by Cate Ashwood
She simply nodded before taking a sip of her milk.
“I like it here,” she said, whispering, as if she wasn’t supposed to say it, or—worse—wasn’t supposed to be happy. “It’s nice and quiet. And I like seein’ Mawmaw and Granddaddy every day.”
It’d only been a few nights, but Birdy had made herself at home. John had already started to look for a bigger place, somewhere for the three of them. He didn’t like the idea of Melonie having to raise Birdy on her own. Mostly, he didn’t like the idea of Shitbag ever coming around to look for them and John not being there. He planned to keep them close for as long as Melonie would tolerate it. He’d forgotten how independent she was. Bullheaded, even. Which was probably one of the reasons she’d ended up with Thompson in the first place. She’d pushed so hard to get away from Momma and Daddy and ended up jumping straight from the frying pan and into the fire. But that was yesterday’s problem.
“What’s say we get cleaned up and read us some stories before bed?”
Birdy looked at him with big, pleading eyes. “What about dessert?”
“Where on earth do you put it all, baby bird? I’m stuffed. No room for dessert.”
Birdy only needed to look at John expectantly for about three seconds.
“There’s a pudding cup in the fridge. Your momma made me promise to give it to ya if you ate your dinner and drank your milk.”
Birdy nodded and chugged the last few sips of her milk before hopping out of her chair.
Just as she turned for the sliding glass door, John said, “I think you’re forgetting somethin’.”
Birdy looked like a cartoon character screeching to a stop. “Thank you?”
He couldn’t help but laugh. “You’re welcome. But I was hoping you’d take your plate and cup into the kitchen….”
She looked like she might smack herself on the forehead for her rookie mistake. “Yessir.” John watched as she grabbed her dishes and ran inside.
He was content to keep an eye on her through the screen door for a moment, wondering if he could sneak a cigarette, when footsteps around the side of the house had him on his feet. “Get the fuck outta my yard,” he called out, trying to keep his voice down as he stepped closer to the door, ready to go into the closet and get his shotgun.
“Jesus, John,” Chloe said as she rounded the corner. “Sound like you’re fixin’ to shoot me.”
“I damn near was,” he said, relief rushing through him. His altercation with Thompson—his fear that he might sober up and come for Birdy and Mel—had him on pins and needles lately. John felt like his hair trigger was about to go off. “What’re you doin’ out here?”
Chloe stepped up onto the porch, a small shopping bag in her hand. “I was cleanin’ out my closet, brought some stuff by for Mel and Birdy.”
John nodded, loving her a little more than he had a moment earlier. “You hungry? Got plenty of leftovers.”
“I’m good,” she said, watching as John lit a cigarette. She let him have one drag and then took it from him. “Only stoppin’ by. Don’t wanna intrude.”
He let her smoke half before taking it back from her. “If you didn’t wanna intrude, why didn’t ya bring your own smokes?”
“I did,” she said, laughing at him. “But you’ll be back up to two packs a day if I don’t save you from yourself.”
She was right, of course. He needed to just quit altogether. One or two here and there had turned into a pack every other day already.
Just as he was about to tell her Birdy was in the kitchen, the screen door slid open. “Chloe!” Birdy practically cheered at the sight of her. “Are you sleepin’ over?”
Chloe beamed at her. “No, darlin’, I’m just stoppin’ by.” She sat down at the table, close to John, and pulled one of the other chairs near for Birdy. “I got somethin’ in here for you,” she said as she put the shopping bag down between her feet.
When Chloe leaned over, John noticed the locket she was wearing. A simple silver heart, big enough to hold a picture. “You ain’t worn that in years,” he said as he crushed his cigarette out. “Thought you’d lost it.”
“Told you, I was goin’ through my closet.” She popped it open when Birdy took a long look at it. “This here is me and your uncle back when we were kids.”
Birdy grinned. “You look the same, just as pretty now as then.”
