On Paper Wings

by Magan Vernon

  I put my hands up. “Whoa, whoa I didn’t say I was out to change anyone. He was the one that asked about dental work.”

  “I’m not talking about my brother.” She narrowed her eyes. The girl was looking for a fight before she even came, and now she had her reason for one.

  Blaine put his arm up in between us. “Whoa, ladies, get back to your corners. I’m not going to have some all out chick fight.”

  “Why not?” Ryan hollered.

  “That’s fine,” Nikki huffed, standing up and straightening out her shorts. “She ain’t worth my time anyway.” She looked at her brother. “Let’s get out of here, Butch. We said our niceties.”

  He chugged the last of the beer he had and tossed it into the fire. I hoped he wasn’t the one driving the way he was slamming them.

  “If we must.” He waved in my direction. “It was nice meeting you, Libby. Sorry my sister is such a bitch.”

  “Nice meeting you too, Butch,” I said with as much niceness as I could force out.

  Nikki didn’t say anything to me or even look back as she strutted around the side of the house with Butch following behind her.

  I let out a deep breath that I didn’t know I was holding in. Jackson walked over to us, shaking his head. “I’m sorry about that. I had no idea she would show up, or that she was about to make a scene. Blaine seems to like to get every girl mad at him that he meets.”

  Ryan chuckled. “Yeah, I’m surprised that half the girls in this town haven’t tried to tar and feather Libby the way that Blaine hung them out to dry.”

  Dina smacked the back of Ryan’s head. “Hush, boy.”

  I shook my head. “No, it’s fine. It comes with the territory.”

  Blaine pulled me closer, resting his head on my arm. “But she’s gone now, and I reckon she won’t be around for awhile.”

  For all our sakes, I hoped he was right.

  Chapter 4

  “So she just showed up at the bonfire half naked?” Sawyer stared at me wide eyed across the table.

  We were sitting in the tiny cafe at the student center. He had an hour break between classes and wanted to get lunch, but I was still holding out, so I could fit in my shorts again. I told him I could do coffee, and he seemed satisfied with that. His skinny ass ordered some kind of blended mocha drink with whipped cream that probably had more calories than I could count. I settled for a plain coffee. I wasn’t the biggest fan of the taste, but I knew it came out easily, and I could sip on it for awhile.

  “Yeah, her and her brother just showed up out of the blue.” I had regaled Sawyer with my latest Nikki drama. I was still trying not to bring it up to Blaine about how much it bothered me, but he had to have known something was wrong. Then again, Blaine was pretty dense when it came to girls.

  “I bet she had it planned. She probably thought she could just come in and swoop up Blaine, but darlin’ lemme tell you that girl has nothing on you.” Sawyer crossed one leg over the other, taking a sip of his drink and adjusting his bow tie.

  Sawyer was definitely not like the other guys in the area. He always dressed up in bow ties and dress shoes and always talked about what he read in his latest issue of Vogue.

  “Sawyer, why do you stay around here? Shouldn’t you be up in New York or even at LSU? Somewhere out of the god forsaken boondocks?”

  He laughed, setting his drink down. “I should say the same for you, darlin.”

  “You know my reasons for being here.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Of course. Love. I wish that was my reason, but my story is a little bit of a sadder one.” He picked at his cuticles. “I didn’t exactly have the best grades in high school, but that happens when your attendance is shot to hell, because the jocks are trying to throw you in the dumpster every day. So, now I’m stuck here trying to get my grades up, and then it’s out of this hell and onto bigger and way better things.”

  I winced. I didn’t know what to say, and it was a nervous reaction. I wasn’t very popular at school, but then again I wasn’t an out and proud gay kid in Small Town USA. I could only imagine what he went through.

  He patted my hand. “It’s okay, darlin’, it’s not your fault, and I’m a stronger person for it.”

  “You’re a better man than I.” I took a sip of my coffee just as my phone buzzed on the table, Blaine’s smiling face appearing on the screen. A new favorite photo of mine that I made sure Aunt Dee didn’t see. I’m not sure if he was actually wearing clothes in the picture or not, but it was cropped from the waist up with his bronzed chest in full view and a large grin on his face.

