by Crowe, Stan
She was smiling.
Several tears spilled down her cheeks, and she was startled to realize that she was smiling the same way she was in her portrait. From the corner of her eye, she noticed Fey remove another sketch—one she couldn’t make out—and tuck it under Clint’s arm.
“Just some souvenirs for you kids, in case this goes a little differently than we’d planned. Wishes don’t always work the way we expect.”
Molly looked at her, and choked back a sniffle. “But this will work?”
Fey nodded her assurance. “One way or other. Hang onto your hiney, Slim. And keep hold of that picture.”
Molly complied, and watched in surprise as Fey pulled out a laptop and began typing furiously. Molly raised an eyebrow, and then everything went black.
THIRTY
Clint woke up to an average morning. Mom was calling him down to breakfast; he’d hit the snooze button on his alarm twice already. He literally rolled out of bed, flopped onto the pile of clothing beside it, and caught another five minutes of sleep. It took Mom banging on the door to finally get him off the laundry pile, into some of that laundry, and downstairs for waffles and eggs. Holly, as usual, was dressed to the nines, and wearing that smile that never left her face. He guessed it might be why a swarm of guys constantly buzzed around her at school. They probably thought she was cute. He never really thought about it, though—she was his sister. What he did know is that it would be totally awesome to have a swarm of girls around him all the time.
Or even just one.
Of course, there was always Molly, and, of late, that weird redhead that had been stalking him on the bus. He had no idea why she wouldn’t leave him alone; if the other girls at school thought he and the redhead were “a thing,” his love life was deader than dead.
Clint flopped into a chair, drowned his waffle in syrup, and attacked it.
“Cut the slurping, Captain Manners,” his mom called from the kitchen.
“Fine.” He breezed through his breakfast anyway, and ran upstairs (still chewing a mouthful of food) to grab his bag. He gently stuffed his sketchpad in, and then zipped down the stairs and out the front door before his mom could make her usual comment about the “blond bowl of spaghetti” on his head. He was at the bus stop five minutes later. As planned, he’d arrive early enough to get some alone time. Even better, the bus wasn’t due for at least another ten minutes; he was guaranteed to be first in line. He unslung his bag to have it ready to drop on his seat when he would get on. Saving a seat for Holly would guarantee the weird chick wouldn’t plop down next to him again. She’d tried that once, three months back, and he’d never heard the end of it. There was no way he was going to let that girl ruin his senior year. He vowed he’d have at least one date before heading out into the wide world of college.
He pulled his art book out of his bag, slipped a pencil from his pocket, and went to work on the sketch he’d been doing of Jane Li. He had her resting on her back on a rock in a lake, dressed in a bathing suit, and smiling seductively out at the viewer. In other words, at him. He added little dabs of shading, here and there, and turned the page to make sure that the proportions were correct from all angles. Not as good as the real thing, but he was working on it.
He was almost in the sweet spot with her. Jane spent most of her afternoons with Holly, along with the rest of the “Fab Four.” Clint had learned how to avoid scratching at his ear, or stuttering when he spoke to her, and often, she even spoke to him in return. Better still, she had no boyfriend (though Clint couldn’t begin to fathom the reasons; her name regularly came up in the men’s locker room). With a little more courage, he might be able to get her to go with him to senior Prom. That’d change his social status real quick.
“Hi, Clint!” a girl’s voice chirped next to him.
Clint jumped at the voice, and his sketchpad hit the ground a second later. “Holy…”
He knelt quickly to retrieve his prized possession, and examined it carefully. A small sheaf of drawings had scattered out of the storage pouch under the front cover, and several pages had bent; thankfully, they hadn’t been any he’d drawn anything on yet. Seriously peeved, Clint hastily but carefully gathered his drawings and began stowing them carefully in the book.
Suddenly, she was kneeling beside him, parroting him, and handing him pages one at a time.
“Oh, Clint, I’m so sorry,” the girl said.
“What in blue blazes do you think you’re doing?” he demanded. He shot her a hard glare. Oh. It was her. Ugh.
“Gimme those.” Clint snatched the papers from her hand and slammed his book shut.
She started, looking slightly hurt, but recovered quickly. “Oh, I’m sorry, Clint. I hope I didn’t ruin anything.” A new smile appeared. He was sure it was fake. “Draw anything new lately?” she asked.
“Nothing, today, Lindsay.”
She looked crestfallen for a moment, but perked up again. Before he could react, she stooped swiftly, as if diving at his feet. Clint leapt back, nearly dropping his sketches a second time. “Whoa! Are you nuts?”
Lindsay stopped and straightened, holding a single sheet of drawing paper in her hands. Awe shone in her eyes, and he saw tears starting to form. Lindsay started to sniffle slightly, and she stared at the paper for a long time. When she finally looked up, Clint could see a strange joy in her gaze. Suddenly, he got this odd feeling that he knew more about her than he rightfully should.
Surprisingly, she wasn’t quite as bad looking as he’d always thought. Odd.
“Clint,” she started reverently, “this is so sweet of you. How did you know?”
