“You’re not like that.”
I immediately put my hands over my own hair. Was he saying that I looked bad?
“I meant, you were in my aunt’s yard the other day wearing a dress and crawling around in the bushes to try to fix her shutter. You couldn’t care that much about how you look.”
I swallowed. “I guess not.” And the next time I saw him, I was going to be just as polished and pretty as my sister was when she went out. I would try, anyway. “I guess I should pay more attention to that.”
“That’s not what I meant,” he disagreed. “I meant it as a compliment. It was nice that you didn’t care.”
But what he remembered was that I had been a mess, wasn’t it? “Thank you,” I said, but it probably hadn’t sounded very hearty. I was remembering what my memaw, my grandmother always said about looking like a lady. Crawling around in the bushes hadn’t been my finest moment.
“I didn’t think you were so touchy,” Cain told me, and put his napkin on the table. “Are you done with your lettuce?”
I nodded as he put a pile of money down, too.
“Then let’s go.”
“I’m not touchy,” I told him when we got to his car. “I’m not.”
He shrugged.
I sighed. Maybe he was right. “Maybe I am. I worry about how I look, a lot. My friend at work is always telling me I pay too much attention to that, but my family—my mother and my sisters—they don’t think I pay enough.”
“I get a little tired of that shit,” he told me. “I don’t understand the obsession. It was practically the only thing I heard about from my last girlfriend, all about her makeup and her clothes. How we couldn’t go someplace because she couldn’t wear her shoes there, or I couldn’t put the top down in the car because of her hair. It took her about a year to get dressed, too. My life got so much easier when she moved out.”
My word. That was a very coldblooded way to think about someone you loved leaving you. “That’s nice for you,” I said, trying to be positive instead of shocked.
“It was a relief.”
My word! I wondered if any of my exes had thought that about me, and then nodded to myself that yes, they probably had. On their way out the door, a few had mentioned that I’d put too much “pressure” on them when I’d talked about wanting marriage and a family, but I really thought that if they couldn’t take the heat of a woman saying what she expected from life, then they should have gotten out of the kitchen!
They had, of course, since I wasn’t with them anymore. I nodded again.
“What are you thinking about?” Cain asked.
“Me?”
“Is there someone else in the car? You keep nodding and sighing.”
“Oh, I was just remembering some of my exes,” I explained.
“A long line of them, I bet.”
“Not too long! I’m not that kind of girl,” I said quickly.
“You’re seeing your boss, now,” he stated, and I stared at him, my mouth hanging open.
“Gary? You thought I was dating Gary?” It made me laugh! “Oh, my word! Of course not!” But that made me check my messages, because I’d been asking him if anything was wrong. Bevie had been in a little accident, he finally wrote back, but she was ok. Maybe she was as bad a driver as he was? I hoped not.
“Gary is a married man and he’s old enough to be my grandpa,” I explained further to Cain. “We were at his club today to celebrate the end of a case with my other coworker too, my friend, Eimear. Me and Gary,” I said, and laughed again, until I realized what Cain had thought of me. “Did you really believe that I would be an adulterer?” I asked him.
“I thought you said that.”
“No” I responded, horrified. But then I considered. “I shouldn’t be the one to cast stones, though. I was involved in an emotional affair with a coworker before. He was my supervisor at the law office.”
“‘Emotional affair?’ What in the hell does that mean?”
“It means that I behaved inappropriately,” I said. “I shouldn’t have been so personal with someone who was married. I let him talk to me in ways that weren’t right and I let myself believe that we might have had a future together. He wanted a more, well, he wanted a more physical relationship, but I wouldn’t have done that. Not while he was with someone else and not me. And really, I could never have lived with myself if he’d left his wife and his two sweet children. I’d never have forgiven myself.” I wiped quickly under my eyes as I thought about it.
“An emotional affair,” Cain repeated. “Was that guy at your celebration tonight, the one who wanted to screw you and also keep his wife?”
