Johnny grinned at me. “Are you committed to this Keaton guy?”
“Well, no.”
“Then why not come out with me?”
“It wouldn’t be right.” I had to fully end things with Keaton before I could even consider anyone else. I shook my head at myself. I couldn’t dare consider Johnny. Could I?
“What’s not right is the way that boy kissed you.”
My eyes went straight to his mouth. His beautiful, full lips and white teeth. I felt the blush heat my cheeks, and I turned away. “You’re older than me.”
“I’m eighteen. That’s only one year older.”
I looked back at him, the blush still staining my cheeks but something bold was rising inside me. I was enjoying this. I enjoyed this playful arguing. I liked him pushing me and me pushing back. I put my hands on my hips and smiled at him. “Well...you’re out of school already. I’m still in high school. I can’t go out with you.”
“Don’t go out with me then, just come for a ride on my bike. Feel the wind and the freedom.”
I paused, tucking my lips between my teeth. I imagined myself on his motorcycle, pressed up against his back. I cleared my throat. “I couldn’t possibly ride on a motorcycle.”
His grin widened, and he laughed. The sound was low and rumbly, and it woke something deep within me. “Why not?”
My blush returned full force, and I felt every difference between us. He’d had to grow up fast. His father wasn’t around, and I knew he’d been working for years to help his mother. He’d been in trouble with the law. It seemed like I was always hearing about him being in some fight or another. He probably knew more about the world than I could possibly imagine. But I refused to be embarrassed. I straightened my spine. “I don’t know why you’re laughing. I’ve just never ridden on a motorcycle. I don’t think I’m suited for it.”
He leaned in close and traced a finger across the back of my hand. “I was laughing because I like the way you talk, Audrey. I hope you never stop calling it a motorcycle.”
My breath hitched in my throat, just as the back door slammed. “Come help me carry these things, will you, Audrey?” Mary called.
I blinked, trying to clear my head.
“Good night,” Johnny said, and before I knew it, he was out the door.
Chapter 6
Johnny
It was now my mission to get Audrey on the back of my bike. I shrugged on my leather jacket, put on my helmet, and sped away from the curb. I hadn’t planned on going for another drive tonight. It had been a long day. I’d worked for ten hours at the shop, then helped Graham paint his Dad’s garage. I wanted to go home and crash. But then I saw Audrey through the window of the creamery.
I’d driven past twice before I worked up the courage to go in. I wasn’t going to let the opportunity pass to talk to her again, but now I was all keyed up. I drove around for an hour, thinking about how soft her skin had felt under my fingertips, and about the way her cheeks had gone pink, and how much I wanted to press my mouth to them. About her easy, quiet laugh. Her yellow dress and bare shoulders. The way she pronounced motorcycle, like she was reading it from a dictionary. I thought about the way she looked at me—not like I was a criminal or like I was trouble, but like I was a person.
Mentally exhausted as well as physically, I headed home. As I pulled into the gravel driveway, I saw Mom’s car was already there. She worked the three to eleven shift at the nursing home, so I was later than I thought. I went inside and found her digging around in the cabinet. She turned when she heard me shut the door, and held her arms out. I hugged her, and she put her head on my chest and sighed deeply.
“Long day?” I asked
“Hard day.”
I knew what that meant. She’d lost a resident. I pulled back. “Who was it?”
“Roger Sweeney.” She wiped beneath her eyes and gave me a sad smile.
I shook my head and sighed. Mr. Sweeney had been there for years—as long as I could remember. In the summers when I was little, and Mom couldn’t afford a babysitter, the nursing home let her bring me along. I liked to talk to the residents, and some of them would play games with me. It was like having forty grandparents. Mr. Sweeney was one of my favorites. He liked cinnamon red hots. He kept them in the pocket of his shirt, and handed them to me one at a time. He didn’t like to play games, but he talked to me like I was an adult.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Mom patted my cheek, looking at me tenderly. “I’m sorry, too.”
