keys out? I thought I was driving? There’s no way I’m driving in that old beater you’re always clattering around in. That thing is not highway safe!"
"Nope. Not a chance that's happening," I said. "I've ridden in that death trap you call a car, and I have no desire to be trapped in that thing up for a drive that lasts more than a few minutes in and out of town. We’re taking the new truck."
“The new truck?”
“Yup. Well, newer at least.”
“You mean all this time you’ve been complaining about my car and you have something newer than that old beater you’re driving around?” she asked.
I sniffed. “It’s a classic.”
She looked down and grumbled. "You can't do this. I'll pay for gas or something."
I cocked an eyebrow. "Don't give me that. I know what you make at the library, and you can't cover the cost of gas."
"Sure I can!" she said.
"Nope. I'm not letting you," I said. "I have everything planned out. The trip. Where we’re going to stay. Everything."
Kirsten let out a noise that was very near a growl. Meanwhile my mom was looking back and forth between the two of us. She had that considering look on her face again. And I suddenly had the feeling that the more I sat here talking to Kirsten like the two of us were in a relationship, the more likely it was that mom might figure something out.
"So are you just going to sit there?" I asked. "Or are you going to come along?"
Kirsten blinked and shook her head. Looked at me and then to my mom. And she seemed to realize what had just happened between the two of us. Saw the same crafty considering look on my mom's face. She smiled and stood.
"I guess you're right," she said. "We should get going."
"I thought you'd agree with me."
Though as she brushed past me she muttered "this isn't over yet."
I fixed her with my best smile and waved to my mom as I hefted my bag. I was about to step out the door when I felt a hand at my side. I looked down in surprise. Sure enough mom had done another one of her mysterious sprints and her hand was on my arm. She looked up at me.
"I hope you have fun over the next couple of days," she said. "And don't worry about me. I'll be fine, and I can always call the neighbors if I get into trouble."
I reached out and gave her a hug. It felt a little different giving her hugs these days because of the air tubing between us. Also because she always felt a little thinner these days than she had in the past.
"I love you mom," I said.
"I love you too," she said. "No matter what. I want you to know that."
And here we were again. I felt like we were on the verge of having another moment, but I reluctantly pulled away. Smiled at her as I brushed a strand of hair away from my face.
"Are you coming?"
Kirsten's voice broke the spell. I turned and smiled at her. She was getting a rather large suitcase out of her car. I wasn't sure how I’d fit that thing in the truck cab. I might have to toss it in the bed.
"Be right there," I said.
I leaned in and gave my mom a kiss on the cheek and then moved down the porch towards the car. That thing was so big that it looked like she was going to need help. How could one girl need that many things for a couple of days in the city? Damn!
13: Change of Hearts
"You really don't have to do this," I said.
"I don't have to do it, but that's not going to stop me," Savannah said.
"At least let me pay for something. I can get our hotel?"
Savannah shook her head and turned to smile at me. A head turn that took her attention away from the road. I held the bar over my head in a white knuckled grip as she turned back and swerved just before she went off the side of the road. I breathed a sigh of relief.
"There's not a chance you're going to pay for the hotel. I already paid for the whole thing," she said.
"Could you at least let me go halfsies with you?" I asked.
Savannah bit her lip and shook her head again. She was obviously enjoying the way I squirmed over her paying for everything.
"No. Not a chance anything like that is happening," she said.
I sighed. Damn it. Why did she have to be so damn frustrating? Sure it was a nice thing and all that she was doing, but at the same time I felt like I should pay for something. She glanced over at me again and the whole car went with her in the same direction as that glance.
"Can you at least promise to keep your eyes on the road?"
Savannah raised both eyebrows. "What are you talking about? It's like you don't think I'm a good driver or something…"
"Savannah!"
Savannah looked in front of us and skillfully moved the truck to the side right before we bumped into the back of a semi. That could have potentially been very bad. Already I felt my pulse racing and I wanted nothing more than to be at our destination so I wouldn’t have to endure this torture any longer.
"You could at least let me drive on the ride home," I said.
Savannah stuck her tongue out, but then quickly turned her attention back to the road. She was a decent driver when she paid attention.
"I'll think about it if you stop bothering me about paying for everything," she said.
“Fine,” I grumbled. I still didn’t like it, but it if meant a chance of surviving the return trip I’d give her whatever she wanted.
