by J. D. Mason
“Sounds good. I’m not even going to say that I’m offended that you’re not eating here; if it were me, I’d rather try out that new seafood place myself.” She laughed.
Abby walked in at that moment, wearing a form-fitting, floor-length dress, patterned, showing off a lovely back, beautiful teardrop behind, and cleavage of those bountiful breasts. “Hey, Daddy,” she said, hugging and kissing the old man on the cheek. “Hey, Birdy.” She hugged the woman. “Sorry I’m late. Hey, Belle.”
“Don’t you look sexy,” Belle teased. “You sure you’re just going out to dinner with your daddy and stepmomma?”
Abby smiled. “I am not spending my birthday in steel-toed boots and a utility belt. That’s for damn sure. I don’t care if we were going to Wally’s Burger Kingdom, I was gonna dress up no matter what.”
“You look beautiful, honey,” her father said, kissing her cheek.
She certainly did.
“Belle, I think there are going to be about six of us,” she said, questioning and scanning the room, he assumed, looking for a table, when she spotted him.
Once again, Abby’s expression froze in astonishment as if she were seeing him for the first time all over again.
Abby gave a pensive wave in Jordan’s direction.
Her father turned and looked, too, then turned back at her. “Who’s that?”
Jordan saw her mouth move, but he couldn’t hear what she told him. The next thing he knew, the three of them were making their way over to his table. Jordan stood up and shook her father’s hand and then her stepmother’s as the three of them were introduced.
“Hey,” her father said. “I’m Walter Rhodes, Mr. Tunson. This is my wife, Birdy.”
Birdy, a very short, round Latina woman with big brown eyes and a warm smile, nodded.
“How do you do,” she smiled.
“Um, I see you managed to find the best steak house in Texas,” Abby said.
“Yes, it’s pretty good.”
“Abby says you’re thinking about buying that old farmhouse on Paris Road, Mr. Tunson.”
Jordan looked at Abby, staring back at him with a slight squint.
“Thinking about it.”
Jordan guessed her father to be in his seventies. Jordan’s father would’ve been in his eighties by now, so the two men probably didn’t know each other. But then again, they could’ve.
“How long you in town for?” he asked Jordan. He had no idea what kind of story she’d told her father, but Jordan decided to play along.
“Just until tomorrow.”
“From Dallas, right?” he probed.
“Yes, sir.”
Sir? Strange how that subtle show of respect rolled off his lips so effortlessly here in this town.
“Hey, everybody. Sorry we late.”
Another man holding the hand of the woman with him showed up all of a sudden, too. “We still going?”
“Going?” Abby asked, looking confused. “We’re here already, Wes. Duh.”
“She don’t know?” Wes asked, looking at his father.
“I told you she didn’t,” the old man fussed.
“Know what?” Abby asked.
Watching this conversation take place was like watching something akin to the Abbott and Costello. Who’s on first?
“We’re taking you to that new seafood restaurant that just opened up in Clark City, sweetheart,” her mother told her.
“Really?” Abby’s eyes widened. “Seriously?” she asked excitedly.
“Too bad you’re almost finished eating or we’d invite you to come along,” her father offered to Jordan.
Abby looked mortified and relieved. She’d be mistaken if she thought he didn’t notice.
“Thank you. I appreciate the consideration.”
“What time are you leaving tomorrow?” he asked.
“Daddy,” she muttered with a warning.
Jordan’s curiosity was suddenly sparked. “I’m not sure.”
“Well, we’re having a family cookout at the house for Abby’s birthday tomorrow at noon, if you’d like to come.”
Jordan glanced at Abby just in time to see a tidal wave of fear well up in that woman’s eyes. “Daddy, I’m sure he’s not interested.”
“Don’t speak for the man, Abby,” he gently scolded her, then turned his attention back to Jordan. “Like I said, you’re more than welcome to come if you’re interested. Got a brisket on the smoker now, and I’ll be up early smoking ribs and sausages. We’ll have plenty of food. But it’s up to you. Abby can get you the address.”
