by Casey Hagen
And Cassidy had spent several hours at the emergency vet with her new puppy Zeus who’d gotten ahold of her boyfriend’s candy bar while he was in the bathroom. Zeus came through like a champ, but Cassidy’s boyfriend Dave was definitely on puppy probation which explained the snoring furball sprawled out on his dog bed in front of the sliding glass doors.
Layla and Heather still had the crisis at work that was taking up far too much of their time, but at least their boyfriends hadn’t caused them any grief. That would be coming soon enough. Layla’s boyfriend Hunter wanted to move in. Heather’s boyfriend Kyle wanted her to move in. And since Aurora’s engagement, both Layla and Heather were holding out for rings before they considered cohabitating.
And then there was Mabel Lee, to whom living with a man seemed about as possible as dropping triplets on Sunday in the middle of church service.
But she was closer. To the cohabitating. Maybe. It was early days yet. Not the triplets thing of course. Because being a mere mortal, she had to procreate and gestate, and these things took time.
The chaos for friends left Mabel Lee on her own, with no one to share the excitement with. Instead, she’d spent two nights replaying it all in her head, along with a few flirty phone calls and plans to catch a movie.
“I’ve got wine. Now I want details. All the details,” Aurora said after making sure everyone had their own full glass.
She desperately needed these women and their wisdom because things felt a whole lot serious right off the bat after those kisses. Sure, she could slow things down. Kellen made it clear that she was to set the pace. Usually right before he kissed her stupid, his tongue doing all sorts of spine-shivering things to her.
What if she didn’t want to slow things down? What if she just wanted to let it all fly and see what came of it?
“Spill it, Mabel Lee. Millie’s on the Green. Now go,” Cassidy said with a smile.
“We started at Millie’s but moved on to The Burger Hut and Cooper’s.”
“Three places? Why?” Layla asked, snagging a cookie from the platter on the coffee table.
“A reverse date. Coffee and dessert first, dinner next, appetizer last,” Mabel Lee said, taking a sip of wine. She’d made sure to have a hearty dinner before they hit the wine because the past two times she drank, words, so many words fell from her lips that she cringed about at the first moment of clarity.
“Did he offer himself up on a plate?” Cassidy said, snorting into her wine glass.
“Oh my God! I love that movie. Nick ‘The Dick’ right?” Layla said around the cookie in her mouth. Crumbs flopped from her lips and landed on her blouse, but she didn’t notice.
Mabel Lee’s fingers itched to get up and get Aurora’s dustbuster.
“What are we talking about?” Mabel Lee asked. The conversation veered almost before it started, and again, she was the only one who didn’t seem to have one clue what was going on.
“It’s from this super-old, raunchy movie Bachelor Party. The guys, made up of the groom and all of his buddies, are having a bachelor party the night before his wedding. His fiancée is having her bachelorette party as well. They find out that his fiancée, her friends, and even some of her older female relatives are going to this strip joint so they intercept,” Heather said.
“So the guys hire one of the strippers there to pretend to be a waiter—” Layla added.
“Or was he really one of the waiters, just a super-hot waiter?” Cassidy asked.
“I can’t really remember, but that’s okay; it’s not integral to the plot. So get this…they have him hold a tray of hotdogs in buns at waist level and stuff his dog in one of the buns,” Heather said.
“And then he heads to their table. You know the minute they get out there that it’s going to be bad,” Layla said, enunciating the words with a dramatic shake of her head.
“Sure enough, if I remember right, it was the mama who got a hold of his meat. The funniest part, she kept tugging,” Cassidy said.
“Tugging?” Mabel Lee asked, her skin flushing.
“When she realized what she was holding, she tugged harder with this horrified look on her face,” Aurora added. “It’s like she couldn’t let go. Kind of like when I fell and caught myself on the electric fence by the Milton farm. I was standing in a puddle, fell, caught the wire, and couldn’t let go while it continued to zap the shit out of me. I’d rather be holding a waiter’s meat in a bun, frankly.”