  “Whoa, is this the lover boy?” Sawyer snatched my phone from the table before I could grab it and held it inches from his face. “Hot damn.” He then squinted, moved the phone closer, then set it on the table. “That wouldn’t happen to be Blaine Crabtree, would it?”

  I widened my eyes, taking my phone, but not unlocking it to read the message. “You know Blaine?”

  He laughed, a high pitched squeal. “Darlin’, everybody in this Parrish knows Blaine Crabtree. He was a baseball superstar in high school and had the butt to pull off those pants they wore for the games.”

  I swallowed hard. Sawyer just told me how he was beaten up by the jocks at school and I hoped Blaine wasn’t one of them. “Um, he wasn’t mean to you or anything was he?”

  Sawyer took another long sip of his drink and shook his head before setting his cup down. “Oh, no, he went to school in Elsbury. I didn’t actually know him, just knew of him, but I am mighty jealous that you bagged a hottie like that. You’d better not let this Nikki tramp get near him.”

  I huffed. “I’m trying. It seems to be harder than I thought.”

  ***

  After class, I invited Sawyer over for dinner. Aunt Dee said it was okay, and if someone else was over, she wouldn’t notice me pushing the food around my plate as much. We took my car and since Britt was over at Sarah’s after school, I figured Sawyer and me could stop by Blaine’s. His text asked where I was, and he only gave me one word answers when I told him I was with Sawyer. No matter how many times I told him the boy was gay, Blaine still gave me a look like I was doing something wrong when I talked about him. He could screw half the town and have his exes threaten me, but I couldn’t hang out with a guy. Horrible double standard. I figured I’d be the better girlfriend and stop by his house to introduce him to Sawyer.

  When we pulled up to the Crabtree place, Blaine was outside in the side yard. A pile of freshly chopped wood was beside him, and he held an axe over his head. His biceps flexed and tensed, as he rammed the axe down on the next awaiting log, slicing it in half. His cargo shorts, slung low on his hips, revealing the waistline of his boxers and a sheer gleam of sweat formed on his toned abs, making him look even more bronzed.

  “Does that boy ever wear a shirt?” Sawyer gaped out the front window.

  “Not really,” I replied.

  “Thank God. That’s probably too much man to hold in a t-shirt.”

  I laughed. If Blaine knew what Sawyer was saying, he would probably have found any shirt he could and covered up. I stopped the car and turned it off just as Blaine set down the axe, looking up so his blue eyes met mine through the car window.

  “Hey, baby,” he called, wiping his forehead with a cloth that laid on the tree trunk next to him, but his eyes narrowed when he saw Sawyer get out of the passenger seat.

  “Hey Blaine, this is my friend Sawyer I was telling you about.”

  “Hello!” Sawyer gave a limp wristed wave.

  I watched Blaine’s eyes look over Sawyer’s lanky appearance, then his expression softened. “Hey, Sawyer, good to meet you. I’d shake your hand, but mine’s mighty sweaty.” That was Blaine’s language that he was afraid Sawyer was checking him out, which he probably was.

  “It’s no problem.” Sawyer stuffed his hands in the pockets of his khakis.

  “Y’all just get out of school?” Blaine asked, setting the towel down and grabbing a black t-shirt, sliding
it over his head. A shame! I loved watching the way his body moved when he worked.

  “Yeah. Another day of classes,” I replied.

  Blaine nodded. The tension was so thick it could have suffocated it us.

  “Well, I see that you’re busy. I just thought we’d stop by to say hey.”

  “All right, well you don’t have class tomorrow, am I going to see you after work?”

  I leaned in and placed a quick kiss on his cheek. “Of course.”

  He turned and pulled me closer against his warm body. He may have been sweaty, but with only the thin material of his t-shirt covering him, I could feel every line of his rock hard abs. Instead of going for a quick on-the-cheek kiss he went straight for my mouth, his tongue moving like he was trying to savor ever bit of me. I leaned my head back, enjoying the tiny, heated moment, even though I wasn’t sure where it came from. He broke the kiss when Sawyer let out a big throat clearing huff.

