The Beautiful Now

by M. Leighton

  “That’s a wonderful dream, Brinkley, but it’s just that—a dream. I’m trying to help you keep your feet on the ground.”

  “So I should sleep with someone and settle, is that it? That’s your advice?”

  “Should I be telling you to wait for love? Should I be filling your head with nonsense that will get you nowhere in life when I could be giving you advice that will save you and your children a lifetime of heartache? Is it so wrong that I want the best for my child and my grandchildren? Is that so awful?”

  How could she turn that around and make me feel guilty?

  How?

  Love, that’s how.

  Momma knew I loved her. She was my mother and she was all I’d ever had, and no matter how much I disagreed with her ways, I would always do my best to make her happy, make her proud. And she knew it. I’d always do what she asked of me.

  Except give my virginity to Taylor Kraus. Hell would have to freeze over first and I was pretty sure snow wasn’t in the forecast down there.

  “No, of course not, but encouraging me to sleep with a guy and not even worry about getting pregnant just so I can trap him and have myself a posh life in a town like this is…is…God, Momma, that’s twisted! Can’t you see that?”

  Harrumphing at the perceived slight I just dealt her, she backed away, wounded. “I do apologize for having a good life, for giving you a good life. I’m sorry that I want the same for you and yours. I’m obviously a monster.”

  The sad thing was, she wasn’t a monster at all. I knew that, in her mind, she really thought she was doing what was best for me. And for herself as well. Can’t forget that. She thought the answer to all problems was money, so she did what she had to do to get it. Even if it meant marrying it. Prostituting herself, even though I knew she’d never see it that way.

  But I saw it that way.

  And others did, too.

  Even more would if they could see the way Alton treated her around the house, always pawing at her and treating her like his own personal sex toy. Of course, I guess maybe she was. But Momma would never admit that there was anything wrong with what was between them. She believed what she believed, end of story.

  Even now, she was actually hurt that I didn’t see her words as sweet and caring, that I didn’t regard them as sound advice. She couldn’t understand why I thought her decisions were anything less than perfectly acceptable. How could she be so deluded? What had happened in her life to make her this way?

  Mom had never told me much about her past. It was obvious she didn’t like talking about her childhood and both my grandparents were dead, so I had no one else to ask. Evidently, they’d been very, very poor, though. Things must not have changed much when she met my father. She rarely talked about him either. I don’t know if it hurt her to remember him or if she was glad he left. I would’ve liked to know more, but it upset her when I brought it up. She wouldn’t talk about his parents either, other than to say I was better off without them anywhere near me. I had no choice but to take her word for it, and eventually I just stopped asking. It didn’t really matter now anyway. Getting answers wouldn’t change a single thing.

  I sighed, tired and defeated for the moment. It had been a long night, and now I just wanted to forget about all the stupid societal rules and regulations around here and just be myself. Even if it was only temporary and it had to be done alone, in my room.

  “You’re not a monster, Momma. I just…I just had a bad night. I’ll feel better tomorrow, I’m sure. Go to bed. That’s what I’m gonna do.”

  I gave her a quick kiss to the cheek, smiling into her still-hurt eyes, and turned to make my way upstairs. I couldn’t handle one more second of that conversation. Not one more second. It made life seem…bleak. Pointless. Hopeless.

  Most of the time I felt claustrophobic in Shepherd’s Mill anyway. Tonight, it felt a million times worse, like the very people in it were trying to choke the life out of me. Trying to choke my every dream and desire. And maybe they were. According to my mother, the only dreams safe enough to hold on to were the ones involving a rich man who would rescue me from my troubles.

  I went upstairs and changed into black spandex shorts and a half-shirt that said On The Brink across the chest. I flicked on the power to my boombox and my room was instantly filled with the soft sound of Madonna. My footsteps were muted thumps as I crossed the carpeted floor and settled down on the cushioned window seat that faced east.

