by K. S. Thomas
But he simply shrugged and said, “You could do better.” Then he gave a little whistle to Reesie signaling their exit and began to move past me to leave.
The rhythm of nerves that had set my body abuzz, dropped into my gut like a solid rock and suddenly I felt ridiculous for assuming that Emerson’s annoyance with Tyler was anything more than just due to his obnoxious personality. After all, it had annoyed me plenty during the year we’d dated.
“That’s really none of your business though, is it?!” I snapped as Emerson walked out of the kitchen. He paused in the doorway a moment before turning around.
“You’re right, it’s none of my business. Sorry. It’s just…”
“What?”
“When I think of you, I’m always going to remember that little girl who grabbed my hand in the woods when she got scared, or expected me to catch her if she slid while climbing on the rocks when we were fishing down by the lake. I know we haven’t seen each other in almost twenty years, but having you here again, it doesn’t feel any different. Whether it’s from falling on a slippery rock or some undeserving asshole who isn’t worth your time, I’m always going to want to protect you, Lissy.”
He smiled, but there was a strange sadness about him and suddenly I had an overwhelming urge to run toward him and wrap my arms tightly around his neck. I didn’t, but I definitely wanted to.
“I get it. It doesn’t feel any different for me either.”
I automatically walked the length of the house until I reached the game room off of the garage. Right below was the basement which was where Spence and I had stayed every time we came up here.
As expected, I still had clothes in the dresser from the last time we’d come out to do some fishing. It had been several years, but there was no reason they wouldn’t still fit.
I grabbed a towel from the linen closet and headed for the shower. After, I searched the medicine cabinet and found everything I needed from deodorant to a toothbrush. Noonie Skeeter always had the place stocked better than a five star hotel.
Then, with nothing left to do, I threw myself back into the bed which Reesie was already happily occupying and reached for the remote. I must have flipped through every channel at least three times before I settled on the Food Network. Wasn’t like I was really going to watch anything anyway. Mostly I just wanted something to drown out the noise of my own thoughts.
Coming out here had been a bad idea. Shit was getting more and more confusing by the minute. First Liss and I had that magic moment in the barn and I thought for one stupid second that something was happening between us only to be introduced to her ‘fiancé’ a few short hours later.
Of course Noonie Skeeter had volunteered me to give him a ride up here, but the truth was I’d have probably nominated myself for the job anyway. A sick curiosity had taken over the second Tyler had shown up asking for ‘Callie’. At first I’d thought he’d landed at the wrong farm. No one there had ever called her that. Sure, I seemed to be the only one still calling her Lissy or Liss, but from what I’d gathered she was now going by Calista or Cal. Definitely not Callie. She wasn’t a Callie.
On the upside, my instincts about Tyler the dipshit had been dead on. And, even better, he was already history. Except now I was wondering if maybe I was too.
Seeing that little punk, realizing that this was the sort of guy she’d been dating, made me realize several things. For starters, I was old. Not Santa Claus old, but old enough. At twenty-three I’d thought thirty-three sounded like a million years away and for all I knew, Lissy was looking at me and thinking the exact same thing.
Then there was the issue of style. Tyler had the look. He fit the part. Seeing her stand beside him, it made sense. Even in her sweet summer dress and cowboy boots, she’d never look like she belonged to me. No matter how much my heart was already telling me she did.
Chapter 8
It was nearly midnight when my phone rang. I had completely lost track of time working on Savannah’s gown and the sound of ‘Hillbilly Bone’ cutting through the silence scared the crap out of me.
“Noonie? What’s wrong?”
“Why would anything be wrong?”
I glanced at the time twice to make sure I’d read it right in my hurry to answer the phone. I had. “Because it’s the middle of the night, Noonie. Shouldn’t you be sleeping or something?”
“What are you, my mother?! I don’t have no damn bedtime.”
I stifled a laugh. “My bad. Okay then, what’s up?”
“Nothin’ much. Just wonderin’ if I should be expectin’ a double weddin’ here next Sunday.”
Fucking Tyler. He’d told my grandmother? He didn’t even know her.
“No, Noonie. No double wedding. Not now. Probably not ever. And for the record, if any unheard of boyfriends ever show up to surprise me in the future, feel free to send your boot up their asses and kick them back to where they came from.”
I could hear her chuckle on the other end. “I’ll be sure to make a note of that for next time, darlin’. In the meantime, I trust you had your mother’s old boots on hand to do the job yourself?”
I looked down at my feet. I did actually. For some strange reason I’d been wearing them non-stop since I’d found them up in her old closet. They were hardly my style, and yet I was going out of my way to make them work with the wardrobe I had packed. Which wasn’t easy by the way.
“Oh, they got the job done alright.” I was cracking up all throughout this conversation. It made me wonder why I hadn’t ever been closer to my Noonie Skeeter. Someday my mother would have to explain to me what happened back in Kentucky that made her turn her back on everyone and so rarely look back.
“I’m glad to hear it. Of course, if you had run into any snags, I’m sure Emerson would have been more than happy to help you.” Something about the way she said it made me feel like she was leading into a new topic.
