by Eden Butler
“Two parties is stupid,” Alex said, fussing with his tie when we walked into the large banquet hall.
“At least you didn’t have to pay for it,” I reasoned.
“Yeah, but…” Then my new brother-in-law seemed to clean forget whatever he wanted to say as my kid sister picked that exact moment to walk into the room, looking like something off a runway in a white dress with turquoise jewelry I suspected Velma made special for the day. She had her hair pinned back and her smile wide and bright, and Alex didn’t seem able to keep from looking after her like he couldn’t quite believe what a lucky bastard he was just to have her smile at him the way she was.
“You’re done for.” He didn’t hear me. Didn’t much see anything or anyone but Evie and the pair of them got a little lost on that dance floor, ignoring the stares they drew and the attention that became all theirs as the music went low and soft.
“Ah, there she goes,” my Shímasani said, patting my chest as Evie moved her head to Alex’s shoulder. “She’s his now.”
“Nah, nizhóní … they belong to each other.” Tasso was right.
Evie and Alex fit and no matter what anyone said—not my grandparents, not any of the staring, judging folk in the room or even Alex’s disappointed parents, from this moment on, those two belonged to each other.
“You’re next, shíyázhí.”
“I’m gonna get a plate,” I said, rescuing myself before Velma started in on the pestering I knew she was good for. I’d barely been home two weeks. Besides, there was little in the way of prospects for me.
Well…
The only prospect I’d consider was out on the dancefloor with her supposed best friend. The music had turned fast and obnoxious, the light blinking and wild. Perfect for a woman like Piper to move and shimmy, like she was just then, lifting all that thick, lush hair off her neck as she sipped on a glass of champagne one-handed. She was one hell of a prospect if I had the mind to be thinking that way…which I didn’t.
“You got your eye on anyone in particular?” I heard. I repressed the groan I felt working up my throat when I recognized Stevie Woodward’s flat tone.
“No.” It was a lie, but the man was too thick to realize it.
“How the hell are you, Mescal?” The idea of food forgotten, I took his hand because I wasn’t an asshole and we’d done nearly four years on the same offensive line back in high school. Stevie wasn’t a bad guy. He was just very Midland Grove and always would be. But hell, I suppose I likely was too.
“I’ll do, man.”
“Never thought I’d see you back in Midland,” Stevie said, waving at the bartender when we both walked up to the counter. “Gimme a Bud.”
“Just a Coke for me,” I told the guy. The man handed over a fancy fluted glass with two cubes of ice and fizzing soda which I gladly accepted before I turned, throwing a look back toward the dancefloor. “Never thought I’d end up here either.”
Stevie worked on his family’s small lumber yard just outside of town and always smelled of sawdust. “You know, it’s a damn shame.” He took a long pull from his beer, moving his chin toward Evie when Alex spun her, holding her by the waist to fall into a low dip, “I always thought for sure I had a shot with your sister.”
That earned the guy a laugh and stare from me. “She’s too much for you, and you know it.”
Shrugging, the man conceded, his mouth quirking on the right as he grinned toward Piper. “What about that one? Didn’t she always have a thing for you?” Stevie’s laugh was loud, surprising, like something popped into his head that he’d remembered and found impossible not to laugh at. “Mr. Baker told her off in fifth period Biology for writing your name in cursive on the new desks. Had her stay after and scrub them all for a week.”
“Baker was always an asshole.” No idea why I defended her or why I glared at the man next to me when he went on laughing even harder.
“Who’s sweet on who now, Mescal?”
“I got no idea what you’re talking about.”
Piper finished her drink, waving Sam away when he whispered in her ear and she held her hair off her neck, the long lines angular, and I couldn’t keep my gaze from the small patch of skin visible along her back. It was smooth and pale, glistening with sweat.
“Hey, you wanna head out to Dexter?” Stevie leaned on the bar, his tone bored. “Redline is playing at the Rusty Nail.”
