by Abbi Glines
In the living room, I placed both boxes on the coffee table then sat down on the sofa. Opening the one with the photos first, I went through them slowly. There was a photo of my mom at her Sweet Sixteen birthday party in Gran’s back yard, standing with a younger Wanda Sellers smiling at the camera. I sat that aside. I would take it to Mrs. Wanda when I went to visit her.
Taking my time, I studied each photo for some clue or possibly a guy. It wasn’t until I got to the last four pictures that I saw him. He was tall, had dark hair, and Mom was looking up at him with love. Was this Rebel? Or was it someone else? I looked at the next photo and this one was in someone else’s house. Mom was sitting on the boy’s lap and they were kissing. I couldn’t see his face clearly, but it was the same boy.
Then there was a strip of images from a photo booth. They kissed again, they smiled at the camera, they looked at each other, and the last one, the guy made a funny face while Mom was laughing. She seemed happy. I wasn’t sure I had ever seen my mom this happy. She was typically uptight and difficult to deal with. The girl in the photos didn’t appear that way at all.
The last picture was just of the boy. He was on a motorcycle, no helmet, looking at the camera but not smiling. Mom had said he died in a motorcycle accident. Rio’s mom said he overdosed. Emily had said he died in a car accident or motorcycle accident. Was “he” the same guy in these photos?
I set them all to the side and put the rest of the pictures back in Mom’s box. The letters would hopefully tell me more. Just as I reached for the box of letters, there was a knock on my door. Looking up, I saw Rio and suddenly felt guilty for going to the attic without him.
I put the letter box back down and went to let him inside.
“I went to the attic,” I said and waved a hand toward the boxes.
He nodded. “Good. Find anything?” he asked, but he seemed distracted.
“Yeah, I think so,” I replied, not sure how to explain Hillya’s son and if I should tell him until I had spoken to Hillya. I wasn’t sure what the right thing to do was.
“Okay, uh, you can fill me in later. I don’t have much time. Pop is expecting me to unload the strawberry truck that is coming in. The Strawberry Festival is this weekend and he’s gearing up.”
“Oh, alright. I didn’t know there was a Strawberry Festival here,” I said, surprised by the fact he didn’t seem interested in what I had found out.
“This will be its fifth year. It’s new. But have you seen Saul?”
I shook my head confused as to why he would come ask me if he couldn’t find Saul.
Rio sighed and ran his hand over the top of his head. “Shit,” he muttered.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s his mom. She’s,” he paused and looked torn about saying any more.
“Is Lily on another binge?” I asked.
He nodded. “Yeah, he woke up late last night at her place and she was gone. He texted both me and Drake around one in the morning, but we were both asleep and missed it. Now we can’t get him on the phone and he’s not been back all day. She gets into some dark shit and I’m worried he’s in trouble.”
“As in drugs?” I asked, fear slowly crawling up my spine.
He nodded. “Yeah. Last time he had to pull her out of a drug house. We went with him. That shit ain’t pretty.”
“Drug house?” I repeated horrified. I thought she took pills and drank too much. Saul had said nothing about drug houses. I wasn’t sure what drug houses were exactly. My sheltered life had made sure of it.
Rio nodded. “I’ve got to go unload the strawberries. If you hear from him, let me know. If no one hears from him by the time I’m off work, I’ll have to call his dad.”
“Dad?” I asked. I hadn’t realized he had a dad around here. Not that I knew much about Saul. I didn’t even know his last name.
“Yeah. Saul will be pissed. He was last time I had to call his dad, but dammit he needs to respond to my text or answer my calls.” Rio sounded frustrated with the entire situation.
“I take it he and his dad aren’t on good terms,” I said.
Rio grunted. “You could say that.”
“Does his dad live here?” I asked.
Rio laughed then shook his head. “No.” He reached for the door knob. “I gotta go. I’ll let you know if I hear from him.”