I winced at his language. “He got fired. Over a lot of things, not just our affair.”
“Emotional affair. You really never slept with him?”
“I never even held his hand!” I said angrily. “As I just finished telling you, I’m not that kind of girl!”
We didn’t say much more on the rest of the ride, not until we pulled up in front of my apartment. Then Cain turned to look at me. “I wasn’t trying to insult you, Aria.” He paused. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry I got so touchy again,” I said. “I didn’t realize I was, until you called me that.”
He frowned. “I’m sorry I said that, too. I hope you’ll still come see my aunt.”
“Of course, I will!” I smiled at him, to show that there were no hard feelings. He wasn’t coming around to open the car door for me, like my mama said my father had always done for her. But we weren’t on a date, I reminded myself, so I got out on my own. I was perfectly capable of doing that.
“Is this building safe? Why are there no lights?” Because there was Cain, also out of the car.
“They broke, I guess,” I told him, and then, without saying anything, he walked me up to my door. “Thank you! I’ll see you soon. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” he answered, and I went inside with the smile still on my face.
Chapter 3
I gave one final stir and nodded. This had turned out just like I’d expected, just like I’d made with my grandmother a hundred or so times. I nodded again at the pot, satisfied. Here was something I could do well.
“What smells so good?”
Cain walked into his aunt’s kitchen. He wore only a t-shirt instead of one of the starched, tailored dress shirts that he usually had on. It made him look younger and more approachable. It also showed off the muscles in his arms and chest, because it wasn’t tight, but the cotton was thin. And then he bent backwards slightly and stretched. The cotton crept up as he reached his arms high and it exposed his stomach, a set of square, hard abdominals and a line of blonde hair leading up, and also, leading down.
Oh, my word. I turned back to the stove. Oh, my word! He was just…I shook my head to clear it of the thoughts I’d been having, the ones that had made me feel warm all through my body. “I made chicken and dumplings,” I said, and the words sounded husky. Sexy! “Chicken and dumplings,” I repeated, and that time, it came out normally.
“I haven’t had that in forever.” He stood next to me at the stove. “It smells delicious.”
He was close enough to touch. If I just reached out my hand a little, I could feel the soft fabric of that t-shirt and the warm skin and muscle beneath it. He was so close.
He was staring at me. “What?” I asked, confused.
“I asked if you needed any help.” He looked carefully at my face. “Are you all right? You’re bright red.”
“It’s the heat from the stove,” I said, and maybe the cooking was part of it, but mostly that statement was untrue. I could sense that I was turning even redder because of telling a lie, until my skin was probably nearly the shade of my hair.
“Is it done?” He moved even closer to bend and inhale the aroma from the pot.
I put the cover on it and stepped away, fanning my flaming face with my hand. “Not yet. It has to simmer. Maybe I’ll get some air while it finishes.”
Well, all right, although my purpose had been to get some space from him and that…oh, that body! But he pulled a coat on over it, thank goodness.
“Your cousin Jia came over this morning to help my aunt,” he offered. He picked up some trash that had blown into the front yard. “She was great with her.”
“I’m so, so glad. Jia told me, too, and she said your aunt is such a sweet lady.”
“She is. I’m lucky to have her.” We walked a few paces before he told me, “I know you think I don’t take good care of her.”
“What? I’ve never said that!”
“You thought you needed to buy groceries. You had your relatives coming over to fix up the house.”
“Well…” Well, I had thought that. “I’m sorry,” I admitted. “I just wanted what was best for her.”
“So do I. She told me that she’s been taking the money that I send to her and putting it into a savings account for me. A savings account,” he repeated.
“Oh.” I put my hand over my heart, which was melting. “She’s worried about your future!”
“She always has been.” He frowned suddenly, scarily. “Now that I’m here, I’m going to get her some decent clothes, buy her a new car, fix up every inch of her house. That pink tile bathroom,” he said, and shook his head.