“I knew I liked you, Birdy.” Chloe pressed a kiss to Birdy’s forehead. “But look what I found,” she said as she reached into the bag and pulled out a small velvet box.
The locket inside was smaller than the one Chloe wore, but it was made of gold with a tiny diamond chip in it. John recognized that one too.
“My brother gave this one to me when I was about your age,” Chloe said, her voice catching slightly. “I’d been havin’ bad dreams, see, and he told me it’d chase my nightmares away.”
“Like magic?” Birdy asked, tracing her fingertip around the outline of the heart.
“Just like magic,” Chloe agreed.
Birdy looked up to her, eyes bright. “Did it work?”
Chloe nodded. “Kept me safe for a long time.”
She didn’t add Until he died, but John heard it just as well as if she’d said it.
She took it out of the box and fastened it around Birdy’s neck. “Now I want you to have it, see if there’s a little magic left in it.”
“Thank you, Miss Chloe,” Birdy said softly. “I’ll take real good care of it.”
“I know you will.” Chloe kissed her cheek and added, “If you’re scared or sad, you just hold tight to it and think about good things, all the things that make you happy, okay?”
Birdy nodded and threw her arms around Chloe’s neck. John watched the two of them as his heart missed a beat. Chloe with her strength and her kindness, Birdy with her little-girl wonder and her spirit. They both carried their battle scars with grace.
John cleared his throat, trying to rein in his emotions before they overwhelmed him. “All right, baby bird. Time to get on brushin’ your teeth and washin’ your face.”
“Will you stay for a story?” Birdy asked Chloe.
With a glance at John, Chloe said, “Just one, then I gotta get. Got work tomorrow.”
John wagered she would’ve stayed all night if she could.
As soon as Birdy was out of earshot, John said, “What was it you said? That I spoil her?”
“Oh, shut up.” Chloe didn’t sound angry. Instead she laughed and took another cigarette from John. “What’re your plans this weekend? Other than a fishing date?”
“Sleepin’. You?”
Chloe took a long drag and blew it out slowly. “You know that online group I’m in?”
John snorted a laugh. “Which one? The dates-gone-wrong one or the cat memes?”
“The movie and book club, jackass.”
“Oh, right. That one.”
Chloe poked her elbow into John’s ribs. “That new Tom Hardy movie—we just read the book it’s based on last month—it’s opening this weekend, so a bunch of us are gonna get together and go see it, make a weekend out of it.”
John didn’t like the sound of that, not really. “You ever met any of these people in real life before?” He knew she hadn’t, but he asked anyway.
“We Skype and stuff all the time.”
“That’s not the same.”
Chloe stood up and leaned over him, pinning him with her eyes. “It’s close enough, John Turner, and you’re not allowed to be a dick about this.” She pulled back, grinning.
She knew how to beat him into submission, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. “At least tell me where you’re meetin’ everyone.”
“Just down in Pensacola, only a few hours away.”
“Fine. I reckon I can’t stop ya.”
“No, you can’t.” She kissed his cheek and said, “But I’m glad you’re not gonna get in my way.”
“How could I get in your way?”
“Insist you come with me? Follow me? I don’t
know, never can tell with you.”
She had a point.
“CAN YOU explain to me why you seem to start your weekends before the sun is up?” Matt asked from beside John.
John had a few answers to that. Mostly he wanted to put in as much time with Matt as possible. “Wanna beat the heat. And different fish bite at different times and temperatures, so it makes sense to get out there early and stay all day.” As John turned off the main road and headed farther south, the morning sun started its slow rise, cutting across the silent sky. A red ribbon against a backdrop of blue. “Besides,” he said, shifting in his seat. “Sun’s up now.”
Matt snorted a laugh. “I’m just glad I brought extra beer.”
“That’s always a good call.”