“Um… fortune cookie?”
She stepped up and after teetering toward him for a breath or two, kissed him lightly on the cheek. He flinched away, but found that his heart was hammering in the wake of the unexpected assault.
Did I actually enjoy that? he wondered.
Holding the drawing to her chest, Lindsay wiped away another tear. “I’ve never told anyone about this dream, Clint.”
“Uh… yeah. Great.”
She placed herself uncomfortably close to him, and turned the picture around. It was a sketch—way better than anything he could do—of an attractive woman in a fantasy forest setting. For reasons he couldn’t explain, it looked eerily familiar.
“This is me, Clint.”
Clint felt as though a waking dream were upon him. He blinked, flicking his eyes back and forth between Lindsay, and the sketch. The progression from what stood before him to what had been drawn on the page slowly became apparent. Sketch-lady looked to be mid-twenties, slender, and… nicely proportioned. Her face radiated happiness in a way he didn’t know pencil could capture. Her eyes seemed to look into his soul. In his mind, he heard her voice faintly whisper, “Hello again, Clint.”
Dude, he thought. If this is legit, she’s really going to grow up.
He looked back at Lindsay. “Where’d you get this?”
She smiled. “It fell out of your notebook, silly. And that’s the best thing I’ve ever seen you draw. It’s so amazing! But seriously, how did you know? About my dream? I was six years old when I dreamt this.”
Clint stared blankly at the page, liking what he saw. For a few moments, he had a peripheral impression that how he saw her now wasn’t how things would always be. The annoying pest who humiliated him with her mere presence might be exactly what he was looking for in the long run. She wasn’t much to look at in the present, but deep in his heart, there was a small echo of longing. It was as if once, long ago, he’d lost her and was finally finding her again.
“Hey, look, Lindsay, I really don’t know. I don’t even know what—”
“Can I keep this?” she burst. “This is beautiful.”
Clint stared stupidly for a moment, and then nodded. The throbbing in his chest intensified, the same way it did any of those awkward times he’d ended up alone with Jane or Molly. He liked it.
A gaggle of kids appeared around the corner. They
were earlier than usual. Holly and Jane were walking side by side, flanked by guys offering to carry books, making passes on them, or otherwise acting tough. Lindsay suddenly lapsed into her typical shy self, and started to move toward the small trees lining the sidewalk. Clint felt his stomach sink at the thought of all the times he’d blown her off, but he knew he had to get away from her before anyone saw them together. There was no way Jane would go to Prom with him if she knew he were hanging out with the Twerp of Bus Twelve.
And then an idea took him.
Do or die.
There, too close to hide it from anyone, he reached out to take Lindsay’s elbow. She stopped, and met his eyes in surprise.
“Hey, Lindsay? What are you doing for Prom?”
When Bus Twelve pulled up to load the passengers at Clint’s stop some minutes later, two pairs of satisfied eyes watched him through the side door of a flamboyant RV.
“He looks really happy with her.”
“Eh. She’s not half as cute as she grows up to be. He’s still a little stud muffin, though. Makes me wish I were forty years younger.”
“Quit being a cougar. I hear there are some lonely widowers in the Shady Park Assisted Living Community that could use some company.”
“Can it, Slim. I like men that don’t need tubes to get their oxygen.”
A goat noised its agreement.
“You don’t get a vote, horned thing.”
“Leave my goat alone, kid. He just wants his tea anyway.” With that, the goat’s mistress rose creakily, and turned to get the animal a drink.
The younger woman brushed a strand of dark brown hair behind her ear, and quickly stepped out the door. She watched Clint allow the young Lindsay Sullivan to get on the bus right before him, despite the bevy of snide comments audible even across the street. Clint defiantly planted himself next to Lindsay near the front of the bus, with Holly and Jane taking the seat behind him. Clint would certainly take a few spit wads to the head before he got to school. And yet, through the trepidation she saw on his face, there was still a glow of pure joy in his eyes.
As if he could sense her gaze, Clint turned toward the one called “Slim.” They locked eyes for an instant, but the adult woman stepped hastily back inside the painted motor home; no need to unduly influence him when he’d finally started to set things right.
Bus Twelve finished gorging itself on high school students, and began crawling away from the curb, bearing its load toward a school day like any other. The FBI agent who had watched Clint start his new life knew she’d have some work to do with a sixteen-year-old girl named Molly, but she had just the guy for her younger self; someone she’d once ignored.
She thought about all she’d been through since she was that age—all the mistakes, the heartache, and the problems. For years she’d searched desperately for the kind of happiness that seemed to come naturally to everyone else. Then when she’d been on the verge of seizing it, she had found it was nothing more than a selfish illusion. It took nearly losing everything to finally wake her up.
Glancing once more at the front seat of Bus Twelve, she noticed that Clint had secured an arm around Lindsay, and was leaning purposefully toward her.
Agent Molly Weatherpound smiled. It was the best wish she could have asked for.
The end.
Breezy Reads
Stan Crowe’s Blog
Don’t forget to check out Stan’s other contemporary romance The Cinderella Project.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30