“I’ll pass.” Piper turned, her attention working across the room, stopping at me and staying there. She didn’t look away as I stared at her, didn’t seem curious or nervous or unsure of herself as I kept staring either. “Steve,” I told him, a decision already made in my head. “I’ll catch you later.”
“You are sweet on her, you asshole…”
I gave that bastard my middle finger as I walked away, ignoring him hollering after me, ignoring the looks that followed me as I moved to the dancefloor, right toward that woman who kept her stare on my face, whose mouth was soft and stretched wider the closer I came.
“Ed,” she mumbled when I stood in front of her, not bothering to acknowledge Sam when he hurried to her side.
“Hey, Piper…” he started, then went quiet when I held up my finger.
“Excuse me, Travis,” I told him, holding my hand out to Piper. “I need a word with Ms. Warren for a second. Strictly business.”
“We’re business partners,” Sam said.
“Were you invited to this wedding?” I asked him, not sticking around for an answer I bet he tried to form from his gold-fishing lips.
“That was mean.” Piper looked over my shoulder, but didn’t seem to care much that I’d insulted her friend. Instead, she let me lead her to the other end of the dancefloor with my hand on her waist, pushing her long fingers against my chest.
“You didn’t look like you were having a good time.”
“I was fine.”
“No,” I said, leaning back to give her a once over, “you look fine, Miss Warren. But he was boring you.”
Ignoring me, Piper looked toward the band, biting her bottom lip before she recovered. “What do you know about it?”
Then, the music changed and something sweet, something familiar wiggled from the voice of the woman standing at the mic and Piper’s eyes softened, her mouth instantly curling into a sweet smile that had me itching to bend down to kiss it.
“Well,” I told her, remembering our date, before I made everything go so bad, “I know this one is your favorite.”
Piper curved an eyebrow, looking doubtful and suspicious before she shifted her stare right at my face. “You don’t…”
“You seem to think I don’t remember much about our date and I’ll grant you I was an asshole and had an agenda, but I wasn’t lying the other night.” I tilted my head, hoping that if I softened my voice, if I pulled her in just a little closer, she’d see the truth of what I said in my eyes. “We were friends. I do remember a thing or two.”
“Like?” she said, that eyebrow going even higher.
“Like how much you love Mrs. Dolly.” I glanced at the band, grinning when Piper closed her eyes, inhaling at the chorus about a woman whose whole life was made good just by watching the man she loved smile. That is deep devotion right there. “This song in particular. It was playing on the radio when I picked you up.”
She opened her eyes, shrugging. “Well, this isn’t Dolly by herself.”
“Close enough.”
She smiled, seeming to like the wink I gave her.
“Hey,” I said, “it wasn’t…all bad, was it?”
She laughed, head shaking when I shrugged. It had been a little hopeless at the end, but I had kissed her. We had laughed a little bit before it went to shit.
“Before…well. There was the dinner and you, putting your head on my shoulder.”
“You didn’t shake it off at least. And you didn’t jerk your hand out of the popcorn bucket when our fingers touched.”
“Would I do that?”
“Hundred per
cent.” That smile was sweet, prettiest I’d seen in a long time. “If you weren’t interested and you weren’t, Eddie Mescal. Not in me. Not then.”
I slowed, the notion taking a bit of my breath away. “How do you know?”
“You sent me packing.”
That had nothing to do with her. It had been my screw up. My temper. Of anyone, I couldn’t let Piper see that. Looking around the room, ignoring how hard Sam glared at me, how her father kept his attention on us, I focused on the curls brushing along her arms and the smell of her skin. “Maybe,” I started, the words a little stuck in my throat, “maybe I didn’t want to disappoint you.”
“You couldn’t.” Piper shifted her fingers, turning the tips, hovering them near the end of my braid that had fallen across my shoulder. But she didn’t touch my hair. She wouldn’t. If she knew about our songs, our dances, she had to know our customs. No one touched our hair unless we invited them. That’s where our medicine was. It was intimate. Instead, Piper smoothed her nails against my chest, a lazy, unconscious movement.
