by T. S. Joyce
“You remembered my favorite,” she uttered, pulling it out of the bag. “Are you trying to get in my pants?”
“Yeah, that’s my plan,” he muttered, easing out of the parking spot. “Pick up vulnerable chicks at funerals and feed them donuts.”
“Instant boinky time.”
He laughed and shook his head, pulled onto the main road, and connected a call on his cell phone. “Hey, Holt, that idiot Tony Dunner pulled the ropes from Mae’s boats. Happened maybe two hours ago. If they’re floating free and not caught up on anything, they’ll already be past Liam’s property, but you still may see them. Can you do me a favor—Yeah? Seriously?” Cole’s light eyebrows lifted higher, and a smile ghosted his lips. “Thanks man. I know it’s asking a lot—okay, tell Bre thank you, too. We’re on our way. Yeah, she’s still wearing the dress from the funeral. Okay, I’ll tell her. We’ll be in your territory in fifteen minutes.”
Cole disconnected the call and took his eyes off the road, glanced at the phone like he didn’t recognize the contraption, and then back to the road.
“You okay?” she asked around a bite of orgasmic donut breading.
“Holt already agreed to go look for your boats before I even finished asking.”
With a gulp, Mae said, “You probably do stuff like that all the time for him and Liam, and you thought they didn’t notice. I think they have. I’m not surprised they want to help you.”
“He even said he was going to call Liam and Morgan, see if they would take his airboat out and look in the little channels. And Bre is setting dry clothes on the porch for you.”
“One short phone call and the troops are rallied,” she pointed out low. “Cole, you do have friends.”
“We have friends,” he corrected her, sliding his hand over her thigh. Squirts pecked his knuckle, but he only winced a little.
“I’m glad you knew what to do because I have been away from this place for too long. I wouldn’t have even thought to call the properties down the swamp.”
“Yeah, well, it’s more of my plan to get in your pants,” he teased.
Mae spread her knees wider and muttered, “Dick accepted,” around another huge bite of donut. Cole was chuckling this low, sexy laugh, and now it was her turn to get pecked by Squirts. She yelped and laughed, then settled the temperamental hen in the back seat. She would probably crap back there, but whatever. Mae would have to get it detailed anyway when she sold it.
Sold the Caddy. Something about that sent an ache right through her chest. “I’ve never been sentimental about material stuff, but I think I’ll be really sad to part with Tabby’s things.”
“You mean when you sell everything?” he asked quietly, the smile fading from his face like it had never existed at all.
She couldn’t look at him when his eyes cooled on her like that, so she stared at the half-eaten donut in her lap and nodded.
One. Two. Three.
After today, she had one day left with him. And it would only get harder and harder to pretend.
****
Mae looked so damn cute.
She was out here in the swamps, trudging through the mud in a baggy gray sweater, booty shorts, and a pair of navy rain boots that made her legs look two miles long. Her hair was all curly and wild from the rain, and her make-up was mostly rubbed off. Favorite part of her outfit? It was her smile. It stayed hooked right at the corner of her lips, ready at any moment to burst into a great big heart-blinding grin.
She’d been chattering on and on about old times, old friends, old memories of the shit they’d got into back when everything made sense. It was the first time in three years he’d felt…normal.
“Remember the first time we met?” he asked, holding a branch to the side so she could pass unscratched. This question was a test. She was definitely going to get it wrong.
“The year was 2014,” she said in a dramatic story-telling voice.
“Oh, lord,” he muttered, biting back a grin. “Here we go.”