  The night looked so dark beyond the cool pane of glass. Anonymous, like there could be anything out there. And like I could be anyone out there. Anyone I wanted to be. Out there could be love and happiness, not just money and status. Out there could be a normal life, away from all the Shepherd’s Mill crap. I just couldn’t get to it yet. Three more years… I just had to survive it for three more years.

  I could be a rock until then, couldn’t I? I could hold onto my own thoughts and ideals and beliefs until then, couldn’t I? I thought I could if I was strong enough. If I were a rock.

  A rock.

  A rock.

  A rock…

  Like the memory itself oozed from my brain in a warm trickle that pooled right in the center of my chest, I thought of the rock in the middle of the field and the boy who had showed me how big the world really was.

  Dane James.

  The one person who didn’t change no matter how much I did. The one thing that was solid no matter how much everything else shifted. He was a rock.

  Strong and steady.

  True.

  And that night, he felt like my rock.

  I thought of that summer day when he stayed with me. He was The One Who Stayed when everyone else ran. I thought of how good he was, deep down, in all the ways that mattered. I thought of how kind he was to me earlier, even though he had no reason to be. I wasn’t very nice to him in school. I mean, I wasn’t cruel or rude. No one was really cruel or rude to him. He was gorgeous, which meant the girls secretly wanted him, and he was kinda cool in his I-don’t-give-a-shit way, which meant the guys secretly respected him. But it wasn’t enough to make him an insider. There was still that unspoken rule that the upper crust could only admire him from a distance. Or in the dark. Workers only really associated with their kind, just like the rich kids only associated with theirs.

  And we were on two different sides of that fact.

  He was a rock and I was as fluid as the ocean. He knew exactly who he was and what he wanted, while I took on the form of whatever contained me, whoever I was around. He was his own man. Already. And I had no identity, nothing of my own. Dane James was Dane James and he didn’t apologize to anyone for it. And I was…nobody special.

  That’s when I saw him. Like the night, or maybe my sheer want of him, had produced him out of thin air. Out of smoke and shadow and dark, forbidden things.

  I leaned in close to the window, close enough that my nose touched the glass. I wanted to make sure my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me. I prayed they weren’t. And I was filled with nervous excitement when I saw the reality of the vision.

  It was real.

  He was real.

  Dane James was standing in my yard.

  Chapter 7

  The years melted away and I was twelve again, desperate for Dane James and all that he represented. And just like that night three years ago, when I looked out and saw him below my window, blending into the dark, thrilling me with his mere presence, I was seeing him again. Only he wasn’t wearing a grin the first time. At least not like this one—a grin that said he was happy to be breaking the rules again. A grin that said for me to come and let him take me away for a while. A grin that could get a girl in trouble.

  A grin that could get me in trouble.

  Dane had changed clothes. He’d traded in his jeans and T-shirt for shorts and a tank top. He looked equally good in either, like the designer had his body in mind when the fabric was cut.

  And he’d obviously walked over. I could see the piece of prairie grass sticking
out from between lips, lips that I found myself thinking about way too much.

  My heart tripped over itself as I unlocked my window and pushed it up. “Dane James.” My tone was much more teasing and light this time. I couldn’t hide my pleasure at seeing him. I didn’t think I even wanted to. “What are you doing out there in the middle of the night?”

  His answer was a shrug.

  I loved it when he did that. It said he didn’t care about rules or convention or propriety. It said he didn’t care what people thought or said or did. It said he just cared about coming to see me, no matter what the world might have to say about it.

  God, I loved that shrug.

  Aside from watching that stem of grass twirl between his lips, it was probably my favorite thing.

  That and his eyes.

  “Come down here, Brinkley Sommers.” He mimicked my use of his full name. I couldn’t help smiling. Everything inside me was smiling. My mouth had no choice but to follow suit.

  “Why?”