“Yeah, I guess he does have a way of looking out for me. Apparently it’s my fault. He says I inadvertently assigned him the job when I was little.”
Noonie Skeeter was quiet for a while and I wondered if old age had suddenly caught up and sent her to sleep. “If I recall correctly, you assigned him a bigger part in your heart than that, Calista.”
“Noonie, I was just a child with a silly crush.” Why was everyone so hell-bent on distorting something I was trying hard to keep simple.
“Just remember, Calista, neither of you may be children anymore, but nothing else has changed. You still come from different worlds, live in different places and have been brought together by circumstances which won’t last.”
I wasn’t sure what to make of that. Maybe she was imparting a sage piece of wisdom I would have to decipher for myself in my own time. Or, maybe Noonie Skeeter wasn’t as with it as she seemed.
“Alright Noonie, well I better get back to this dress if we expect to see Savannah walk down the aisle in more than just her underwear.”
“Don’t stay up too late now, there’ll be more to do come daylight.”
After she hung up, I sat there for several seconds longer with the phone still to my ear as if I was waiting for her to add some last minute token of insight, even if it was a bit abstract.
After all the confusion between Emerson and I both jumping to the wrong conclusions these last few days, and my random and more and more frequent trips down memory lane, it would have been helpful to have a voice of experience whispering the answers in my ear.
“Damn, my life just up and went all Hallmark on me.” It was a sad, sad realization and I put the phone down in one determined motion. I was here for one reason and one reason only. Savannah’s wedding. And, as it turned out, Emerson no longer had anything to do with that.
With an ironclad focus I returned to my sewing machine and got back to work, forcing all thoughts of Emerson from my mind. When I ran out of the will required to continue fighting it, I found solace in knowing that he would be leaving, along with Tyler, first thing in the morning.<
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Five hours of sewing and forty-five minutes of sleep later, I was stumbling through the house in the dark in search of the kitchen. There was no need to bother with lights, since technically my eyes weren’t open anyway.
I was nearly there when I became aware of the thing leading my way. It was the heavenly scent of coffee. My heart sang for joy. Stephanie.
“Good morning, Lover,” I chirped happily as I walked through the large arched doorway.
“Well, good morning to you, too, Beautiful.” Not Stephanie. Definitely not Stephanie.
“Shit. Sorry, I thought you were Steph,” I mumbled as I went back to walking with my eyes closed and my head down until I ran into the back counter housing the coffee maker.
“You call your assistant ‘Lover’?” he smirked. I could barely raise my gaze to look at him. Emerson wasn’t exactly clothed as he stood there bare foot and shirtless, wearing nothing but his very well worn and well fitted jeans that hung from his hips and ass perfectly. Not that I was looking. Oh hell, how could you not look?! Those tight shirts he’d been wearing hadn’t told the half of it. His arms and chest were chiseled perfection. His flawless skin wasn’t hurting the visual either, nor was the lack of the dreaded farmer’s tan which naturally sparked images of him working shirtless on a hot summer day, doing whatever it was that kept his body in a state I would deem worthy of being labeled underwear model-like.
I took a deep breath in and exhaled loudly with no regard to the fact that I was now obviously ogling the man. Then I remembered that he had asked me something.
“I’m sorry, what did you say?” I shook my head back and forth a few times trying to jumble up the image of a half-naked Emerson I now had plastered at the forefront of my mind.
“I asked if you always call your assistant ‘Lover’.” His level of amusement was definitely on the rise.
“Oh, yeah. She makes me coffee. Most of the time it’s better than the sex I’ve been having, so ‘Lover’ seems appropriate.”
“Sounds like yet another reason to raise your standard in men,” he said smugly as he lifted his mug to those gorgeous lips.
Then, for the first time since wandering into the kitchen I became aware of my own appearance when I strolled by the microwave cradling my coffee cup. My reflection nearly made me jump across the room.
I’ve always considered myself to be quite organized. Just maybe not in the way most people are. For example, while sewing or working on a project in general, I liked to keep things I might need on hand. I did this by pinning a lot of stuff into my hair. Hence, the messy up do I was sporting with a variety of ribbons stuck to my head via bobby pins, along with small bags of beads and a selection of thread choices I had tied into several larger chunks of hair.
In my mind it always looked like a fucking masterpiece when it was happening, but after having slept on it, not so much. Then there was the issue of my face, which had once upon a time been made up with a soft smoky eye, some liner and mascara which now had given way to two black eyes three days post the boxing match.
Naturally, my outfit left much to be desired for also. Or perhaps, lack of outfit would have been a better choice of words, since I was basically parading around the house in what was nothing more than a slip. It was comfy like you wouldn’t believe, but somewhere during the night, I had gotten cold and had paired the dainty silk piece with a pair of wool boot socks pulled up to my knees. Based on the chill on my left calf, one had slipped a bit during the course of my brief nap.
It was around this time that I noticed Emerson had been staring at me fairly intently for a great deal of time and neither of us had said anything since I had chosen to compare sex to coffee.
“So how is it?” he finally asked, nodding at my cup and breaking the awkward silence that was setting in.
“Pretty good actually.”
“Better than sex?”