They rambled out of town, over dirt roads lined on either side with rows of dogwood and cherry blossom trees. John nearly stopped at the last gas station out of town, but they didn’t really need anything. He’d packed a big picnic—himself, not from his mother’s kitchen—and had every supply he could think of stashed in the bed of his truck. “If you ever come out here on your own,” he said as they passed the station, “that’s your last chance for gas or groceries before a whole lotta nowhere, and it’s only open sunup to sundown.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Matt said with a glance at John. “Just in case I’m ever in the mood to get lost in a whole lotta nowhere.”
John looked at him, let his gaze linger on Matt’s face, his hair falling over his forehead. “You’d be surprised. Sometimes it’s good to let yourself get lost.”
And just like that, with those quiet words and Matt catching his eye for one beat, there was an electric spark between them, so hot and so bright it could’ve lit up the whole world.
“I agree,” Matt said softly, his tone intent, as if they’d just made an unspoken promise to each other.
John forced his attention back on the road and rolled his window down, mostly for the background noise. He needed something to fill the silence that now stretched between them. The warm wind and the sound of birds waking would have to do because John was suddenly lost for words.
A soft laugh from Matt broke the tension. “You really don’t do well with… interpersonal relationships and communications, do you?”
John nearly told him he didn’t do well with big words, but that would’ve been a lie. “Not really, no.” He didn’t usually smoke when there was someone else riding with him, but John figured he’d need a cigarette for this conversation and reached for his pack. “Not with people I’m still gettin’ to know, at any rate. Or people I….”
“Fuck?” Matt asked as John lit up.
He blew the smoke out the window and glanced at Matt again. “Pretty much.” After a pause, he added, “I mean, to be clear, you’re the first person I’ve ever hooked up with that I also had a conversation with, so, ya know, if I seem new it’s because I am.”
Matt seemed to consider that for a beat before saying, “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind.” He paused, as if trying to decide if he should say anything else. “It’s just… it seems lonely, know what I mean?”
“That’s what Chloe always says too.” John took another long drag from his cigarette before going on. “Says I’m the only person she knows who can be in a room full of family and friends and look lonely.”
“Are you? Lonely?” Matt asked, sounding hesitant.
Good question. Right now, with Matt beside him and the sun casting an orange glow through the trees, catching the dust and pollen in the air, making the world look golden and alive and peaceful all at once, John didn’t feel lonely exactly. “Sometimes, yeah,” he admitted finally. “But, even when I’m not feelin’ lonely, things are good, I still… I know it’ll pass and I’ll be on my own again. Not sure how I feel about that. I like bein’ on my own. But I kinda don’t too.”
“I think most people struggle with that one,” Matt said after a moment of consideration. “But… being here, not letting very many people really know me, it does feel lonelier than I thought it would. For me, anyway.”
John hated the thought of that more than he minded his own sense of seclusion. For some reason, Matt living in the closet felt too much like putting some glorious bird of prey in a cage. Matt hadn’t been raised in captivity like John had and it seemed wrong somehow. “You could come out, though. A lotta people wouldn’t give it a second thought.” John found himself listing them all one by one in his head. His momma wasn’t on the roster, though. “Andy—hell, most of the guys at the station would be okay with it, I reckon.”
When John looked at Matt again, he could swear he saw a little flash of hope in his eyes. The look fell, his mouth turning downward.
“You probably wouldn’t be seen in public much with me, though, would you? Or things like this, fishing or a camping trip… ball game, movie. That’d be too much for you, wouldn’t it?”
They hadn’t known each other long, but Matt had learned him pretty quick. His silence probably answered for him, but John finally said, “Most likely.” He offered a weak smile and added, “I’m not the only dick in a fifty-mile radius, though. Bet you could find someone easier than me.” He paused and laughed. “Well, easier to deal with than me.” That idea didn’t sit right with John, though. The thought made him grip his steering wheel tighter, exhale the last drag of his cigarette in an irritated huff as he crushed it out.
Matt surprised him and put his hand on John’s knee. Nothing seductive in the gesture, just a warm weight on his skin where his shorts had hitched up.