When I looked down, her eyes were wide and unfocused as she watched me. I held my breath, wishing I had the smallest idea what she thought when she looked at me like that. “You had a lot of illusions about me back then. I wasn’t who you thought I was.”
“And what did you think I thought of you?”
“What everyone else did.”
“Hmm… Eddie the rebel? The misfit? There was a lot of idiot names people threw around when talking about you. I thought you were fearless. Always.” She shrugged, wetting her bottom lip with a slip of her tongue. “But, I can’t speak for anyone else.” There was a flutter to her lids as she looked away, then Piper lifted her chin, and stared right at me. “I can only tell you what I thought seeing you dance at that Fort Mason powwow that first time.” It had barely registered. I’d been a kid, probably only eighteen myself and Piper couldn’t have been more than fifteen then. I was a full of myself punk, only interested in the attention I got when I danced, and there had been plenty of that to go around.
“I don’t remember much about that day,” I told her, feeling stupid.
She smiled, that touch against my chest slowing. “Your regalia was red and orange with a blue beaded bodice. Evie told me Velma spent months making it and you took such pride in it. Took such good care of it. You were so grateful…and it showed, in how you danced, how you…moved.” Piper closed her eyes, her expression sharp as her mouth stretched, as though whatever she thought about was sweet, a memory that felt decadent; something she went back to when she wanted to indulge. I meant to kiss you.
“You were fierce and strong out in that circle, Ed…with your braids flying around you and your fringe bouncing like a wave of grass as you hit each movement, each step to the drumbeat. I’d never seen anyone so powerful and strong so…beautiful. I’d never seen anyone like you before that day or…since.”
I was inches from her, wanting to touch her face, wanting to climb inside her thoughts and see what she saw. Wanting something fierce to taste her mouth. But just then, Piper blinked, coming out of whatever fog the memory had created and she looked around the room, the small shake of her head telling me there was still a little bit of the shy girl I used to know left in her.
“Then I had to go and mess it all up.”
“Well,” she said, shrugging, “at least I got a kiss out of it even if you didn’t mean it.” When I didn’t join in with her laugh, Piper frowned, pushing her eyebrows together. “Listen, Ed…”
“Can I tell you something?”
She nodded, not tensing when I pulled her closer, pressing my palm against her back.
“I…meant it. On my life, Piper Warren, I meant it.”
She stiffened, her fingers curling into fists against my shirt, but I didn’t let her get angry.
I planned to speak plainly even if she didn’t want to hear me outright. “You were laughing at your own joke. Something silly and stupid, and your cheeks went all pink and your eyes got glassy because you were so tickled and I’d never seen you look so beautiful and it felt like a vise was wrapped around my chest and I couldn’t think of anything at all but how free you were and how sweet you were and how I didn’t want anything at all in that moment but to kiss you and never stop doing it.”
Piper went still. There was no stiffness left in her fingers, and she let her hand drop open as she stared up at me. “Eddie Mescal if you…”
“I mean it. I swear it…I wanted to kiss you.” I tugged her closer, pressing my forehead to her. My voice low and serious. “I meant to kiss you. That’s why I did it, and I…I wanna do it again right now…”
“Ed…” She tilted her head up, the warmth from her breath a tease against my cheek, a taunt I could almost taste. One knuckle under her chin, lifting, her pink, wet bottom lip glistening under the fluorescent light above…just a few more inches and I could taste her again.
And then…
“Piper Grace…” her father said, the sharp, quick tone of his voice like a cold shot of water breaking us apart.
Piper stepped away from me, and I swallowed the curse itching the back of my tongue as the man held out his hand to his daughter, his eyes cut severe and sharp at me as he spoke.
“Time for a family photograph. Come along now.” That look slipped long and slow to my braids, to my calloused fingers then back at my face before he clarified with a clear, “just the Warren family,” and then he pulled Piper across the dancefloor and away from me, leaving me a little irritated and a hell of a lot punch drunk by the kiss that almost was.