“The night was homecoming for the high school. I was there supporting my alma mater, as all people in small towns tend to do for big football games. I desired some nachos from the snack shack, extra cheese, extra jalapenos, and a Pepsi, too. And some sour straws. And skittles. And a beef jerky stick. I turn around with an armful of my wares and run smack dab into a solid wall of Cole Jennings, the boy I’d had a crush on for the last six months, three days, and fifteen hours.” Her boots made squishing sounds. When she went in ankle deep, she yanked her foot out of the puddle with a slurping sound and continued her story. “I stood there like a bump on a log with my mouth hanging open, because there you were…the boy I’d worshipped from afar, standing right in front of me, holding the same things I’d bought. Nachos, skittles, sour straws, soda, beef jerky stick. And you were staring at me like I was an alien, and this was my moment. I was going to wow you with my grace and wit. I parted my lips, inhaled deeply, and used the best line on you in the history of lines. “I like your nachos. Your face is interesting. I have jalapenos and you don’t.”
Cole’s reaction to her side of the event surprised him. He didn’t recognize the sound of his own deep belly laugh. “Okay, first of all, I wasn’t looking at you like you were an alien. I thought you were really pretty, and I was trying not to be rude and stare at the huge glob of cheese that had smeared all over your tits. In my head, I was chanting, ‘Be a gentleman, don’t look, don’t look, don’t look.’ But the more I told myself not to look, the more I wanted to look.”
The walkie-talkie at his hip crackled, and Holt came on. “We found them. The flat-bottom was hung up in the reeds near Liam’s territory, and the big one was in that little honey-hole channel near me. Y’all come on back in, and we’ll do lunch before I have to head out to do a swamp tour. Liam can drive one of the boats back to Mae’s place with y’all after. I got extra ropes to tie them off, too.”
Mae wore a megawatt grin. She yanked the radio out of Cole’s hand before he could respond and pressed the button. “Ten Four Gatorman, this is Flatbuns GooglyMuffin, saying I sure appreciate y’all.”
Bre’s voice came on the static. “Flatbuns GooglyMuffin, this is the Wonky WeatherWoman saying the rain has been kept at bay, repeat, rain has been kept at bay. The Gatorman and LizzardNuggets have secured the escape vehicles.”
Liam’s voice came on. “Is that me? I’m LizzardNuggets? Fuck that, I want a better name.”
“I’ll be RebelPoacherTeets,” Morgan said through her giggling.
“Wait, what’s Cole’s name?” Bre asked.
“Fargo,” Holt deadpanned.
“Gatorman, this is Fargo,” Cole said into the radio, grinning at Mae. “The rotted corner of your porch is from me hiking a leg and pissin’ on it every time I got mad at you, over.”
“Man, that’s messed up,” Holt muttered. “Over.”
Next up was just Morgan’s maniacal laughter across the radio.
When he settled the walkie-talkie back at his hip and guided her back toward Holt’s territory, Mae said, “That was the moment, right? At the game? You looked at this girl with liquid cheese smeared all over her, who couldn’t put together one intelligent sentence, and you were like, ‘That one. I want that one.’”
Cole stepped ahead of her over a bunch of gnarled cypress roots and offered his hand to help her over. “No, that wasn’t the moment.”
“Okay,” she said, distracted as she picked her way across the uneven surface in the slightly too-big rubber rain boots. “You tell me your moment because I know mine. We’ll see if they match up.”
“Mine happened when we actually met the year before.”
She stopped, looked up at him. “What?”
“The game wasn’t the first time we met.”
She shook her head, confusion swirling in those pretty hazel eyes, so he continued. “I was shopping at that little market in town. The one that went out of business? I just needed eggs and milk, a quick trip. But when I went to the back to the da
iry section, there was this sound, this little heartbroken sniffle.”
Realization washed across Mae’s face.
He softened his voice. “I looked through the window of the swinging silver door where it said Employees Only, and there was this girl crying in the corner. Sitting on a box, her back to me, her shoulders shaking because she was so upset. I tried to walk away, to mind my own business and let her have that moment alone. It was so clear she wanted to be alone. She was in the darkest corner of that storage room, back turned on the world. Well, one of your co-workers was doing inventory on the eggs. He had a clipboard and was writing numbers. I tried to ignore those little heartbroken sobs like he was doing, but I couldn’t get you out of my head. I couldn’t just leave you there like that, so I asked him to borrow a piece of paper and scribbled a note out really fast. Just a few words.”