“Make sure she wants that, though,” I said. He shot me a look, but I meant it. “She may like how things are! Before you rip out the pink tile, you should ask.”
He looked at me with the scary frown, but it slowly relaxed. “Ok,” he answered simply, and he nodded.
I nodded back but looked over his shoulder. “Oh, hey! That’s Jeanette Peebles on her porch. Hi there, Miss Jeanette! It’s Aria McCourt and Cain Miller.”
“No, that’s a bad idea,” I heard Cain say.
“Miss Jeanette?” I said again, but she got off her rocking chair and went inside, and the curtains closed, too! “What in the heck?”
“Me,” Cain said simply.
“It’s been fifteen years! You were a teenager when you left this neighborhood. That’s terrible,” I said, and I said it in the direction of the Peebles’ house. “That’s terrible,” I repeated even louder. “Don’t judge, because someone might judge you, and forgive people just like you’d want to be forgiven yourself!” I paused. “Do you think she heard me?”
“The curtain moved.” He actually smiled, like he hadn’t just gotten the cold shoulder from his old neighbor. “Thanks for saying that.”
“What did you do, exactly? Why did you get sent away?”
“I could give you my file. It’s pretty thick.”
I waited.
“The last time, it was because I set my teacher’s car on fire. That was what I was doing a lot, setting fires. Breaking windows at the school, breaking into businesses, breaking everything. I got in a fight with a kid and put him in the hospital because he told me my haircut was stupid. I hadn’t had a haircut in about five years, and I still beat the living shit out of him for it. I was skinny but I never quit. I would have killed him, probably.”
I was shocked, because usually my mama exaggerated quite a bit with her gossip, so I hadn’t really listened to her calling him the devil. Now I understood why she’d been afraid of having him next door. “Why did you do those things? What were you so angry about?” I asked.
Cain looked briefly at the sky. “Everything. Every single damn thing, Aria. It took a while to change that.”
Just like he’d changed his speech and his hair and his clothes. “I’m glad for you. That you feel better, now,” I explained.
“Are you cold?”
Now that my burning heat from the t-shirt show in the kitchen had lessened, I was shivering in the November air, but his story had chilled me, too. “I wish I’d brought my coat.”
“You can have mine.” He took it off and handed it to me.
“Now you’ll be cold!” I tried to give it back. “You only have on a t-shirt!” Yes, there he was again, right in front of my face. All those muscles…
“I spent a lot of nights outdoors in not a lot more than this.”
That statement snapped me out of abs-land and back to reality. “You did?”
He took his coat from my grasp and draped it over my shoulders. “There you go.”
“Thank you, Cain.”
He looked down at me. “You’re welcome.”
We ate dinner with his aunt, and despite the fact that my cousin had helped her bathe and do her hair, and that the chicken and dumplings had turned out well, she only picked at her food and seemed unhappy, not herself. “Are you all right, Miss Liddy?” I asked her several times, and I saw Cain watching her, too.
“Just tired,” she told us again and again. After a while, he took her back to her room, and they hadn’t returned by the time I’d cleaned up and let myself out.
“Where were you?” my cousin Kayleigh asked as I walked into her bedroom in our apartment, but then, before I could answer, she spun around to show me her outfit. “What do you think?”
“You look beautiful,” I said, and she did. Kayleigh really could have gone farther in the pageant world, but she just didn’t have the patience for it. She didn’t really have the personality, either—or, at least, she didn’t bother to hide the parts of herself that weren’t as pageant-ready, like the other contestants could. “Where are you going?”
“Remember that guy I met when we went to Dalton for the fair?”
I thought back to driving to Georgia a few weeks before. I remembered fighting my instincts to get into the line for fried pickles, but I didn’t remember Kayleigh meeting a guy. Then again, she met a lot of guys, so it was hard to keep track. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember,” I admitted, and she cast up her eyes and shook her head.