“I’ll make us something to eat,” I offered.
“I’d appreciate it. My feet are hurting today. Not as badly as my heart, but hurting all the same.”
“Go sit on the couch and put your feet up. I’ll bring dinner to you there.” I waited for Mom to push back. She liked to eat in the dining room. She said that just because there were only two of us in this family, that didn’t mean we had to act differently than other families. It was a testament to how tired she was that she nodded and headed to the living room.
I made grilled cheese sandwiches and heated up a can of tomato soup. I carried her bowl and plate to her, then returned with my own. I’d eaten dinner at Graham’s, but I could always eat. I joined her on the couch, putting my feet up beside hers.
“Thank you, Johnny. I hope you know how much I appreciate all you do for me.”
I leaned over and kissed the side of her head. “We take care of each other.”
“We sure do. Now tell me, how was your day?”
I couldn’t stop the grin from spreading across my face. “It was a good day.”
She gave me a sly look. “Never in all my life have I seen you smile like that. What was so good about it?”
I shrugged, still grinning like a fool.
“Fine. Don’t tell me tonight. You’ll tell me eventually.”
She was right. I told her almost everything. The good things, anyway, and Audrey was definitely a good thing. But I’d wait to tell her until Audrey said yes.
“It rained last night,” I said. “The gutter over the porch ran over again. I’ll clean it out on Sunday.”
“I wondered what all those leaves were doing on the front steps.”
I picked up our empty dishes and carried them to the kitchen, running the water hot so I could wash them.
“Leave them, I’ll do them in the morning,” Mom said.
I peeked my head around the corner. “Only if you’ll go to bed right now instead of doing laundry or some other chore.”
“Deal,” she said, smiling with tired eyes.
I took a shower, scrubbing my fingernails extra with the little scrub brush, trying to get the grease from the shop out of them. Then I noticed the paint on my forearms, and scrubbed them with the brush, too. Sundays were my only day completely off work. I’d clean the gutters then drive to the nearest mall so I could get new clothes. Half of me felt like an idiot. A new pair of boots wasn’t going to make Audrey notice me. It wouldn’t make her say yes the next time I asked her out. But the other half of me thought it might make me stand a little taller, and she probably would notice that.
Chapter 7
Audrey
The morning after Johnny asked me out at the creamery, I went to my Aunt Glory’s house first thing. She answered the door in her bathrobe, with a frown on her usually sunny face. “It’s early, Audrey, but I’m guessing you have a good reason.”
“It’s about a boy,” I said, still breathless from speed walking over.
Her eyes went wide. “Well get on in here and spill your guts. We’ll have donuts and dish.”
“Is Tyler still asleep?” I asked, following her through the house and sitting at her kitchen table, hoping my fifteen-year-old cousin was either out or asleep so I could have Glory to myself.
“Of course he is. It’s not even eight in the morning.”
I smiled sheepishly at her. “Sorry. I couldn’t fall asleep last night, and then I couldn’t stay asleep this morning.”
; She set a bag of powdered donuts on the table and sat across from me. “Don’t worry about that now, I’m wide awake and have my ears on. Is this about Keaton?”
“Um, no?”
“Are you asking me or telling me?”
I laughed and took a donut from the bag, the powdered sugar dusting the tops of my legs. I proceeded to tell her about the kiss with Keaton and the aftermath, and how I was supposed to be thinking about my feelings for him.
When I finished the story, I sat back and waited for her warm reassurance. Instead, she gave me a stern look. “You’re not listening to your gut.”
Affronted, I crossed my arms. “Well, maybe not everyone’s gut speaks so clearly.”
She shook her head and clucked her tongue. “You let Keaton talk you out of your certainty. You need to trust yourself.”
“I know, but I just...I feel bad.”
She blinked slowly at me. “Well, don’t.”
I laughed again. Coming here had been the right choice. Aunt Glory was so blunt, yet so loving, and talking to her always made me feel better. “Okay. I’ll talk to him again when he gets back.”