“We all would,” Cassidy said with a snort.
“Says the women who have all held, um—meat in their hand and can do so whenever they want,” Mabel Lee said.
“You know, I kind of always envisioned you getting that face, Mabel Lee, but you did great the other night. The alcohol went straight to your head, but that naked white knight came in and saved you from our bad influence,” Cassidy said.
“And before you could get ahold of his meat,” Aurora said with a laugh.
“She did look like she might head into dog in bun territory, didn’t she?” Layla said.
“Only if she’d had another drink. I’m convinced she was sucking some down while we had our eyes on the stage. Even then, though, I think her dog and bun window was narrow. Between the completely shit-faced, but sixty seconds before passing out narrow,” Cassidy said.
Layla reached for the bottle of wine and refilled her glass. “Even then, she’d have to pick the right one, and when you’re seeing triple, the degree of difficulty significantly increases.”
“You know, I don’t think Mabel Lee would look at his meat like that at all. But her mama…totally different story,” Aurora said.
“I’m not sure my mama ever even touched my dad like that. At least I can’t picture it. Which is probably a good thing,” Mabel Lee said taking a healthy gulp of her wine. God, just the thought had her stomach rolling and her face scrunching. She knew her mama was a sexual being. Kinda. After all, she’d had a child. Mabel Lee wasn’t completely naïve to attraction and mating, but gah! No, she couldn’t go there in her head. Nope, nope, nope.
“What got us on this track anyway?” Aurora asked.
“The reverse date. I pictured Viper serving himself on an appetizer plate,” Cassidy said. “Totally my bad.”
Heather giggled into her glass. “I don’t know why; you saw just as much as I did, and that boy would need a dinner plate for sure.”
“A dinner plate?” Mabel Lee asked.
“Oh yeah. Mabel Lee, I don’t know if you’re ready for a ride like that,” Layla said.
Mabel Lee took a long drink of wine, the alcohol lingering on her tongue, the rest of it hitting her system and loosening her lips. “Well, I better get ready because we almost burned The Burger Hut to the ground with our kiss.”
Cassidy slid to the edge of the couch cushion and leaned in. “What? All the details, girl. All. Of. Them.”
She told them about the lingering touches and looks, the way he held her hand right from the start. How with as many opportunities as he had to take advantage, he didn’t, and instead did things like having her alternate beer and water to keep her safe from herself and her naivety.
Then she recalled the way he twirled and dipped her on the sidewalk in front of onlookers like one of the heroines from an old black-and-white movie, making her feel like the most treasured woman in the world.
Her friends watched her with matching looks of wonder on each of their faces.
And then there was the twenty questions routine when she’d told him she was an open book, and how most of his questions had been to find out what she loved. Each answer seemed to get the gears churning in his head to the point that she wondered if he was mapping out how he planned to win her heart.
Of course, that could have been the beer talking, but still, she held on to that conclusion because—all the feels.
She filled them in on everything he’d told her about his business, about how he stripped for a good reason, but was also mysteriously quiet about what that reason was. And
how he followed her all the way home, but waited across the street as she parked and walked into her house.
“Is he a head holder? He looks like he’d be a holder,” Layla said with a wistful sigh and a dreamy tilt to her head.
“I bet he gets all growly in his throat, like he’s barely restraining himself from tossing her on the table and giving her a what for right there,” Aurora said.
Heather shook her head. “Mmmm, not that guy. I mean, I get it. He has this simmering alpha thing going, but you all saw the way he looked at Mabel Lee. He cherishes her. I don’t know how in such a short time, but he does.”
“I like the idea of being cherished, but I think I want to know about that loss of control tossing me on the table thing,” Mabel Lee admitted. Okay, she more than wanted to know. She wanted it all. Couldn’t she have it all?