“Yes, of course you do! The one I liked so much, the one who bought me this teddy bear!” She picked it up from her bed and thrust it towards me.
“Oh.” I took the bear and thought hard. “Oh! Dark hair, from Atlanta?”
“Yes! He finally got back in touch and he’s in town tonight.” She twirled again. “What do you think? I already put my toothbrush in my purse. And about fifty condoms!” She laughed but then looked at me. “Oh, Aria. You’re getting the Aunt Amber face.”
“No! No, I’m not, I swear.” I tried to keep my features totally still and not in the disapproving expression that my mama made at just about everything. “I’m glad you’re seeing him, KayKay. You really liked him that day.”
“I did. He’s a cutie!” She glanced over at me as she smoothed on lipstick. “Where have you been?”
“Dinner with Miss Liddy.”
“And her nephew?” Kayleigh asked, and raised her eyebrows. She’d just had them done and the arch was perfect.
“He was there,” I agreed, and played with the bear’s outfit. It had been a nice gift.
“Cassidy and I were looking at pictures of him.” She grabbed her phone and hit at it with her thumb. “Look.”
And there was Cain Miller with a woman who was so beautiful that she looked like a statue herself. He wore a tuxedo and she had on a dress that must have cost…I didn’t know what dresses like that cost in California, but in Tennessee, it would have been more than I made in a month.
“It was a benefit thing for some opera thing,” Kayleigh said. “Doesn’t he look gorgeous?”
They both did. Maybe this was the woman he’d mentioned, the one he’d lived with. She was like a movie star with makeup that was right out of an online tutorial and sleek, straight hair. I looked at it and thought about the curls I’d worked so hard on that morning. They were probably frizzy, anyway.
Kayleigh took back her phone and gave herself one last spritz of perfume. “I’m ready. Am I all good?” When I nodded, she smiled. “See you this weekend, probably,” she told me.
“It’s only Thursday. You have to work tomorrow!” I reminded her, but she
waved that off and rushed out of the room.
Cassidy wasn’t home, either, so I had the apartment to myself. It felt odd, because I’d rarely had any space to myself, not in my whole life—first I’d shared a room with my sisters, and now, Cassidy and I split to give Kayleigh a single. We’d told our parents it was because Kayleigh had so much stuff, but really it was due to her overnight guests. Cass rarely had those and I never did, but Kayleigh enjoyed the guys she met. Sometimes really loudly, which was why I had earplugs next to my bed.
I thought about Cain Miller in his tuxedo and wondered if he’d enjoyed his date like that after his benefit thing for the opera thing. Probably he had, and I bet she’d enjoyed it, too. I lay on my bed and let myself consider that in the unnatural quiet of my apartment until my sisters started calling because they were in another fight and each of them wanted me on her side. That took up the rest of my time that night.
They were still at it on Sunday when my middle sister, Amory, hosted us at her house after services. “Did you hear what she said to Mama about Teagan’s outfit?” Mory hissed at me angrily.
I looked over at my niece, Amory’s daughter. “What’s wrong with Teagan’s outfit?” Maybe it was a little short, but she’d just grown an inch or two, so that was why. She looked adorable.
“Mama said that Aubree said that it was slutty. She called my three-year-old a slut!”
“Why would Mama tell you that?” I asked, horrified.
“Because she agreed with Bree, of course!” Amory answered furiously. “That’s what my mother and sister are saying about my daughter. Bree’s just jealous because Teagan’s going to place ahead of her Gentry for the Little Miss Priss Sequatchie County title!”
I looked over again, where Amory’s daughter Teagan and Aubree’s daughter Gentry were happily playing. “Isn’t it nice that the girls get along so well?” I asked my sister, but her nostrils flared and she got red splotches in her pretty skin.
“Aubree probably coached Gentry to try to steal my daughter’s poses. She already had Mama taking pictures of Teagan’s cover-up for swimwear and her eveningwear dress! I caught her at it. Why does Mama always take her side?”
Here I Go Page 5