Savannah pulled onto an off ramp and fifteen minutes later we were pulling up to a hotel. I figured she’d go directly for the parking garage, but to my surprise she pulled up to the front of the hotel instead.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
She looked at me like I'd gone crazy. "Parking?"
"But…"
Then her door opened and I panicked for a moment, thinking for sure that we were getting carjacked. Savannah acted like it was nothing though.
Then I realized the guy had a suit on. Of course. She was getting her truck parked
by a valet. Which was pretty much a totally foreign experience to me.
My parents weren't rich. They were well off by the standards of our hometown, but they weren't wealthy by any stretch of the imagination. Paying someone to park your car when you could just park it yourself and walk down to the check-in counter was a foreign concept to me.
Savannah turned and fixed me with an expectant look. "Are you coming?"
"Yeah, I guess I am," I said.
Savannah handled all of the checking in. Not that I could have done anything. She'd made all the reservations, after all, and that meant the room was in her name. In a moment we were up in a room that had a nice view of the city. I could see lights twinkling outside. It looked impressive.
"Damn. You went all out for this," I said. "Are you really this loaded?"
"Loaded enough," Savannah said. "At least enough to afford a nice trip into the city every once in a while. Besides, I haven't had a real vacation in years, and I figured what better time to splurge just a little than our first official overnight together?"
I blinked and realized that this was our first official overnight. Out of town, at least. There’d been a couple of times when Savannah had left my apartment pretty late in the night, or early in the morning depending on how you reckoned that sort of thing. She'd never stayed long enough for me to fix breakfast, is what I’m getting at. She'd always been worried about getting back to her mom, which I could understand even if it was frustrating not having her there waiting for me in the morning.
I went over and wrapped my arms around her. Leaned in and gave her a quite thorough kiss against the backdrop of the city lights twinkling in the distance. I figured if we were having an overnight like this then it meant things were getting decently serious, but I also wasn't going to put a jinx on anything by saying something like that out loud.
Besides, it's not like we were talking about moving into an apartment together or anything. I figured it would be a good long while before we talked about that. Though I was starting to consider that as a real possibility. I was even starting to think that maybe staying in our small town might be a possibility as long as I had Savannah at my side.
That was something to think about later, though. Right now I wanted to enjoy being with Savannah. Feeling her against me. I looked out the window.
"That's a very nice view you got," I said.
"I think the view’s better in here," Savannah said.
I turned to her and she winked. I reached out and smacked her shoulder playfully. "Did you really just say that?"
"Maybe I did?" Savannah said. "What's it to you? What's the point of being with a girl if you can't flatter her with cheesy lines?"
"Right," I said.
I was about to launch into a couple of cheesy lines of my own when my stomach growled loud enough that both of us could easily hear it. Savannah looked down and then back up to me. Grinned.
"Maybe we should go get a bite to eat or something?"
"I am pretty starved after that drive in. Being terrified really takes it out of you," I said.
"Fuck you," Savannah said, but there was a twinkle in her eye and a smile on her face that told me it wasn't meant as an insult.
"That's the idea," I said. "But we need to do that after we have dinner, deal?"
"I'd be up for seeing where the night leads us," Savannah said. "Now let's head down. I saw a nice restaurant attached to the hotel lobby."
"A hotel restaurant? Seriously? I asked. "Aren’t those usually expensive?"
Savannah shook her head and leaned in to kiss me. "Would you stop worrying about money like you're a poor librarian for just a little while? I've got this."
The restaurant turned out to be a pretty nice place. A little more pricey than I was used to, but not exactly the kind of place where the super rich paid five hundred dollars for a steak or something ridiculous like that. I never understood the point of that. Especially when you could just grill your own and it would be just as good as anything you got at a place like that.
Then again I'd long ago reconciled myself to not having that sort of money given the profession I'd gone into. Maybe that annoyance at the idea of a five hundred dollar steak was just me trying to feel better about living a life where I’d never get to taste a five hundred dollar steak.
I looked to Savannah and she blushed just a little, but her blushes weren’t nearly as intense here as they'd been back when we first met. Back then it seemed like she might die from the blood loss what with all of it moving up to her face and down her neck and along her chest. A chest that I enjoyed quite a bit. That I'd explored very thoroughly since we started getting together.
It seemed odd to think that this had been going on for a few months now. Odd, but so good.