“I don’t know…I think I know how he started to cherish her in such a short time,” Cassidy said quietly, getting all of their attention. “We were all the same way, weren’t we? We saw this girl, painfully shy, wearing that reserved armor her mama fastened on her like a chastity belt, but every once in a while, her true nature came out in a word, a phrase, or in the defiant excitement she’d get when she put lip gloss on before the bell rang. I think he saw the same thing in her that we all see.”
“I don’t know what that is,” Mabel Lee said.
“Shy curiosity. Opennes. No judgment,” Aurora said.
Cassidy nodded in agreement. “You keep us in check honey. You’re our counterbalance. And at the same time, we try to give you experiences that allow you to explore yourself.”
“But why do you do that for me?” Mabel Lee whispered, her cheeks heating with embarrassment as the compliment knocked her off her feet.
“Besides the fact we love you, genuinely like you, and we need you? I can’t speak for everyone here, but for me, you savor new experiences and rites of passage in a way I never did. I was always balls-to-the-wall and never lived in those moments enough. While I feel that sting of regret for moments I’ll never get back, you soothe it by letting us live vicariously through you,” Cassidy said, her words tinged with restrained emotion.
“You’re not what your mama tells you that you are. You’re funny, quirky, clumsy as all get out, but so damned honest and true that we can’t help but love you,” Aurora said. “And I think there’s a certain guy who’s not going to be able to help himself, and he’s going to love you too.”
“I don’t know what to do with him. He’s so much. You know what I mean?”
“Oh, I assure you, we all know exactly what you mean,” Cassidy said.
“But not in the macho way. He’s so bloody confident in himself as a man that he’s not cocky about it at all, and that is a dangerous combination,” Heather added.
Except he wasn’t. Not entirely. He had a few soft spots vulnerable spots that made him so human that it lit a curiosity in her to explore him. All of him.
“You’re about to do some falling girl. I hope you’re ready,” Aurora said, giving her a wink.
And wasn’t that just the thing? There was no about to. It had already started. It started that night in Big Shift when he promised her what their first kiss would be like which he delivered one hundred percent. His promise, the respect and care he’d shown her, it had her propelling herself into a dumpster and shedding her pride along the way.
“I’m worried,” she whispered to her friends.
“Oh, honey. Why? Falling in love is the absolute best feeling in the world,” Aurora said.
“Well, there is one thing that feels better, you know, in the moment,” Heather said into her glass.
“Serious moment here, no making it dirty, but yeah, I hear you,” Cassidy said.
“What about my mama. Can you imagine if she ever found out that he’s a stripper? I mean, he has a day job, so thank God that’s only side income, but I’m going to have to lie to her because I certainly can’t tell her how we met. And he’s not big on religion. Nothing against it, but it’s just not his thing. She won’t be happy about that.”
Cassidy set her glass down and took Mabel Lee’s shoulders in her hands. “I think it’s going to be time to have a heart to heart with your mama. You’ve been putting it off for a long time. You’ve given her plenty of time to grieve your dad and heal. But this is your life, Mabel Lee. It’s all up to you. If you want him, she’s the one who needs to figure out how to fit into that picture.”
So basically, all she had to do was make sure her mama, the gossip train, and other troublemakers didn’t plow through her budding relationship and crush it to dust before it even had a chance to start.
No problem.
10
Dusty and hot, Kellen made his way through Willette after a long, miserable day outside in the hot Georgia sun, memories of his father’s mistakes screaming through his mind with every mile. He’d be lying if he didn’t admit to turning it over in his mind ever since he followed Mabel Lee home and discovered just where she lived.
Religious girl, heavily involved with the church, living in Willette, a town with only two churches, the chances were damn good that she might just be a member of the church his father swindled.
Avoiding it as long as he could, he resolved to call the attorney he’d used to forward restitution payments to find out for sure.
His father’s subsequent disappearing act after he’d gotten out of jail told Kellen everything he needed to know, that the man had likely slid right back into the gambling circle that had almost consumed him the first time around.
At least now, if he cheated anyone, it wouldn’t be through the company, and Kellen wouldn’t be left making people whole. Not that he’d been required to, but he wouldn’t have been able to live with himself if he hadn’t.