“I think I’m all right for now,” Matt said quietly. “I’ll let you know if I feel the need to make a big announcement and find myself some out-and-proud guy from the other side of town, okay?”
John let out a breath. “And I’ll let ya know if I can’t handle, ya know, this here.” He didn’t say the words us or relationship or dating, but he hoped Matt understood.
“Deal.”
Chapter Fourteen
IT WAS way too fucking early. The light was subdued in that early-morning way that made the edges of everything seem softer. John had brought Matt to the middle of nowhere, a secluded spot with trees sheltering the shoreline. They sat on the blanket John had laid out for them, their backs against a log near the water, their fishing rods wedged between two rocks close by.
With nowhere to be and nothing particular that needed doing, it was the perfect way to pass the time. Sunlight filtered through the leaves, dappling the space around them, and Matt exhaled, feeling more relaxed than he had in weeks. Just him and John, away from everything and everyone… it felt like all Matt’s tension had released and out here they didn’t need to be careful about how they looked at each other, or what rumors might start if they were seen sitting too close.
“How’d you find this place?” Matt said, looking over at John. The little clearing in the trees was hidden, impossible to see from the road. Matt would never have known it was there if John hadn’t shown him.
John shifted a little nearer to Matt, still not touching, but almost. “Daddy used to bring me out here when I was little, younger than Birdy. Taught me how to fish, how to clean ’em and gut ’em. Partied out here when we was teenagers with nothin’ good to do….”
“Perfect place for it. Helluva lot more picturesque than the parking lot of the 7-Eleven we hung out in when I was a kid.”
“It’s nice, ’cause you can hear anyone comin’ from a half mile away.” He paused, wet his lips as he glanced at Matt, and said, “I’m glad ya like it.”
Matt’s heart kicked against his chest, and his breath caught just from that one look. John settled back on the log again, looking out over the water.
“I always imagined fishing to be two guys, sitting in a boat in the middle of a lake, drinking beer.”
John leaned over and opened the cooler before he pulled two cans of beer from inside and handed one to Matt. “All we’re missin’ is the boat.”
“Don’t think we need the boat,
” Matt replied. “This is better anyway. I never much liked being on the water.”
John shot him a look. “You lived on the coast.”
“Yeah, but the closest I got to the water was dipping my toes in. It’s way too fucking cold, even in the summer time. My old partner tried to teach me to surf.”
“How’d that go?”
Matt laughed and shook his head. “It didn’t. Not even bribing me with free lunches for a month could get me in that water. Santiago told me I wasn’t a real California boy if I didn’t surf, but I never really felt like I was in the first place, I guess.”
“Think you’ll ever go back?” John asked and for a second, Matt thought he heard a fragment of vulnerability in the question. It made him hopeful that maybe John might be a bit bothered if he moved back home.
“I don’t know,” Matt said. “My family’s there. Didn’t realize how much I’d miss them until I was on the other side of the country.”
John was quiet for a moment. “I’m not sure I could live without mine, truth be told.”
“Yeah, I get that. But even with my parents and Santiago there, California never felt like home, like I wanted to put down roots there. I felt like I was waiting for life to start. I guess that’s part of the reason I felt I needed to leave.” He glanced at John, glad to see him so relaxed, so comfortable in Matt’s company. “The kid was the catalyst, but if I’m being honest, I was feeling restless for a while. I wanted to experience something else, something that was just for me. Leaving should have been harder than it was, but other than my parents and my partner, there wasn’t really anyone worth staying for.” He hoped the meaning wasn’t lost on John, that he realized Matt felt like there might be someone worth staying for in Georgia.
The air was thick with something unspoken as Matt edged closer. Looking at John, Matt silently asked for permission to touch. There was no one around for miles in any direction, but they were still technically within the city limits of Magnolia Ridge, and as desperate as Matt was to feel John’s body against his, he needed to be certain.