“Everything will be okay,” she whispered. Aw, good Mae. She remembered the words he’d written for her.
He ran his knuckle along her cheekbone and nodded. Her eyes were rimming with tears. Pretty Mae.
“I walked into that storage room, and you sat up straighter. You knew I was there, I could tell. So I stood behind you, and I didn’t know what to do or say to make you feel better. I just wanted you to know you weren’t alone. So I reached over your shoulder and set the note in your hand. You never turned around. You just sat there frozen. I know because as I was leaving, I looked back to see if you’d turned around.”
“That was you?”
He nodded. “That was the moment we actually met. And it was the moment you had me. I thought about you so much after that. Wondered what had happened to make you cry like that.”
“I’d adopted this puppy,” she murmured. “Just a little mutt named Ranger. He was so young and so sick, and the vet couldn’t save him. I’d lost him that morning.”
“You never told me that,” he whispered.
“Because he was my little baby, and it hurt to talk about losing him. When I started seeing you, I met your dog, Max. I was scared to get attached to him because I had planned on never having another dog after losing Ranger. But you two were a package deal, and I fell for all of it. For your whole life, for being a part of it, for being a part of something that made me happy. For the dinners, the grocery shopping together, and the laughing, the silence, the late-night talking. The sharing a life. I loved when I had days off work, and it was the three of us finding adventures. Singing at the top of our lungs in the car with Max in the back whining because my voice is so shitty. The nights in your arms, the days on the boat, cooking the animals you hunted, the feeling I had when you would show up where I worked. Of not being alone. You were always so good at making me feel a part of your life. You always included me. Even if you were going hunting squirrels with your brother and dad, you invited me. Even if they griped about you bringing a girl, you didn’t care. I was just yours, and that was that. I was yours, and I was Max’s, and losing that so suddenly was awful.” A tear streamed down her face as she repeated, “Awful.”
“You went and found a good life, Mae.”
“I forced myself to. I couldn’t have a life that even resembled what I had with you because it hurt. It would’ve been like eating tenth place cheery pie when I’d had the grand champion. It wouldn’t ever be enough, so I had to make my life look completely different.”
Cole slid his hands to her waist and drew her in, kissed her hard out of desperation. Desperation to stop the tears and the agony in her eyes at dredging up these memories. Desperation to make his own feelings steady out. Desperation to touch her, to feel her, to taste her and hold onto this moment with her a little longer.
The wind kicked up, and chills rippled across his forearms and he knew—he knew—deep down to his bones what he would find when he ended this kiss.
He stayed in it, the wind whipping, the thunder roiling in the sky, the taste of her on his mouth. He hugged her so tight and wished with everything that he had that he could hold onto her like this forever.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered against her lips, slowing the kiss.
She leaned back by inches and looked up at him, searching his eyes. “You never have to apologize for talking about these things, Cole. This is how we heal.”
A knife. That was a knife in his chest because he knew what was waiting behind him. He could feel the ghost.
She melted against him, wrapped her arms tight around his middle, and rested her soft cheek against him. She felt safe. She’d been lulled into forgetting what he was, but the proof was right behind him. Proof that she’d made the right decision in creating a better life without him.
Slowly, Cole looked over his shoulder.
Max sat there under the hanging Spanish moss of a cypress tree. He was translucent and whined softly. Mae would never hear the ghost, only him. Max was calling him back. And standing right beside him was Tabby. She stood straight and proud, her thin silver hair whipping around her shoulders. She was staring at him with the saddest eyes.
He hugged Mae tighter.
I know, Tabby. I know.
Love was a selfish emotion for a monster like him. He had no right to poison her with it. He didn’t want to hurt Mae, but causing pain was his destiny.
His time was almost up.
Chapter Twelve
The rain was singing on the old tin roof of Tabby’s house…er…Mae’s house now. She had a pile of paperwork to sign that Uncle Jeb, Aunt Adelaide, and Tabby’s lawyer had brought by. That and a few work emails to catch up on. She’d gotten her clients covered by her assistant for the week, but she was still getting questions about showings in Baton Rouge.