“I’m sure you’re probably going to be heading out by then,” she said, nodding at Jordan.
He was so fucking amused by her pretty face and the dread in her eyes that he couldn’t resist.
“No,” he said, sending shock waves through her lovely body. “No, I think I can make it.”
Abby opened her mouth to protest, but her father chimed in before she could.
“Sounds good.” Her father nodded. “We’d better go, honey. Got reservations for eight,” he said, reaching out to shake Jordan’s hand one more time. “It was good meeting ya, and I’ll look for you tomorrow.”
“Looking forward to it.” He was polite for the benefit of her father, but he gloated for Abby’s benefit.
He watched them leave and saw her turn one last time to him with a strange look on her face before being ushered out the door.
Trust in Your Dream
EVERY YEAR, FOR AS long as Abby could remember, her family held a cookout in September for her birthday. Every year, every cousin, aunt, uncle, niece, nephew, and in-law showed up to partake of her father’s famous smoked brisket and ribs, barbecued chicken, hot links, burgers, and hot dogs. His oldest sister, Auntie Rue, and their younger sister Amelia came bearing tubs of their to-die-for macaroni and cheese, potato salad, turnip greens, and homemade biscuits. Everybody else brought food, and in the end, it was a feast fit for the gods with enough to feed battalions for weeks.
“Come on, T!” Abby shouted, out of breath and frustrated, walking back to her team from the end zone. “I was wide open!”
She was thirty-seven years old today, and for the last thirty years, since the first time they let her play in the Rhodes family traditional touch-football game, which they had started in honor of her birth, she’d been chasing the one birthday present that had always eluded her—a touchdown. Abby had never once, in all her years of playing this game, scored one single point, and her legacy was turning out to be downright embarrassing.
She made it back to her team, which consisted of her twenty-six-year-old cousin, Tauris, who played quarterback, and five other cousins, male and female, ranging in age from ten to thirty.
“I know you saw me,” she said, frustrated, planting her hands on her hips and rolling her eyes.
Abby had been standing in the end zone, by herself, jumping up and down like a fool, yelling, “I’m open! I’m wide open!” until she was exhausted. But T’s dumb ass had decided to hand the ball off to Marshall, a kid no more than thirteen, who managed to gain maybe two yards before his flag was snatched.
Tauris was about to call the next play when Abby interrupted. “I’m wide open, T,” she reminded him. “Nobody’s covering me.”
“That’s ’cause they know you ain’t gonna catch the ball,” one of those little assholes blurted out. Abby glared at him.
He smirked and looked away.
“All right,” T said, motioning for everyone to huddle close. “I’m keeping this one. Try to at least get the first down.”
Abby was livid. “You keep just about all of them.”
“Which is why this drive has lasted as long as it has,” he shot back.
She shook her head. So, she wasn’t the fastest one on the field. She certainly wasn’t the best blocker, and her pass coverage was so-so, but still.
“All I’m saying is for us to take advantage of the situation,” she reasoned. “They’re not covering me because they don’t t
hink I’ll catch it.” She glared at that kid who’d said it. “Which is exactly why it’d be a smart move to throw it to me.”
Everybody looked at each other and then finally back at her.
“Y’all hurry up!” someone shouted from the other team.
“No, man,” another baby cousin groaned. “Just run the play you just called.”
“Would you be quiet?” she retorted to the kid.
“I’m keeping it,” T reiterated.
They broke huddle and took their positions across from the other team. T faked a handoff, kept the ball, turned to run, and just like that, his flag was snatched.
“Nice call,” she said sarcastically.
So, she was a sore loser. A really good one.
“Who’s that?”
“Anybody know who that is?”
Abby knew who he was, and she had been up praying all night that he wouldn’t show up here today. She must’ve done something terribly wrong to offend God. Here it was, her birthday, her blue team was losing in the most embarrassing way to the red team, and multimillionaire CEO of a huge corporation Jordan Gatewood, pretending to be Jordan Tunson, shows up on her football field. After talking to Tauris, he took the football from him and suddenly became the quarterback for Abby’s team.