Good riddance.
Not that he didn’t love his dad, but he sure as hell hadn’t left his mama’s house and the tight family unit she’d formed with her new husband and new kids, a unit he never really fit into, to take care of an addict who couldn’t even make an effort to take care of himself.
Spotting a sign for Lulu’s Concoctions ahead and a rough wooden sign with “iced coffee” painted in white propped next to the road, he decided to treat himself. What’s a few more minutes of dirt corroding his skin if it meant infusing his blood with a blast of caffeine. He’d put that energy to good use by calling Mabel Lee later and flirting with her shamelessly on the phone.
And maybe a part of him sought to be a bit closer to Mabel Lee. Something about stopping in her town, at a place she might frequent, took away the sting of missing her.
Oh, he had it bad. Real bad.
He’d tasted her. More than once. And for the first time, despite his hard-ass stance where his father was concerned, he could understand uncontrollable temptation.
Gravel crunched under the tires of his truck as he pulled in. Dust kicked up behind him despite the rain showers that had moved through earlier in the day. The sun had sucked every last bit of moisture out of the ground, and him.
Lulu’s, despite the welcoming sign, did not invite people to linger. With nowhere to sit other than a flaming-hot deck full of picnic tables without a lick of shade, people placed their order at one counter and slid on down to the other side to collect it when it was ready, then headed for their cars.
Hell, he wanted a shower anyway so no point in dawdling.
“What can I get for you, handsome?” a robust woman with cotton-candy-white hair pinned high on her head asked. She snatched the pencil from somewhere in the nest piled up there and aimed the tip at her pad.
A throwback to the days of truck stop waitresses with big earrings and a bad habit of smacking gum, he liked her immediately. “I take it you’re the one and only Lulu?” he asked.
“In the flesh. How did you know?” she said, giving him a smile and slipping a piece of Juicy Fruit into her mouth.
He laughed at just how accurately he’d pegged her. She wouldn’t be like other women in
the crowds at Big Shift either. Nope, she would be the one to beckon a dancer over by saying, “Come give mama some sugar,” then she’d stuff an obscene amount of money in his G-string and tell him that he needed to put a little meat on his bones to shake for the ladies.
“You have a way about you that can’t be contained. Lulu is the only name that would fit,” he said.
She slapped her palm on the counter and grinned. “You got that right. I like you, son. I may even like you more if you tip. So, what would you like?”
He scanned the board and spotted the special. “You know what, I’ll take the iced Lulu Supreme.”
“You sure you can handle all that? It’s got a bite to it and one hell of a kicker chasing that. You won’t blink for an hour. I was a hellcat back in my day, and that sucker is a tribute.”
“I don’t know. I get the idea you’re a hellcat still today. I’m willing to give it a shot. If it kills me, what a way to go. Am I right?”
She rapped her knuckles on the counter and stood. “Yeah, I definitely like you. You’ve got all the right answers, but you’re not slick about it, so I know you’re honest. Give me just a minute and I’ll get you the best Lulu’s Supreme I’ve got.”
“Thanks,” he said, handing her cash and dropping a twenty in the tip jar.
She raised a brow and gave him a wink.
Yup, he was so in with Lulu.
He stepped aside and scanned the corkboard filled with yard sale flyers, church socials, community barbecues, and the random business card for mechanics, handymen, and babysitters. Even if he needed the advertising, he’d be better off not dropping his card in Willette. No need to open Pandora’s box.
The door opened behind him, sending a blast of hot air against his back. His shirt clung to his sweaty skin, ratcheting his discomfort to a hundred.
“Mabel Lee, honey, don’t you look divine. Give me just a minute and I’ll get Manny to carry out your order for you.”
The hair stood up on his neck at the sound of her name on Lulu’s lips. He looked like shit; he knew he did, but he didn’t care. He’d get to say hi, hear her voice, and steal a kiss from her soft lips.