On Paper Wings

by Magan Vernon

  He snorted. “Better than being called a fag and having the football team shove a cone up your ass.”

  I gasped, staring wide-eyed at Sawyer. He kept his head down, absently kicking at the ground.

  “Did that really happen?” I whispered.

  He looked up, nodding slowly. “Not everyone is as tolerant as they pretend to be, but that doesn’t mean I have to change just because a bunch of small town rednecks don’t like it. I graduated early and got the hell out of that school.”

  He sighed, shoving his hands in his pockets. “I had big plans to leave home. Go to school somewhere in a big city, but I didn’t have the money, and my mama works two dead end jobs just to support me and my brother. I literally have no way out.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I whispered.

  He shrugged. “It’s in the past. I can’t control what they did, only how I react to it. I’m not going to change who I am because of what some jack offs think of me.”

  I nodded, unsure of what else to say, and if he was saying those words to me for a reason. Maybe it was time that I stopped caring what Nikki thought.

  If only I could let myself do that.

  Chapter 12

  I tried to stay interested in the things Blaine was interested in, hoping that he would keep me around. But when he was going on and on about fishing that was something that was hard for me to get into.

  Which made no sense why I agreed to go with him.

  Before the sun even rose, I was up and trying to figure out what in the hell I was supposed to wear to go fishing in the bayou. It was hot, but I knew there would be tons of mosquitoes so I lathered myself up with bug spray, sunscreen, and put on a pair of older jeans with a plain tank top. The only boots I had cost way too much to worry about getting muddy, so I put on my running shoes and threw my hair up in a ponytail. There was just no use trying to look cute in the swamp.

  Blaine texted me to tell me he was outside, so he wouldn’t have to come to the door and wake up Aunt Dee and Britt on a Saturday.

  I ran outside to his idling truck and climbed in. He looked absolutely adorable in a black Saints hat, his smile even wider when he handed me a steaming cup of coffee.

  “My knight in shiny black boots!” I squealed, taking a sip.

  Coffee was my one indulgence that I couldn’t let go of.

  “Anything so you aren’t yelling at me too hard when you can’t cast,” Blaine said with a laugh as he pulled out of the driveway.

  “How do you know I’m not an expert fisherman? I go on my parents’ yacht all the time on Lake Michigan.”

  “Really?” He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye.

  I laughed. I couldn’t even keep a straight face on that one. “No! I’ve never fished and my parents don’t have a yacht. I’m not even sure my parents have ever been on a boat.”

  “Well, I thought maybe the yacht part was true. Maybe you and your family vacation in some tropical locale or something like they do on those cheesy reality TV shows you make me watch.”

  I shook my head and swatted his arm. “Are you seriously comparing me to the girls on those shows?”

  “Hey!” He flinched, but I knew it didn’t hurt him. The guy had biceps that were hard as a rock and I didn’t even have the strength to more than pat him.

  “Before you, the only real blondes and girls from up north I’d seen were the ones who came in to New Orleans for Spring Break or were on TV. I didn’t know that any could be as sweet or down to earth as you.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “Lucky save.”

  He put his hand on my knee. “It’s true, baby. I didn’t think much of a lot of northern girls that pranced around here half naked like they owned the place. But the moment I saw you, I knew there was something more. There was something behind those big, beautiful brown eyes that I had to get to know, and, damn girl you’ve kept me in a trance ever since.”

  “Now you’re just trying to suck up even harder.”

  He laughed. “Is it working?”

  “Somewhat.”

  We chatted somewhat, but mostly the car was quiet except for the radio. It was way too damn early for me to be too chipper. And I was definitely not happy as soon as we turned down a familiar windy road.

  “Okay, maybe I’m going crazy, but isn’t this the way to the Sinclair’s place?” I asked, trying not to grimace.

  He clenched his jaw. “Yeah. It is.”

  I glared at him. “Why the hell are we at the Sinclair place, and why didn’t you tell me this was where we were going?”