I wanted to ask why he laughed when I asked if Saul’s dad lived in town, but he was in a hurry. “Okay, bye,” I said instead.
Rio left and I looked at the letters again. My mind was now on Saul and Lily. I wasn’t sure I could focus on the letters right now. How could I help? How had Gran helped them?
“You could have left me a journal or something, Gran. If you were planning on bringing these people into my life, then a little direction would have helped.”
Eighteen
A shower, a change of clothes, and a batch of caramel oat cookies later, there was still no word from Saul. I had considered going to Lily’s penthouse and seeing if they were there more than once, but I didn’t. I kept waiting for Rio to text that Saul was okay.
After putting the cookies on the cooling rack, I topped them with oat-milk chocolate chips so that they would melt slowly and coat the tops then walked over and picked up my card to the Hendrix IV. They may not be there, but I could at least give it a try. Sticking it into the back pocket of my cut-off jean shorts, I headed for the door.
I didn’t get far. Saul was coming up the stairs when I stepped outside. I wasn’t sure if I should hug him, ask if he was okay, ask about Lily, or tell him to call Rio immediately. Instead of any of those things, I just said “Hey.”
He stopped at the second step from the top and looked at me. There were dark circles under his eyes. “Hey,” he replied.
We stood there like that, neither of us saying anything. He looked so defeated. We barely knew each other, but I realized I cared for him. I had been worried about him. I liked him. More than I should. More than was smart.
“Where’s Lily?” I finally asked.
He sighed and rubbed his temples. “Hospital,” he said. “She’ll be okay.”
“I’m sorry, Saul,” I told him, not sure what I should say. I had never known anyone who dealt with something like this. My mom no longer seemed difficult. I would call her tonight and see how she was. Her vanity and selfishness I could live with. There were much worse things that she could have done.
“Yeah,” he replied. He dropped his hand back to his side. “I don’t know why I came here.”
I didn’t say anything right away. I waited to see if he was going to say more. He didn’t.
“Maybe coming here is a habit. Gran used to be here and I assume you used to come to her for help with Lily.”
He glanced off into the yard then back at me. “That would make sense,” he said. “But it’s not why.”
“Oh,” I replied.
“She talked about you. Honey did,” he said, his gaze coming back to mine. “She talked about how sweet you were and how sheltered your life had been. She spoke about how although you were born to a teenage mother that you both had made it work. You had a plan for life and were on the right path.” He smiled then but it didn’t meet his eyes.
“She left some shit out though that might have been helpful that first day when I saw you struggling to put boxes in your car and I stopped to help.”
Knowing Gran had talked about me to Saul felt strange. I had never heard her speak of him or Lily, but he had known about me. He had stopped that day to help me because he knew who I was and what I was doing. It made sense now.
“What did she leave out?” I asked him.
He let out a hard laugh and shook his head then looked off into the yard again instead of at me. “She left out that your eyes express your every thought,” he replied. “She left out that when I looked into your eyes the first time I would f
ind it hard to fucking catch my breath.”
He turned his gaze back to me again. “She left out that I could see just how damn sweet you were by looking into your eyes and she left out that it would be impossible for me not to want to be around you after I met you.”
There were no words for this. I stood there staring at him, thinking possibly I may have fallen asleep and this was a dream. I knew what I looked like the first time we met and I was well aware that there wasn’t anything about me that would make a guy like him want me.
“But if she loved you so much then why the hell did she ever tell me about you? If she hadn’t told me about you, I wouldn’t have stopped that day. I wouldn’t have known who you were. I wouldn’t have given a shit that you needed some help.” He sounded angry.
“What does that have to do with her loving me?” I asked confused by his train of thought.