It took everything in her not to cry.
“They changing players?” Abby’s brother Rau asked one of their cousins.
The cousin shrugged. “They could bring in Jesus, man. It doesn’t matter.”
And he was right.
Jordan motioned for his team to huddle and knelt down on one knee. “You all know that you’re not winning this game. Right?”
Everyone nodded except for Abby. Dealing with Jordan off the field was one thing. But having him here, at the house where she’d grown up, on her birthday, was something else. Her father shouldn’t have invited him, and he should’ve had the decency to decline when he did. But she knew that from the look in his eyes last night when he’d accepted that invitation that the only reason he’d done it was to get under her skin.
Jordan turned his attention to Abby. “Nobody’s covering you.”
“Because she can’t catch,” that portly little cousin of hers said again.
Abby glared at the little boy. “How would you know if nobody ever throws me the ball?” she shot back.
“If they think that you can’t catch, then we need to use that to our advantage,” Jordan said calmly.
“It’s not that they don’t think she can’t catch,” the boy continued. “She really can’t catch.”
Jordan looked at Abby, who immediately looked away. No one had thrown her the ball in, like, years. Back when they had thrown it to her, she’d tried to catch it, but because of one reason or another, she hadn’t. So, since then, nobody would throw to her.
“I want you to get to the end zone, Abby,” Jordan continued. He was still watching her. She could feel it. “And I want you to wait.”
“What do you want us to do?” one of the kids asked.
“You get to the end zone, too. The rest of you, keep the other team off me,” he said simply.
Abby’s gaze slowly drifted to Jordan.
“I’m putting it in the air, sending it right to you. All you have to do is wrap your arms around it when it comes,” he said to her.
He was going to throw her the ball. A lump formed in her throat. Abby’s stomach filled with butterflies.
“Tell me you can do that?” he asked her.
Abby took a deep breath and nodded. This was it. This was her chance, her shot, finally, to prove all these people wrong that she wasn’t the worst player on the field. That’s what they all thought. That’s why she was the last one to be picked and why no one trusted her to run with or catch the football. The general attitude where she was concerned was “Just stay out of the way, Abby,” which was horrible, because she was the most passionate player on the field.
“We know you can build a skyscraper, Peanut, but you suck at sports.”
Everyone took their positions on the field. As soon as that ball was snapped and Abby took off running, she didn’t look back. It was just her out there by herself, running toward that end zone at the end of the yard, because no one thought of her as enough of a threat to cover. And then she stopped, turned back to her quarterback, and waited.
Jordan ran left, pumped the ball once, but didn’t let it go. Her brother Rau nearly had him, but Jordan twisted out of the way. Just before Rau could grab one of the flags off Jordan’s hip, Jordan ran right and let it go. Abby watched the ball sail through the air like a bird, coming right at her. The sounds of voices faded. She locked onto the ball, held out her arms, and then, just as it began to descend into her arms, she closed her eyes.
“No!” someone yelled.
Time stopped. What had happened? Silence. And then—slowly, she opened her eyes and realized that she had that ball squeezed tight against her chest. Abby had scored, and no one was more shocked than she was.
“What the—”
“Whoa,” the mouthy cousin said, standing and staring mesmerized at her.
“Whoa,” she murmured.
“Finally! That’s my baby!” she heard her dad call out, clapping. He whistled. “You did it, baby girl! You did it, Peanut!”
And she had. “Yes!” she yelled, spiking the ball and then jumping out of the way before it hit her in the face as it ricocheted back up. “Woooo!” She pumped her fists in the air.
Abby ran to Rau. “What, fool?” she said, taunting him.
“Really?” he shot back sarcastically. “You know your team still lost.”
She shook her head, patted her hand against her chest, kissed two fingers, and raised them to the sky. If she was a sore loser, she was obviously even a worse winner. Abby skipped, did cartwheels, jumped, and ran to each person on both teams, taunting them and thrusting her personal victory into each and every one of their faces. They’d had no faith in her. They’d written her off years ago, and now she’d just proven them all wrong.