“Where’d he go?”
“He and his family left this morning for the lake. They’ll be gone through the weekend, but back for the Fourth of July. But I guess I can’t talk to him about this on a holiday, so I’ll wait until after.”
Glory shook her head and clucked her tongue. “You’ll talk to him the first time you see him.”
“But that will be at the town picnic on the Fourth.”
“So? What are you going to do, hold his hand on the picnic blanket? Let him kiss you again under the fireworks? You have to tell him.”
I let out a huge breath. “Okay. I will.”
Glory brushed the powdered sugar off her hands. “There. I’ve done it again—I solved your boy trouble.”
I smiled, but cocked my head to the side. “Actually, there’s something else.”
“Oh?” she asked, leaning close.
I nibbled on a donut. What would she say if I told her about Johnny? Would she act like my sisters had and tell me he was dangerous? It seemed like she could be the only person in the world who might be on my side. Still, I edged in gently. “How do you know if a guy is just teasing when he asks you out?”
She narrowed her eyes. “Any guy who would tease about something like that should be avoided like the plague.”
“Okay, maybe tease wasn’t the right word. How do you know if a guy is serious?”
She rolled her eyes. “If you’re wondering that, tease was exactly the right word. Did someone ask you out?”
I nodded.
“And you’re having trouble deciding if he meant it?”
I nodded again.
She sighed. “Well, that’s more to do with you than him, it sounds like. Where have you misplaced your self-confidence?”
I smiled, chuckling a little. “He’s not the kind of guy I ever thought would be interested in me. It’s a little hard to believe.”
“What kind of guy is he?”
I shrugged. “The kind I’m not sure I want to tell my parents about.”
Aunt Glory grinned and passed me another donut. “That’s the best kind. Who is it?”
I bit my lip, hesitating.
“Are you ashamed to be interested in him?” she asked, open curiosity on her face.
“Gosh, no! Not at all. It’s kind of the other way around. I can’t understand why he’d like me. I’m not...exciting.”
“Psh. That’s ridiculous. This is the most excitement I’ve had all week.”
I laughed again, shaking my head. I decided to spit it out. “Johnny Bright.”
I braced myself for her to warn me away from him, to say he was bad news, and that I needed to keep my distance. She didn’t. Instead, she grinned the widest, slyest grin I’d ever seen.
“Johnny Bright asked you out?”
“Last night at the creamery, where I work now.”
“A job, too? Even more excitement.”
I beamed under her praise. “He came in at closing and asked me out.”
“What did you say?”
“I told him no. In fact, I kind of argued with him about it. Gave him all sorts of reasons why I couldn’t. And now I sort of regret it.”
“Sort of?”
“I thought about him all night.”
She tapped her chin. “I can see why. He’s handsome. He’s that brooding, silent type.”
“And he gets in fights. And I know he got in trouble for spray painting on the bridge, and...other things.”
She shot me an understanding look. “There is that.”
I let that hang in the air. I turned it over in my mind. I hadn’t actually heard of him being in trouble recently, other than a fight at the beginning of the summer. I heard about it because that’s the way this town worked, and the fight had been pretty bad. It was at the gas station, of all places, and there had been like ten guys involved. The police had to break it up. I didn’t understand that kind of behavior. I didn’t like it.
I decided to leave those uncomfortable thoughts behind and move on to the next issue. “Here’s my question. I get the feeling that Johnny is going to ask me out again. And that makes me feel all bubbly and weird inside, and I really, really like thinking about it. Yet, when Keaton did the same thing, when he decided to be persistent and not give up, it made me uncomfortable. Neither of them took me at my word, yet, I like that Johnny didn’t. I want him to ask me again. I have no idea if I’ll say yes, but I admit I’m curious. Why do I like Johnny’s persistence, but not Keaton’s? Just because I’m maybe, possibly, interested in Johnny? Shouldn’t I dislike it from him, too? Isn’t it wrong, or bad, that I don’t?”