  “Sorry about that, man,” Blaine said, patting my butt before I walked back over to the car. “Sometimes I get a little carried away. She’s one hell of a woman.”

  Sawyer just nodded. “Yeah she is.”

  We both got in the car and waved to Blaine, as I turned around and maneuvered down the long driveway onto the street.

  “Was your man peacocking or what?” Sawyer laughed.

  “Excuse me?” I tilted my head and glanced at him out of the corner of my sunglasses.

  “Oh come on, honey. He was totally trying to claim you as his in front of me. Like he didn’t obviously notice I played for the other team, but he felt like he had to lay a porn star kiss on you anyway.”

  “No, that’s just Blaine. He’s really affectionate.” Actually he wasn’t that affectionate in public. Usually it was me that initiated any sort of kissing and he kept that to a minimum unless he knew we were alone.

  “And I’m sure you didn’t do that same thing when Nikki was around either.”

  I didn’t answer right away, so Sawyer took that as a “yes”. “You two are just alike. It’s obvious you’re crazy for each other, so you should stop this jealousy game and just enjoy that hot piece of country boy ass.”

  “Sawyer!” I slapped his leg playfully.

  “Hey, I’m just telling you what I saw.”

  Maybe Sawyer was right. Maybe we were peacocking and maybe I did have nothing to worry about with Blaine and Nikki. Then again, I’d been burned before and if I learned anything over the summer, it was that boys were definitely a different breed who had bigger mood swings than any girl I’d ever known.

  Chapter 5

  I’d successfully been able to avoid much of Aunt Dee’s cooking the past few days and lived on mostly coffee or trips to the bathroom, but when Blaine asked me out to dinner, I couldn’t hide that easy.

  He showed up, as usual, on time in a black t-shirt, faded jeans, and combat boots. If I was back in Illinois. I would have peeled out all of my fall clothes. My mom even sent some down to me, but I didn’t need any of them. Even in late September, it was still in the 80’s. Not that I was complaining about it being warm, but I would have liked to at least gone through my cute fall clothes, even if I wasn’t sure if they would fit or not.

  I climbed into Blaine’s truck and held my hand out the window, letting the breeze run through my fingers as we drove though the gravel roads that went through and around Elsbury. “So where are we going tonight? Are we making a trip into New Orleans?”

  Blaine shook his head. “Naw, there is this little place outside of DuPont I haven’t been to in forever, and I thought we’d try it. It ain’t a real fancy place, but they have the best barbeque in the south.”

  “Don’t you think that’s an over statement?”

  “My sweet petite, you just worry about looking pretty, and I’ll worry about where to find good barbeque.”

  I raised an eyebrow as he glanced at me with a big grin on his face. “Did you just call me your ‘sweet petite’?”

  He slid his hand off the steering wheel and placed it on my knee. “Yeah, it’s a southern term of endearment. You don’t like it?”

  “Well, I’m not exactly petite.” At almost six foot, I was practically the same height as Blaine. If I wore heels, I was actually taller. No one had ever called me little or tiny and especially not petite.

  “I didn’t ask what you thought of yourself. You are my sweet petite, and I think it fits you.”

  I didn’t want to ask the question that was really boiling. Did he call other girls that same nickname? Would it just be easier for him to call me that so he wouldn’t mistake me for one of his past flings...like Nikki Sinclair?

  We pulled so far down a dirt road that I was starting to think that we weren’t actually going anywhere for dinner, and Blaine just wanted to park somewhere and go at it in the woods. It wasn’t until I saw the faintest beam of lights that I knew civilization was actually close by.

  A piece of plywood was spray painted with the words ‘BBQ Ahead’. I wouldn’t have noticed it if Blaine’s headlights didn’t hit it just right. We continued pulling forward, until a small red building appeared in the clearing. Loud, twangy music blared from inside, and there were cars parked all around the grass with no actual designated area for parking. Blaine pulled around back where a large black smoker blew a gray mist into the air. He finally wedged into a spot between two other large trucks and came around the passenger side. He opened the door and helped me out of the truck.