Laughing, jumping, and skipping, she made her way over to the tall and beautiful Jordan whatever-his-last-name-was, who had vision and faith in her the way no one else ever had, and without thinking or hesitating, without realizing what she was doing, Abby hurled herself into his arms, wrapped both legs around him, and kissed him flush on the mouth.
And just like that, she snapped out of it, their eyes met, her mouth gaped open, and Abby slowly lowered herself back to the ground and stared up at him, in disbelief, shock, and awe.
“I am so sorry.”
Could she just faint? Or better yet, could she just curl up and die right here in this yard at his feet at this very moment? Please? Abby abruptly broke eye contact, turned, and walked back toward the house and went inside. She was never coming out again.
Too Headstrong
PEANUT. HE GOT IT. Peanut was happy that she’d scored her first touchdown at the annual family flag football game. Peanut gloated like she’d just won the Super Bowl. Peanut forgot that she and Jordan barely knew each other, hurled her lovely little self into his arms, wrapped her legs around him, and planted a wet and sloppy kiss on his lips. Peanut suddenly snapped out of it and practically ignored him for the next hour until Jordan finally said his good-byes and left.
It took all of five minutes to get his things from the hotel room and check out. Jordan had been on the highway for a little over half an hour, headed back to Dallas, thinking that it was no big deal that she’d kissed him. It was cute. Funny. But it didn’t mean anything. He’d hoped that the two of them could talk more about the video she’d sent him. Peanut—Abby had actually claimed that her house was haunted. Jordan had never given much thought to the existence of ghosts. Apparently, however, she did believe that it was true, and he was curious as to how she’d reached that conclusion. At least, he told himself that he was. In reality, if talking about ghosts gave him another opportunity to see her again, then he was willing to listen to a few ta
ll tales about all the otherworldly things she wanted to discuss.
That kiss. He was amused by the memory of it. It was like they were two kids on the playground—a bit awkward, unexpected, and sweet. Is that what Julian had seen in Ida? Country-girl sweetness?
Julian Gatewood was a slick sonofabitch. He probably saw that pretty little country Ida Green and swooped down on her like a hawk. Shy. Abby had said that Ida had been shy. He remembered a very reserved version of the woman sitting in the courtroom while her daughter stood trial for Julian’s murder. Ida seemed to never make eye contact with anyone. Jordan remembered staring so hard at her at times that it was a wonder he didn’t burn a hole in the woman with that laser-sharp gaze of his.
He blamed her. She was the reason behind all those nights that his parents argued and for his father’s death. Ida had tried to steal his father from them, to take him from Jordan, his mother, and his sister and Jordan hated her. He hated everything about her.
Of course, back then he had only seen her through the eyes of a very distraught young man. The situation was easier to understand now, though. Jordan was a grown man, and he knew the minds of grown men. Ida was young and sweet and innocent and shy when Julian got his hands on her and made a baby with her. He was shiny and gleamed like a brand-new silver dollar to that young woman. Of course she fell in love with him. It wouldn’t have been hard. But what about Julian? Was it love for him, too? True love? Or was he just enamored by the hero worship of a very young woman? Abby wanted to believe that the two shared the love of a lifetime. Jordan wondered if it really mattered.
Twenty years later, Julian was still there, still spending time with Ida and their daughter, the same daughter accused of murdering him, although no one knew at the time that she was his biological daughter. Jordan learned the truth many years later.
Jordan absently licked his lips as the haunting sensation of Abby’s kiss lingered, along with other things like the weight of her and the warmth of her wrapped around him. He needed to let that go. Jordan was dwelling on things that meant absolutely nothing or that should’ve meant nothing. She was a nice woman trying to help him find his damn self. At nearly fifty, he shouldn’t even still be looking. Thinking about it now, Jordan felt a twinge of embarrassment creeping up on him.