  He shook his head. “Because I knew you’d have this reaction. This is where we always fish. You might not like Nikki, but I’ve been fishing here for years. This is where me and Jackson always come.

  “And does Nikki come with you?” I raised an eyebrow. I didn’t want to think about what else they possibly did in the boat.

  He sighed. “Sometimes she does, and sometimes she doesn’t, but honestly, does it matter? I invited you out here to fish with me. Something I enjoy doing. Something we haven’t done together. I didn’t ask Nikki. I asked you. My girlfriend.”

  “Hrmph.” I pouted because I didn’t know what else I could say or do. He was right, he did ask me to go with him, but I wasn’t going to admit that he was right.

  Blaine drove further down the gravel path, going past Bubba Sinclair’s shop and further down the winding, curvy roads. I felt like we were going further into Deliverance country and thought I would possibly hurl. By the time we came to an opening, I didn’t hurl. Instead I gasped in surprise.

  I was expecting some rinky dink, little lake in the swamp, but what I got was an impressive sprawl. A large, wooden dock extended at least twenty yards out onto the water. One side had a large area that jutted out with a few deck chairs placed in an open area. The other side was completely covered with a lattice wall that had different fishing lures hanging from it. The end of the dock had a small stairwell that led down to three small fishing boats that were floating in the green water. The water went as far as I could see. The only parts I couldn’t see were shaded by large weeping willows. I never thought the swamp could actually be pretty, or that the Sinclairs would keep up the area so well.

  “Now you see why I fish here,” Blaine said, smirking as he turned off the car.

  I didn’t know what I should say to that. I had absolutely no good response, and, again, he rendered me speechless, as I got out of the truck and followed him to the bed where he pulled out two fishing poles and his tackle box.

  “My dad said you could use his pole, but if you break it, you gotta buy him a new one.” Blaine handed me one of the poles.

  “Duly noted.”

  I followed Blaine down the dock, which was surprisingly sturdy for something that I suspected was built by hand. He held his arm out to the smaller green, metal boat. There was a black motor at the other end and three wooden slats for seating. “Your chariot awaits,” he said with a grin.

  I shook my head. “You’re too much.”

  I took his awaiting hand and used it to help steady myself as I got into the boat. It rocked more than I thought it would, since the only boats I’d actually ever been on were cruise ships. I’d never been this close to the water.

  Quickly I sat down on the wooden slat close to the back of the boat, hoping I wouldn’t get motion sickness.

  “Are you going to drive, too, baby?” he asked, placing the tackle box at the front of the boat before he hopped in.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  He smiled and walked toward the back, putting his arms to the side before he sat down right next to me. “The back of the boat is the motor, baby. That’s where you drive.”

  “Oh,” I said, putting my mouth into a perfect ‘O’ before I slid into the seat across from him.

  He smiled and pulled a string on the motor and it rumbled to life beneath us. “I already untied it so just make sure I don’t hit anything.”

  “What?” I asked and turned to
ward the front of the boat as it slowly moved backward.

  He laughed as the boat slowly turned and he revved the engine, letting it move at a faster, yet steady past out into the canopy of trees. “Baby, I’ve been doing this since I was ten-years-old, stop being so nervous.”

  I spun around to face him. “I’m not nervous.”

  He shook his head. “Baby, for one you’re a horrible liar. And for two, I don’t mind that you’re nervous. I like being able to show you something new. Sharing something with you that I love and hoping that maybe, someday, you’ll enjoy it or at least put up with it.”

  I looked around the scenery. The trees completely shaded us with only the green, moss laden swamp below us. It was strangely serene. “I actually kind of enjoy being out here. It’s peaceful.”

  “Yeah. I come out here a lot to think.” His expression went somber. “You know that morning you left for Chicago? I got in my car and I didn’t know where I would go. I knew the plane had already taken off and there was no way in hell I’d get on, so I came here. I went as far as the boat could take me and didn’t think. I just listened to the sound of the water and the birds. Being alone like that made me realize how much I fucked up. How I didn’t want to be alone with my thoughts. I wanted my thoughts to be of you.”