  “Because I asked you to.” I could hear his rich laugh all the way up at my window. It sent a fine spray of cold chills skittering over my skin, like mist from a bottle of perfume—sweet and sultry and intoxicating. It felt just as good and smelled twice as nice. Because my time with Dane James had a smell, a taste, and a texture. Like all my favorite things wrapped up into a package of sensation, delivered right to my nerves every time I saw him. Even in school. There was just never anything I could do about it.

  Until tonight.

  Because I asked you to, he’d said, an answer that was cocky and funny and self-assured, just like Dane himself. I’d have been willing to bet he didn’t get turned down very often when he asked a girl to do something. And I had no desire to be the first. He was here for me. For me. Not because I did or didn’t put out, not because of who my stepfather was or wasn’t, and not because society dictated that he should or shouldn’t be.

  He was simply here for me, Brinkley Sommers.

  And I wanted him to be.

  Here.

  With me.

  For me.

  I wanted to spend the dwindling night with Dane James. More than I’d ever wanted anything else, which made no sense, of course. It wasn’t like we’d been dating for years. Or that we’d even spent much time together. The thing was, there had hardly been a day since I was twelve years old that I hadn’t thought about him.

  Maybe I had fallen a little bit in love with him that first day so long ago. And maybe I’d never outgrown it. Or maybe I was just crazy and desperate and unbalanced.

  Whatever the reason, it didn’t matter. I didn’t care why. I only cared about what was. I just felt. So when he asked, I didn’t even pause. I just made my way down the steps and out the kitchen door.

  Once I was outside, the wind on my face and freedom in my hair, I had no regrets. The only things I wanted, needed, was Dane James. And the dark.

  When I rounded the corner of the house, I saw that Dane had moved there to meet me. I stopped and looked up at him.

  He’d already grown so much from that twelve-year-old boy. He was a good foot taller than me, and a good three or four inches taller than most of the guys in our class. He was already filling out, too, with muscles thickening his chest, shoulders, and arms. It made my insides feel warm and sticky just looking at him. That wasn’t good, I knew, but I liked the way it felt. At that moment, I didn’t care how “acceptable” it was to want Dane James. I just knew that I did.

  Without a word, he reached down and laced his fingers with mine, tugging me forward to lead me across the driveway, through the field, and out to the rock.

  The rock.

  Our rock.

  Wordlessly, I followed. I knew I probably always would.

  When we arrived there, Dane hopped effortlessly up onto the boulder. I wished for a second that I had a rewind button so I could watch him do it all over again. It was fluid and masculine and every bit as sexy as summer in the South.

  Just like Dane himself.

  Bending slightly at his waist, he extended his hand toward me. I took it and he hoisted me up like I weighed a bucketful of nothing. But I was expecting his help, not to be pulled up so fast, so I squeaked in surprise.

  “Wow, you’re strong!”

  “I work for a living, remember?”

  His lips quirked up into an easy grin. I couldn’t see much else since the moon was less than half full, but I could see Dane almost perfectly, like my brain had somehow memorized his features enough to put the pieces together even in dark. And it was doing exactly that. I thought I could nearly see that sweet maple gaze of his fixed on me. But more than that, I thought I could feel it.

  We stood like that, on top of the rock, face-to-face, our mouths mere inches apart, until he took a step back and sat down. He patted the hard surface beside him, his palm making a slapping sound, and I obligingly sank to sit at his side.

  He said nothing for a long time. Neither did I.

  Finally, I had to ask, “Why did you come to my window tonight?”

  “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  Just like all those years ago.

  “Does your dad know you come out here like this, at all hours of the night?”

  Again, Dane shrugged. “I don’t know. If he does, he’s never mentioned it and he doesn’t try to stop me. Probably doesn’t even care, so…”

  “And if he did, it wouldn’t matter, would it? Not to you.”

  He slid that sexy grin over to me and shrugged. God, I loved that shrug!

  And that grin.

  And those eyes.

  A little shiver rippled through me. How could a boy, a boy who was all wrong for me in every possible way, have this sort of effect on me?