“Because, Henley, I am fucked up. She should have kept you from me. My life is a dark fucked-up mess. Everything about it. I’m not nice. I don’t have a damn clue what my path is or where to get on it. All I know is I have an addict for a mother and if I don’t keep her alive then no one else will. That’s what I fucking know about my future. It’s a dark, sad story and you don’t fit into it. You’re light and motherfucking rainbows. Me? I’m some level of Hell.” He stopped ranting and ran a hand through his hair, causing the curls to fall in a messy disarray. There was so much pain in his eyes I wanted to cry. This beautiful boy who I thought had walked out of a tropical vacation commercial appeared to have it all, yet he was tortured.
I took a step toward him and reached out my hand to take his. He looked down at our hands as I threaded my fingers through his. I wasn’t sure there was anything I could say that would make him see things differently but I wanted to try.
“You watch over your mom, you bail your friends out of jail, you stop and help a complete stranger because you liked her grandmother, and you risk your safety to save a girl who is acting out just to get your attention. That’s not things a dark person does. I don’t know what your life has been like, but I do know that through all the crap you have been dealt, you are still a nice person. You can say you’re aren’t but that’s not true.”
He closed his eyes tightly and let his head fall back as he let out a frustrated sigh. “God, Henley. You can’t say shit like that,” he said then looked at me again. “I came here to push you away so that you didn’t let me get close enough to kiss you again. I came here to warn you.”
Saul was nothing like Will. I had loved Will, knowing he would never hurt me. There had been a security with him that would never come with Saul. If I allowed myself to develop real feelings for Saul, if I spent time with him, if we kissed some more, I could be hurt. He could break my heart. It was a risk. I wasn’t a risk taker.
“What do you want from me?” I asked him.
“What do I want?” he asked and I nodded. He ran his thumb over my hand as I continued to hold his in mine. “I want to know you. I want to see you smile, at me. I want to be around you,” he paused. “And I want to kiss you again.”
I pulled him toward me with the hand I held. He came up the last step and I had to tilt my head back now to look up at him. “Then do it,” I said.
He grinned then. “Are you telling me to kiss you?”
“I’m telling you to do all of it. I’m not scared of you,” I assured him.
A look of pain crossed his eyes. “You should be,” he whispered.
“I think you’re wrong. Gran thought you were wrong,” I said.
He frowned. “Your gran would never be okay with this.”
“Oh really? Do you think that her sending me to Lily’s was innocent? Because I can tell you it was not. I am finding out more and more every day that the list she left me is a very well laid-out plan that Gran is conducting from her grave,” I informed him.
He chuckled and shook his head. “No, your gran would have never wanted you with me and I owe her a lot. Problem is, I don’t think I’m going to be able to stay away from you. I’ve fucking tried.”
My mouth curled into a smile. There was so much I didn’t know about my life and about Saul, but I liked being here with him. Talking to him like this. I was happy. That was all I needed to know for now.
“SAUL!” Drake yelled out.
Saul let go of my hand and turned to look back as Drake was getting out of the passenger side of Rio’s Jeep and Rio out of the driver’s side. Our moment was over.
“What the hell, man?” Drake called out, throwing his arms up in the air. “We were about to call Archer!”
Saul tensed at that name and I realized it must be his father. “I was about to call you back,” he replied.
Rio was looking at me and I could see the questions in his eyes.
“Replying to a fucking text message would have been nice,” Drake told him as he started toward the stairs. Rio came up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder, stopping him from coming up.
Drake looked back at Rio.
“He’s okay. We don’t need to stay,” Rio said and Drake turned his head to look back up at us. It seemed to slowly dawn on him that they may have interrupted something.
“Ooooh, so you two.” Drake waved a finger between the two of us. “You came here first. To her. I see… niiiice. She’ll be a helluva lot better to have around than Fleur’s crazy ass.”
Saul was looking at Rio and ignoring Drake. There seemed to be some challenge in his gaze. Rio held up his hands and backed up. “I told you we were friends. That is it. That’s all it ever was. You didn’t believe me.”
“I know you,” Saul replied. “You don’t have female friends.”
“I do with this one,” Rio said, nodding his head at me.