  I felt a heat creeping up in my cheeks. Blaine rarely made me blush, but there was something about his words that had my face heated.

  He turned off the motor and placed his hand on my face, pushing away a strand of my hair. I watched his eyes move from my lips, and then up to meet my gaze before he slowly leaned in and kissed me.

  I grabbed the front of his shirt, pulling him closer as I tasted the sweetness of his kiss. His hands ran through my hair, pressing me against his hard chest as he slowly positioned me so I was lying in the boat. He hovered over me before I pulled him closer, and his chest pressed against mine. All of him against me.

  His hand trailed along the curve of my hip, raising my shirt up slightly. I sucked in a breath, hoping that he couldn’t feel every ounce of fat under his fingers.

  Blaine broke our kiss and stared at me. “Are you holding your breath right now?”

  “No,” I said, trying to exhale slowly and not let my fat rolls slide out of my jeans. Even laying down, I felt like I weighed a million pounds.

  “Hey, Crabtree, did you come out here to fish or to fuck?” A loud voice called.

  Blaine didn’t even bother getting off of me; he just lifted his head and smiled. “A little bit of both, probably the same as you’re doing,” he yelled.

  I slowly sat up, putting my hands on either side of my hips to level myself. I looked in the direction Blaine’s eyes trailed and saw another bigger boat with a guy I didn’t recognize and a girl I definitely recognized: Nikki.

  She was sitting in a captain’s chair at the back of the boat wearing nothing but a very tiny blue bikini. The girl definitely didn’t have any tan lines or an ounce of fat on her, and she was proud to let the world see that.

  I knew I was slouching and probably had the biggest pooch ever, so I sat up straighter, pulling my shirt down which forced Blaine to sit back on the bench.

  “And this must be the infamous Libby Gentry,” the guy said. I ran my fingers through my hair before I sat down on the bench opposite Blaine and got a good look at the guy. He looked like a cardboard cutout of almost every other guy my age that I’d met in town: LSU baseball cap, cut off shirt with a farmers tan, faded jeans, and a smile that was always present. There was nothing about him that would have stood out, so I could have seen him before but was still drawing a blank. Was he Nikki’s boyfriend, or someone she was using to try to make Blaine jealous?

  “Um, yeah. Hi.” I waved, not really sure what else to do.

  “Libby, that’s Cash Haywood. We played ball together in high school, but now he does some shit with the fire department,” Blaine said, nodding his head at the other guy.

  “Hey! That’s future fire chief to you, Crabtree. Don’t be calling me if you’re getting down and your house catches fire cuz you burnt your mama’s pralines,” he said with a cackle.

  Holy shit. I hoped the guy actually didn’t know that Blaine did in fact burn his mom’s pralines. The night that we first had sex, actually. How much was Blaine telling people?

  “Yeah, yeah. You keep talking, and we’ll see how far your mouth gets ya,” Blaine grumbled.

  “Hey, don’t get all moody on me, Crabtree. Just because you’re pussy whipped by one female now don’t mean you have to hate on the rest of us.”

  This guy was seriously getting on my nerves. Even more than Nikki. I wanted to just get the hell away from him and the skinny bitch on the boat.

  “Call it what you want, Haywood. You’re the one on the boat with a girl, too. Her boat. At her daddy’s place. So, if you ain’t whipped as well then what are you?” Blaine asked.

  Cash laughed. “Crabtree, you know better than anyone that just because you’re out fishing with a girl don’t mean you’re whipped.”

  My mouth dropped open and I couldn’t even pick it back up. The guy was seriously saying shit about Nikki and she was right there. Her face was still as a statue, but her eyes looked off in the distance. I didn’t want to feel bad for the girl, but there was something that she was hiding.

  Blaine shook his head. “Maybe not, Haywood. Maybe not.”

  “All right, enough of this shit, I’m ready to fish. You heading out?” Cash asked.