Eddie
Spring
The Dickens place had been barely standing when Piper met me at it two days after Evie and Alex said their “I Dos” then disappeared on a ship off to the Bahamas. For two weeks I handled the crew; guys I knew, some that remembered the punk I’d been at eighteen, some, I guessed, that Alex had hired and who’d heard the stories in the large gossip mill that made up most of the bored Sunday afternoon conversations when sermons ran too long or the Midland Bears didn’t play too well. Somehow, even years after I’d graduated, I still got blamed for losing that district game.
But Piper, sweet thing that she was, never seemed to notice the awkward glares the crew gave me or their attitude anytime I set them to their jobs. Maybe it was Alex’s leadership that kept them working. Maybe it was Tasso’s reputation and the fact that I shared his blood that made those guys actually do their jobs, but it had to be Piper’s vision and the bankroll she had that kept them from bolting.
Well. Most of them.
“You want me to what?” Red McDonald asked when I pointed to the roof and the two rows of rotted shingles along the pitch. “Come on, man.”
“What’s the problem?”
He looked up at the sky, his nostrils flaring like he didn’t like the tinge of gray in the clouds above or me for ignoring them. “It’s about to piss rain, that’s what, and the day’s half gone.”
“Then you better hurry.”
The man was taller than me by about two inches, but he was lanky, not strong and he couldn’t back up the attitude that pulsed from him when I stared at him like I didn’t give a shit about him not wanting to climb on that roof to finish the demo work that should have been done the day before.
“That’s a roofer’s job. I’m not—”
“You work for me,” I told him, not bothering to move when the man pushed up from his seat on the front porch, leaving his thermos and empty sandwich wrapper behind. “The demo should have been finished already. Alex said that was on you and your crew. I want it done today.”
“Get this straight, asshole,” Red said, sending his index finger against my shoulder as he spoke. “I don’t work for some cowpoke asshole Indian who only got this job because his granddaddy owns the company.” Another poke against my shoulder and the man grinned at me, like he thought I’d keep quiet and let him go on shaming me in front of the entire crew watching us. “Not the same asshole Indian who
only wants this shit done fast so he can get a piece of the client’s ass.”
Two years ago, I’d have clocked that racist bastard square in his jaw. It would’ve taken me less than a second to make the call. Half a step back, my fist coming up, and Red would have been out flat.
But that was a boy’s response. A hothead’s.
I wasn’t a boy anymore.
“Pack your shit and get off my job.”
“You can’t fire me,” he said, laughing like I had no clout, no say so at all to tell anyone a thing about who worked and who didn’t on this project.
“I can. Just did,” I told him, shaking my head when he opened his mouth, looking ready to insult me again. “Save it. It’s over. Pack your shit and get off this site or I’ll remove you myself.”
“Fuc—” He tried, reaching for me, but stopped short when I blocked him, grabbing his wrist to twist it around his back. “Hey!”
He went down on one knee, wincing and it was only then that I spotted the front door and who stood in the center of it. Piper’s features were frozen. Her mouth drawn down as she watched me twist Red’s arm behind his back.
The man grunted, struggling against my hold, and I leaned forward, speaking low enough by his ear that I knew nobody but him could hear me. “Apologize to her for being a prick or I’ll rip your arm off.”
“What the…” I twisted hard and the grunt turned into a yelp. “Sor…sorry, Miss Warren. I’m…sorry.”
She dipped her head once, but didn’t smile at him. “That’s fine, but I think Mr. Mescal told you to leave.” She moved away from the door her expression fierce, angry as she looked down at Red. “It’s best if you get on with that.”
He didn’t respond to her or do more than yank away from me when I let him loose, but Red jerked up his cooler and thermos, smirking as he watched me, then shot a glance around the crew, stopping to look at a couple of the guys he always hung around.
“Well?” he said to them like he expected them to follow him off the site.
“Carry your ass home,” Maddox Bishop, the tallest of the small group, said as he leaned back on his palms, watching Red. “You gonna feed my kids and my woman? I don’t think so.”