  “What is this place?” I stared at the tiny building with its rusted tin roof and paint chipped exterior.

  Blaine slid his arm around my waist and guided me to the screen door that lay just beside the smoker. “This is Bull’s Barbeque.”

  “This is actually a restaurant?” I widened my eyes as Blaine opened the door, and the heat of all the people’s bodies crammed into a tiny place hit me like a train. The room couldn’t have been much bigger than Aunt Dee’s living room and kitchen combined, but it was filled with round tables and mis-matched chairs pulled up to each one. On the paneled walls were tons of different animal heads and local photography. Despite the dingy decor, almost every table was filled with people leaning over heaping plates of food.

  “Restaurant is a loose term. You have to have a license for that. And bathrooms. And silverware.” Blaine pushed through the crowd of tables and found one in the corner near one of the sole windows.

  “I’m sorry, did you just say there aren’t bathrooms or silverware?”

  Blaine plastered a toothy grin on his face and reached into his pockets. He pulled out two plastic bags with silverware in them like one would get at a fast food restaurant. “Well, now we have silverware, but I just hope you don’t need to use the bathroom, because there really are none, and I didn’t bring any toilet paper for you to go in the woods.”

  I wrinkled my nose. I was trying not to be a prude, but no bathrooms? How backwoods were we? Was the honeymoon stage over, and now he was done trying to impress me? I didn’t know what to think of the whole thing. Then the waitress came to the table, and the shit really hit the fan.

  “Fancy seeing you here Blaine Crabtree.” She was petite, definitely more deserving of the nickname, with long black hair pulled into a tight French braid that brought out the sharp, over made up features on her face. She was wearing a really short pair of jean shorts, cowboy boots, and a plain white t-shirt that was stained with barbeque sauce. I was really hoping I didn’t meet another one of Blaine’s conquests, but it seemed like that was happening more and more.

  “Heyya, Raelynn,” he said it casually, but the smile faded from his face as soon as he saw her.

  “Haven’t seen you around these parts in awhile.” Her nose turned up, and her dark green eyes locked on him like she was trying to pry the words out of his mouth.

  Blaine scratched the back of his head, and I swore I saw the sweat begin to form on his hairline. “Yeah, I didn’t know you were still working here.”

  “Of course I’m still working he
re. Where the hell else did you think I’d gone? There ain’t much else in this town.”

  I thought some of the other customers would have stared at their altercation, but everyone just went back to eating their ribs. At that moment I was really wishing there was a bathroom I could excuse myself too.

  “Well, it’s good to see that you are still working,” Blaine said in the most charming voice it seemed he could muster.

  If looks could kill, Blaine would have been dead. She then sucked in a deep breath of air. “I guess if you’re gonna stick around here, you probably want something to eat. Sweet tea for you, as usual?”

  Blaine nodded. “Yeah, that’s fine.” Then his gaze went across the table to mine and Raelynn’s followed, but hers was more of a glare. “Baby, do you want sweet tea as well?”

  I didn’t. I didn’t want to pour some overly sugared drink down my throat, but I didn’t want to argue in front of another scary girl. “Yeah, that’s fine,” I managed to squeak out.

  “And who might you be, Blondie?” She put her hands on her hips and stared at me like I was the lowliest form of life on the planet.

  I cleared my throat. “Um, I’m Libby Gentry.”

  “My girlfriend,” Blaine piped up.

  Raelynn’s eyes widened to twice their normal size, then she looked from me to Blaine before her eyes rested on his face. “I thought you said you didn’t do girlfriends?” she practically spat.

  He shrugged. “Sometimes things change.”

  She opened her mouth to say something else, but before she could a small door opened behind Blaine and a guy wearing a Team Real Tree hat yelled out, “Raelynn, you gonna come get these orders, or do I have to find someone else?”

  “I’m coming!” she yelled, turned on her heels, and disappeared through the door.

  I let out a deep breath. “Well, that was interesting.”

  “Yeah, I’m sorry about that.” Blaine raked his hands through his hair. “I forgot she worked here. We can go somewhere else if you’d like.”