Drake hit Rio’s arm with the back of his hand. “Dude, she’s hot. He’s not an idiot.”
“Shut up,” Rio said to him with a roll of his eyes.
I stepped around Saul so that I was standing beside him. “He’s telling the truth,” I said in his defense.
Drake let out a hoot of laughter. “Sure he is!”
Saul was silent. He didn’t find any of this amusing. He was still watching Rio.
Rio looked at me then and I could see the question in his eyes. If he wanted to tell them we thought we could be siblings, I didn’t mind. As long as he didn’t know the details for Hillya’s sake. I shrugged then nodded.
Saul turned to look at me and I smiled up at him. He didn’t return the smile. He seemed to be trying to read something into the situation that wasn’t there. As if he expected the worst and we were lying to him.
“Saul,” Rio called his name as he walked closer to the bottom of the steps. When Saul didn’t look at him but continued to study me, Rio further explained, “We are just friends and we are about ninety-nine percent sure we have the same dead father.”
Saul swung his gaze back to Rio then back to me. His eyes wide in disbelief. I understood that because I had felt the same way when Rio had told me about this. Now, I knew better. More than Rio, as a matter of fact.
I heard Drake say “No shit!” but I didn’t look at him. I kept my eyes on Saul.
“Seriously?” he asked me.
I nodded. “Yeah. It’s one of those things Gran is orchestrating from her grave,” I told him.
“Damn,” Saul said under his breath.
“Yeah,” I agreed.
“So Hendrix, you staying here because we are heading out. I got two sorority girls from Texas headed to the house in a few. Both like to give blow jobs.” This time it wasn’t Drake talking about blow jobs that stood out.
Hendrix?
Nineteen
Saul closed the door behind him and I stared at the cookies that I had left cooling while I tried to put this together. Drake had called Saul, Hendrix. Lily lived in the Hendrix IV.
“You did
n’t know,” Saul said behind me.
I turned to look at him. “What is it I should know?” I asked him.
There was a small turn at the corner of his mouth and he looked like he wanted to laugh. “I knew you didn’t at first, but I thought you would have figured it out by now.” He looked pleased as he said it. “Damn, Henley if that doesn’t make me like you more. You gotta stop doing shit like this.”
“Is your last name Hendrix?” I asked him.
He nodded.
“How? Are you related to the Hendrix people or whoever owns the Hendrix stuff?”
Then he began to laugh. I wasn’t sure why this was funny. I was trying to figure this out.
“I am the Hendrix people, Henley. My father is Archer Hendrix, the CEO of Hendrix Corp.”
What? Was he joking? I studied his face to see if he was serious. Wasn’t the Hendrix Corp a massive chain worth billions of dollars? He drove a beat-up old truck and lived here. In this small town — the freaking Redneck Riviera.
“Your mom?” I asked, not sure what I was asking really. But wouldn’t the wife of Archer Hendrix live somewhere in a fabulous mansion?
“My parents divorced when I was fifteen. Mom’s addiction to drugs and alcohol was more than Dad wanted to deal with. He moved her here and I followed. Someone has to take care of her, but he didn’t care about that or her life. He and I aren’t close,” Saul explained.
I leaned back against the counter and crossed my arms over my chest. Today had been a day for revelations. I wasn’t sure how much more could be packed into one day.
“I stay out of the spotlight, but I have gotten into some things that the media or tabloids get a hold of… most girls recognize me from that.”
I looked up at him. “I don’t read or watch that kind of stuff. I prefer Netflix and books,” I told him.
He started laughing again and reached out and put his hand on my waist. “You keep making me fucking laugh and I may never leave,” he said.
When he was close to me like this and I could smell the sunshine on his skin, he was the scent of summer, it was hard to think of much else. Saul Hendrix was the best-looking man I had ever seen. Looking at him was very easy to do. But he was more than that and because of who he was, despite the messed-up life he had been dealt, I really, really liked him. Too much and far too quickly.