  That answer seemed easy enough, even though it was no answer at all. Not really.

  Because he was Dane James. That’s how.

  He was my kryptonite and my wildest dream and my most forbidden fruit. He was everything I wanted, and all that I couldn’t have. And he had his hooks in.

  Deep.

  It was easy to see that he could be a problem for me. Would be a problem for me, like an unhealthy habit.

  An inconvenient vice.

  An unbreakable addiction.

  That gesture was clearly all the answer I was going to get, so I asked another question.

  “So what were you doing out tonight? Driving of all things.”

  “Life’s too short not to break a few rules.”

  “Rules and laws are two different things.”

  “What? No!” His tone and his smirk were laced with sarcasm.

  “You’re a smart ass.”

  Again with the shrug, but before I could get irritated, he smiled my way and leaned into me, bumping my shoulder with his. When he pulled away, I had the overwhelming urge to climb into his arms and never look back.

  “So?” I prompted him for a real answer, unwilling to give up until I got one. “What were you out doing?” Rather than satisfying my curiosity right away, Dane stretched out on his back, linking his hands behind his head and crossing his feet at the ankles, totally ignoring me. That’s when I realized he wasn’t just being difficult or cool; he was hiding something. I quickly put two and two together and got the answer he wasn’t very eager to give. I gasped. “You were with a girl, weren’t you?”

  He frowned over at me. With his face toward the sky, I could see it fairly well in the low light. “What’s wrong with that? I’m a guy. It’s what guys do.”

  While yes it was what guys did, it felt wrong for some reason. Just wrong. Dane wasn’t supposed to be sneaking around with other girls. But he wasn’t supposed to not be sneaking around with other girls either. I didn’t like to think of him doing anything with other girls, no matter how innocent. And I knew by his reaction that what he’d been doing earlier wasn’t innocent in any way, shape, or form. He didn’t have to tell me so for me to know. I could see it right there on his face.

  And that made it so
much worse.

  The thought brought me an undue amount of distress, almost like I had a claim on him, which I didn’t, and he’d betrayed me, which he hadn’t. But that didn’t mean I didn’t want a claim on him, as irrational as that would be.

  Although I rolled my eyes with as much nonchalance as I could muster, I couldn’t keep the defensive disappointment out of my voice. “Of course, it’s what guys do. I don’t know why I even asked. I should’ve known not to expect anything different. Not even from you.”

  I hated that I sounded so bitter, but that was how I felt. Bitter about the situation, about the town, about life and fate and rules and society. Just…bitter.

  Dane sat up. “Don’t do that,” he warned quietly.

  “Don’t do what?”

  “Don’t compare me to everybody else. Don’t lump me in with them. I’m different. You know that.”

  And I did. Or at least I thought I did. “You used to be.”

  “I still am.”

  “So you were just taking her for ice cream, then? Is that it?” I genuinely hoped that’s exactly what he’d been doing with her. Imagining anything else was downright uncomfortable. Even though it shouldn’t have been.

  Dane gave me a steady look. “Why does that matter? What difference does it make what we were doing?”

  It shouldn’t make any difference. I shouldn’t have cared that he was with another girl at all, much less what they’d been doing.

  I shouldn’t have.

  But I did.

  “It makes a difference,” was all I said.

  “So it’s all right that I was with another girl, just as long as I wasn’t what? Kissing her?”

  Something dropped into my stomach, something like a cold, leaden ball that caused my guts to twist up into a tight knot. “Is that what you were doing? Kissing her?”

  Why was I close to tears? Why did I feel panicky? I had no right to feel anything other than mild curiosity.

  But that wasn’t what this was.

  Mild curiosity was what I felt when I asked Lauren where she got the cute shoes she wore to school the week before. Mild curiosity was what I felt when Alton said he had a present for me and it wasn’t even Christmas. Mild curiosity was what I felt when Momma told me four years prior that she was dating a new man who might be “the one.” Those were incidences of mild curiosity.