She was sitting crisscross-applesauce on the rug by the coffee table, and Cole was sitting on the couch right behind her, his knees on either side of her, touching her shoulders in reassurance that he was still there as he watched a football game on TV. He was so freaking cute, wearing a backward baseball cap and holding an old football. Old Cole had loved watching football games, and apparently New Cole still liked to when he was Changed. Hell, he probably watched them in dog form, too, just at Holt’s place.
Her stomach growled softly, and he tensed. “Are you hungry? I’m hungry.”
“Do you hear everything?” she asked, twisting to look at him from her place on the floor.
“Yup. I’ll get you fed.” He leaned forward and kissed her. Just, like it was nothing, like they did it all the time, kissed her on the lips, then stood and stepped over her. He paused to see a play on the TV and then made his way to the kitchen, slapping the football from hand to hand.
“I like that,” she said.
“What? Me being hungry for the tenth time today. I feel like I never get full on Changes.”
She giggled and sat up on the couch so she could curl her legs up and watch him in the kitchen easier. “No, I mean when you just kissed me. Like we’re normal. It was this utterly common moment, but I guess I appreciate it more because we don’t get those like other couples. Er…like other people. Not couples. I didn’t mean to call us that.”
He glanced up from where he’d been rooting around in the fridge. “Say whatever you want, Mae. No one’s going to get you in trouble for messing up words here.”
He was acting weird. He’d set the football on the counter, but as he moved around the kitchen, he was purposefully avoided a spot right in the middle. Over and over, he did that.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
He scooped some sort of casserole onto a pair of plates and didn’t look up as he said, “Of course. Today is the best day I’ve had in a long time.”
“Okay,” she drawled as he turned and walked around that spot again to return the casserole dish to the fridge. “Cole?”
He grabbed a couple of soft drinks from the beer fridge. “Mmm hmmm?”
She unfolded her legs and stood, then made her way to the bar stools by the kitchen island, where she sat down. “What’s in the middle of the kitchen?”
Cole paused and
slowly set down the pair of Cokes. He locked his arms against the counter and stared at the tile there. He stood and scratched the back of his head before he finally met her eyes. “Max is there.”
Mae looked at the middle of the floor but didn’t see anything. “What does that mean?
He chewed on the corner of his lip and answered, “It means I don’t have much time left.”
Oh, what those six words did to her chest. There was an instant hollowing there. Not much time left? “But you said you have three days.”
“It’s not an exact science. Sometimes it’s three days and sometimes it’s two. And sometimes it’s one.” His tone became darker, grittier. He gripped the edge of the countertop. “And sometimes I Change back to a man in a week, sometimes two weeks, but most of the time it’s three weeks or a month. And what I am never bothered me quite as much as it does right now.”
His phone rang, vibrating against the counter. He looked at the glowing screen, and from here she could read what it said. Dad.
“Sorry, I need to get this.”
“It’s okay,” she murmured. “Tell him hi for me.”
“Hey,” he answered. “Where are you?” There was a pause, and Cole turned to face the window above the sink. “Dad, I wish you would cut that shit out. No. No. Dad you’re going to miss the entire Change this time. I already see the ghost. No.” He sighed. “There’s more than one.” He let off a very canine growl and put it on speaker, set the phone on the counter in front of Mae. “Hey, Dad, someone wants to say hi.”
Mae couldn’t help her smile. She’d loved his dad and brother when she and Cole were together. “Hi Mr. Jennings. It’s Mae.”
“Mae?” he asked. “Mae Dafoe? Holy shit, child, you’re back in town?”
“Yes, sir, I’m just back for a few days.”
“Oh, I heard about your great grandma, and I’m so sorry for your loss. Tabby was a town treasure.”
“Well, thank you for saying that, sir. You just made my heart a little happier. She was pretty amazing.”