"What are you thinking about?" Savannah asked.
"I'm thinking about how glad I am that I have you in my life," I said.
This time the blush did turn up to full power. None of the half blushing that had been there a moment ago.
"Flatterer," she said.
"What can I say? You're beautiful!"
She really did look absolutely beautiful. Savannah was completely herself tonight. A radiant girl who didn't have a care in the world. She wasn't drawn in on herself like she usually seemed to some degree when we were back home. Not that I could exactly fault her for acting that way when we were back home. I'd seen the way she got treated by some people. I knew what she had to deal with.
But at the same time it was nice to see her as she truly was. As she truly could be, here in the city where she was far from her worries. Far from the things that caused her to shut down. I wished I could see her like this all the time.
"I feel like there's more to it than thinking I'm beautiful," Savannah said. “Come on. What has that worried look on your face? You know you can’t hide these things from me.”
"I don't know if that's something we should necessarily talk about," I said.
I really didn't think it was something we should talk about. I'd just been thinking about how she got withdrawn when she was in the town that she she loved. I had a feeling telling her my feelings on the matter would bring us dangerously close to getting into an argument. An argument was the last thing I wanted right now. I just wanted to enjoy my time with her in the city.
"Seriously. Go ahead. We've been together long enough that I don't think we should be hiding things from each other," Savannah said.
I sighed. "I was just thinking that I really enjoy you like this here in the city."
"Well I enjoy being with you in the city too," Savannah said. "Why would you think I’d get upset if you said something like that?"
"Because I was thinking about how you are back home."
"How am I back home?" she asked.
And here we were. Moving close to dangerous territory. Territory where we could potentially get into that argument that I desperately wanted to avoid.
"It's just that when we're back home you always seem a little withdrawn. Out here you’re smiling and bubbly and confident. Back home it feels like you're always looking over your shoulder. I hate to see you like that. Sometimes I wonder if it might be better for you if you got away from that place."
Savannah shrugged. "Sometimes I think the same thing, but it's not like I can leave my mom behind. It's not like I can I do anything about Pastor Dan being a first rate asshole or anything either. He’s always been that way."
Well shit. She brought Pastor Dan into it. I was about to offer my opinion on something that probably wasn't any of my business, even if it was very much my business from a certain point of view.
"Are you sure about that?" I asked. "Have you ever thought about just telling him to leave you alone? Maybe stand up to him?"
I paused and barreled right on without thinking about what I was saying. "I don't want the woman I love to live in constant fear."
I also didn't want to have to constantly be the one standing up for her. I figured at a certain point she had to o
wn who she was, what she was, but at the same time I recognized the hypocrisy in that statement considering I wasn't exactly willing to be out and proud about who and what I was either. At least not within the county limits of the place where I grew up and was employed. We were both sneaking, after all.
Savannah fixed me with an unreadable expression. It was odd. She searched my eyes. She wasn’t angry like I thought she’d be. And then it was my turn to blush as I realized exactly what I’d just said. The L word. Damn it.
I put a hand to my mouth. Sure that accurately described how I felt about her, but at the same time it felt like it was entirely too soon to be throwing that word around. Though Savannah smiled. She seemed to be reacting well enough. She wasn't getting up and running out of the restaurant or anything. I figured that was a good sign.
She leaned forward. Her smile grew even wider. And she whispered in a conspiratorial voice. "Could you say that again?"
"That you need to stand up to that asshole Pastor Dan?"
"I'm talking about the bit after that," Savannah said. "The one that had that a certain word in it?"
I squeezed my eyes shut. Shook my head. Here I'd been trying to have what I thought would be a difficult conversation with her about standing up to that asshole, about maybe being herself at least with people who knew, and it had gone in a completely unexpected direction. A completely unexpected direction that was entirely my fault, to be fair. I was the one who opened my big mouth, after all.
"Fine. I said I love you. Are you happy?"
Savannah did look happy. For a moment, at least. But then she sighed and turned away. I recognized the defeated Savannah that I'd seen whenever Pastor Dan was around. Whenever it was clear she was thinking about her mom, or maybe about our future together. What future we could have considering our long term plans hadn’t really intersected so far.
But then there was that nagging voice in the back of my head. That voice that told me maybe I’d be okay with staying in that small town if I had someone special to share my life with. A nagging voice that had been getting louder and louder the more time I spent with Savannah.