“Don’t know, haven’t had any of that yet.” What on earth was I doing? For someone who looked like they ought to be pushing a shopping cart along the highway, I certainly had an unusual amount of gumption. Maybe the lack of sleep was making me delirious.
Thank God Emerson laughed as if I’d made a joke. I went ahead and just went with that.
“I take it you slept at your sewing machine?” he asked, pointing at my hair and changing the topic.
“Basically. I didn’t mean to. Just kind of happened.” I pushed up and slid myself backwards onto the counter to have a seat, remembering to cross my legs at a slightly delayed pace.
“I thought maybe. I heard the machine stop going and then a soft thud after, when your head hit the table. Or, at least that’s what I assumed it was. You plan on going back to bed for a bit then?”
“You mean this morning? No. I’ve got too much to do. The dress needs to be finished and ready for a first fitting by this weekend. There will be no sleeping until after this wedding is over and Savannah and her groom are off on their honeymoon.”
He smirked. “His name is Justus by the way. He’s an accountant. Much more Savannah’s speed than say, a horse trainer.”
I was about to tell him how he sounded like a stereotyping ass when we both turned our head toward the commotion coming from the foyer. Next, Tyler was shuffling into the room looking half asleep and clearly having spent the night in his clothes.
“What are you doing up this early?” I couldn’t help but feel a little annoyed seeing him awake before seven a.m. when he had slept like the dead at my house, causing my constant tardiness during our relationship.
His gaze washed over me, leaving his face scrunched up in disgust at my appearance.
“I have a flight to catch.” Then Emerson popped into his line of vision. “What the hell is going on in here?”
Part of me wanted to dash over to press my scantily clad body to Emerson’s chest just to piss Tyler off, and of course for other reasons not worth mentioning now, but I opted for outrage instead.
“What’s it to you?” I demanded as I moved down from the counter and landed back on my feet.
“We were practically engaged less than a week ago and now you’re already out here banging the help?” He didn’t look so sleepy anymore now that he was flying at me, throwing his hands up in anger.
Tyler didn’t have time to reach his destination though because Emerson stepped directly into his path. “That’s enough.”
Even though Emerson was shorter than Tyler by at least three inches, and not nearly as bulky, he wasn’t the one I was suddenly worried about. Watching the two of them engaged in this unexpected showdown, I was blown away by the contrast between both men. Well, really only one of them even looked like a man. Sure, Tyler had the build of a man, but he didn’t carry himself like one. He was cocky and arrogant, but lacked the quiet confidence Emerson exuded with such ease.
Maybe Emerson had been onto something when he said I needed to choose better men. Maybe I needed to choose men period, since clearly I’d still been dating boys.
“You need to get out of my way right now if you know what’s good for you. This has nothing to do with you,” Tyler snarled.
“Funny, I was just going to say the same thing to you.”
“Are you two serious right now?” I stepped out from behind Emerson to try and reason with them. “This is crazy. Tyler, you have no right to be acting this way. You and I were never even close to being engaged – trust me! Even if we hadn’t fought the other morning. Even if I hadn’t ended it, even if you had made it around to making a proposal, I would never have said yes. I’m sorry you were more invested in the relationship than I was. I tried, but it just wasn’t there for me the way it was for you.”
Finally Tyler moved back. “You really think you can do better than me?”
“Any idiot can tell she could do better than you. Besides, she’s young and ambitious. Getting married right now should be the last thing on her mind.” Only if Emerson kept talking like that, getting married would be the only thing I’d be thinking about.
>
“I really don’t think this conversation is going anywhere Tyler. We can re-hash the whole break up a million times and it’s not going to change that we want different things. Emerson is right. I like my life the way is right now. And if you really cared about me, you would understand that I need to focus on myself and my career for the time being.”
Tyler snorted. “That’s such bullshit and you know it. This has nothing to do with your career. The reason you can’t have an actual grown up relationship is because you’re still stuck at fourteen hating every man, all because your daddy walked out on your mom. Well, I’ve got news for you, Callie. I’ve met your mother. She’s a controlling, uptight bitch who wouldn’t know the first thing about making a man happy and I’m not surprised your father took off running in the other direction. Keep doing what you’re doing and you’re not going to have to worry about any guy wanting you to commit. You’re well on your way to turning out just like her!”
He gave me one more condescending, revolted glance and then stomped from the kitchen. Shortly after, the front door slammed. It was so loud, for a moment I thought what was left of me after Tyler’s tirade would literally shatter from the noise.
I stood there completely frozen in place. Tyler had known exactly where to hit me. He had wrapped every one of my fears into one neatly packed punch and then sent it straight to my gut. I felt winded and dizzy in the aftermath. All I wanted to do was run from the room and find a place to hide, preferably somewhere so far away from the truth that I could go back to believing the lies I had told myself. Only problem was, I couldn’t feel anything below my knees which made running out of the question.
“Hey. What’s going on up there?” Emerson gently swiped the loose strands of hair from my forehead and tucked them back behind my ear. “You’re not seriously letting what that asshole said get to you are you? Because I’ll go after him right now and beat the shit out of him if you are.”