  Blaine waved his hand. “Naw, we’re cool, here, man. We’ll probably catch up with the two of you later.”

  “All right, suit yourself, Crabtree.” He barely even got the words out before the boat sped away.

  I waited until I saw it completely disappear before I looked back at Blaine. “That guy was a straight up asshole.”

  “Yeah, tell me about it.” Blaine shook his head.

  “What does Nikki even see in him?” I folded my arms across my chest.

  “Are you concerned for Nikki’s wellbeing now?” Blaine raised his eyebrows.

  “No, I was just asking. It seems weird that she would be out here with him.”

  Blaine sighed. “As long as I’ve known Nikki, she’s been one of the guys. She may look like a lady, but she’s the only girl I’ve ever known who can hang with the guys and not fall back. Of course, when she got into the whole dating thing, it didn’t help her that she was known as everybody’s best friend.”

  He stared off into space. “I think the reason I started hanging out with her was because I was tired of all the random flings and just wanted to hang out with a girl without her trying to get some, but I think Nikki had other ideas about our relationship.”

  “So you were never actually with her?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “Not like you and I are. I mean we kissed and stuff, but there was absolutely nothing there between us. I think she liked me more than I liked her, and I just kind of brushed her under the rug. I still feel bad about that one.”

  I blew out a breath. I didn’t know that’s how their relationship was at all, and now I could completely understand why she hated me.

  “All right, enough of that reminiscing about the old days, let’s fish,” Blaine said, grabbing his pole.

  Chapter 13

  Thanksgiving. I always hated Thanksgiving.

  An entire holiday dedicated to food.

  Food I couldn’t eat.

  Even worse, this year Aunt Dee, Britt, and I were invited to spend the holiday at Blaine’s house with his family.

  I tried to think of every excuse that I could not to go and even tried to see if I could go to my parents’ back in Chicago, but with my finals coming, and Britt’s cotillion practice, there was no time.

  So I was stuck.

  I shifted nervously in the passenger seat of Aunt Dee’s old sedan and the smell of homemade pecan pie wafting into my nostrils. I tried to focus on something else besides all of the food but then my thoughts went to other things.

  Li
ke the tension of meeting Blaine’s grandmother and sitting around a table with his family and mine.

  There was no way around sitting with a bunch of southern women and not eat. No way in hell.

  I ran a few miles that morning, hoping that would help balance the calorie intake, but I was still uneasy.

  As the car came to a halt in front of the Crabtree place, my stomach grumbled as I stared at the front porch. There was no getting out of this.

  Slowly, I followed Aunt Dee and Britt up the steps and before we could even knock, Blaine’s niece Abby was standing there in all her pink, tutued glory.

  “LIBBY, YOU CAME BACK!” She burst through the door and entangled herself in my legs, her tutu a stark contrast to my black boots.

  “Of course I’m here, Abby.” I wasn’t sure what else I was supposed to say, but she just beamed up at me, then ran back into the house.

  Blaine’s mom, Vicki, appeared in the doorway, her dress and apron covered in different splotches of food. “Welcome, ladies, glad you could make it.”

  She ushered us in. “Sorry I didn’t answer the door. Had a little wrangling with the turkey. Artie seemed to think it was a good idea to smoke it this year, and the man doesn’t know cooking from Adam.”

  Aunt Dee and Vicki shared a laugh as we followed them into the foyer. Blaine, his dad, and brother-in-laws were camped out in the living room and surrounded the TV that had the football game on. As soon as Blaine saw me he hopped off the couch and ran over, placing a small peck on my cheek.

  “Take it outside you two!” Blaine’s brother-in-law, Ronnie, yelled.

  Blaine smiled wrapping his arm around my waist. He smelled amazing, like bonfire smoke and clean laundry. I wanted to wrap myself in his plaid shirt and never leave.

  “There’s much worse we could be doing, Ronnie.”

  Vicki smacked Blaine upside the head and he flinched, rubbing it with his palm. “Ow, Ma, I was just kidding!”