Glory listened carefully to my speech, somehow able to parse my babbling. “It’s not wrong or bad. They’re just feelings. You don’t need to evaluate them so deeply. And I understand it. It makes sense. You want Keaton to give up, you don’t want Johnny to. Persistence is only fun when it’s flirting—when both parties enjoy it.”
Had Johnny and I been flirting? “It was kind of fun to argue with him about it,” I admitted.
“He challenges you.”
I thought about that, liking the way it sounded. I wanted someone to challenge me, and suddenly, I wanted more than anything, to challenge him right back. “What do you think my parents will say?”
A laugh popped out of Glory, and it was so contagious I had to laugh, too. “Well, my brother will probably be fine with it. You know him, the man with the annoyingly cool head. But your mother...she’s going to worry.”
“She’ll worry, yeah, but will she let me go out with him?”
Glory put a hand on mine. “The thing I like most about your parents is that they give you girls the freedom to be yourselves. To make your own decisions and your own mistakes. It might take them a while to come around, but they always do. You’ll decide on your own if you want to get to know Johnny Bright, and if you decide to, they’ll trust your judgment.”
I ate another donut, mulling that over. Being near Johnny made me feel such wild things, things I wanted to feel again, that I wasn’t sure I could trust my own judgment.
Chapter 8
Johnny
I scooped a fistful of leaves and debris from the gutter, and dropped it into the bucket that dangled from my ladder. The sun beat down on my head, and my sweat-soaked T-shirt stuck to my back. As miserable as the conditions were, I didn’t mind. I liked this kind of labor, where I could let my mind wander while I worked, and the end result was visible and made a real difference.
I’d gotten a later start than I planned. Instead of doing this in the cooler hours of the early morning, Clay had called and asked if I could help him fix his car. It wouldn’t start and he needed to get to work at noon for his Sunday shift as a dishwasher at Chambers, so that came first.
Since his battery had died a couple times in the last month, I figured it was the alternator. We ran to the
parts store and got one, and I installed it, showing him how it was done so he could do it for himself next time.
After we fixed it, I followed him to Chambers and had a quick lunch, and now I was up on this ladder in the full sun of the hottest part of the day. I scooped quicker. Pausing to tip my head down and wipe my brow across my shirt sleeve, I caught a glimpse of pink a few houses up the street.
It was Audrey, wearing white shorts and a pink, sleeveless shirt. At the mere sight of her, my heart rate kicked up. What was she doing here? As far as I knew, she didn’t know anyone in this crummy neighborhood. The sun was in my eyes no matter what I did, but I squinted and looked closer. She was walking slowly, pausing to turn her head this way and that. A slow smile formed on my face. She was here looking for someone, and that someone might be me, and she hadn’t spotted me yet.
Then I remembered what I looked like. Sweaty with gunky hands, and I hadn’t showered after helping Clay fix his car because I knew I’d be doing this grimy work. Dang it. I was planning to go clothes shopping later today, so I could make a better impression, and she comes along when I look terrible and smell worse. Well, too late now. She was here and I wouldn’t waste the opportunity.
I went back to work on the gutters, giving her the opportunity to notice me and speak first, if she even wanted to. After all, she might be here for some other reason than to see me. I forced myself not to turn back to look at her, but I felt it the moment she saw me. The hair on the back of my head prickled.
“Johnny?”
I turned slightly, not bothering to contain my wide smile. I liked this girl, and I wasn’t going to pretend otherwise. I wasn’t going to play it cool. I’d lay my cards out there and let her decide how the hand would be played. I looked down into her nervous face. I unnerved her, that was obvious. I wanted to put her at ease, but I wasn’t sure how. “Hey, Audrey.”
I climbed down the ladder, bringing the bucket of debris with me. It needed emptying anyway. When I landed on the grass, I stayed several feet back, so as not to scare her. “What are you doing out this way?”
Broken Rebel (Sparrow Sisters Book 2) Page 5
