Whiskey Lullaby

by Stevie J. Cole

  “What are you doing?” I whispered.

  “Using your tree.”

  “I see that… you know, phone’s work.”

  The way he shrugged one shoulder was almost arrogant. “Not the effect I was going for. Besides, this is a good tree,” he patted the branch he was straddling, “shame it’s never been used.”

  A little flutter stirred in my chest and I fought a smile. As ridiculous as it was, I couldn’t deny it was a little swoon-worthy.

  “You know, it’s common courtesy when a man climbs a tree and taps on your window that you climb out and meet him.”

  “Is that so?”

  He shimmied toward the end of the heavy limb and held out his hand. “Come on.”

  I glanced at the azaleas a floor down, visualizing my plummet to sudden death. “Um…” Crap. My retainer. I spun around and snatched it from my mouth, placing it on the nightstand before I turned back around.

  “Oh, come on. You’re not gonna fall.”

  “And this coming from the boy who fell out of a window and ended up in a body cast?”

  “Touché.” He laughed. “I thought you said you liked to live on the edge?” He winked and wriggled the fingers of his outstretched hand.

  Even though I was an adult and it wasn’t exactly sneaking out—It was something I had never done. I had always been the good girl. The one who stayed in and studied. The one that didn’t kiss on the first date. The preacher’s daughter…and then I was the girl whose mother was dying. The girl who suddenly realized how short life really was, who realized she may have taken everything too seriously, and I had this guy, this carefree, beautiful guy asking me to climb out of my window. No matter someone’s age, I want to believe anyone would find a certain thrill in that. Before I could give it a second thought, I swung my legs over the ledge while the summer breeze blew the sweet scent of lilacs from Momma’s garden through my hair.

  Noah grabbed my hand. “Now, just use one foot to step onto the branch.”

  I planted one foot on the limb before a surge of panic swelled in my chest. My palm slicked with sweat. Excitement tingled through me.

  “It’s fine,” he said, his gaze locking with mine. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  And I believed that. As foolish as it may have been, I believed he wouldn’t ever let anything bad happen to me.

  He pulled me onto the limb and I fell against him, laughing. “This is…” I took a breath in an attempt to calm my racing pulse as I stared at the ground below. “It’s exactly what I need.”

  He swept a finger over my cheek. “And finally,” he whispered. “I made the sad girl smile.”

  He was so good at making my cheeks flush.

  I scooted along the branch until my back was against the rough trunk, and he followed me.

  The wind rustled the leaves. “You know, I tried to warn you, right?” His finger brushed my bottom lip, and I fought for a breath because that touch was so soft, so reverent. “I’m no good for you, Hannah Blake.”

  “But what if I’m good for you?”

  His teeth raked over his bottom lip on a groan before he grabbed both sides of my face, slowly rubbing his thumbs over my jaw. “Since I saw you in that church,” he said, inching his face toward mine. “All I’ve wanted to do was kiss you.”

  Weak. I was literally weak. Staring into his eyes with his lips inches from mine and I felt so… “Noah,” I breathed, possibly pleaded. I couldn’t be that stupid girl that gave in too easily.

  “You make me crazy. Shit.” I could barely hear him. “I’ve been crazy attracted to you since…” His lip rolled over mine, and God, it was so soft and warm and… too perfect. “Just let me kiss you.” His mouth brushed mine as he spoke, teasing as he slowly pressed me against the tree. “Please,” he begged me. Noah Greyson begged me, and I caved.

  I grabbed the back of his head, threading my fingers through his thick hair when I pressed my mouth to his. They say some kisses leave you breathless, that one… it left me in awe. I had thought about kissing him a hundred times since I’d first met him, and I believed it would be a brutal execution that would leave me at his mercy, but the way he actually kissed was worse. His mouth moved tenderly against mine, his tongue slowly dipped into my mouth. He cupped my face like I was something he wanted to cherish. It left my head swimming, my heart begging not to be broken.

  When I pulled away, he still had his eyes closed and he was rubbing his lips together like he was trying to savor that kiss. “Damn…” He looked at me. “They were right, you are too good for me.” He grabbed onto the branch and lowered himself down with an impressive show of arm strength. Once his feet were on the ground, he reached up. “Come on, country girl.”

  I rubbed my palms together, grabbed the branch and dropped down, swinging for a second before I let go and landed perfectly on my feet. I shot a gloating smirk at him before dusting my hands off.

  “Impressive.”

  “I did gymnastics.”

  “Uh-huh.” I watched that come-hither smirk on his face. Each step he took toward me was confident, cocky. Heck, the way his jeans rode so low on his hips was an act of arrogance. With the way all the girls in town looked at him, fawned after him, I knew I was in for it.

  The closer he came, all I heard was Meg warning that he was another Max Summers. I panicked, placing my hands up just in time for them to land flat against his hard chest. “I…” My mouth was suddenly dry, and I swished my tongue around to try and wet it. “I…uh…it’s late.”

  He drew back, studying me.

  “And I have to be at work early in the morning and I just…”

  “Uh-huh.” He grabbed my arms, holding me in place while he pressed his warm mouth against mine again, but this time only for a moment. “Goodnight, Hannah,” he breathed against my lips before letting go of me and heading down the drive.

  “Yeah,” I mumbled. “Goodnight.”

  Be still my stupid heart. Be still.

  19

  Noah

  Come here, Marvin,” Old Man chuckled, swinging his cane at one of the goats. “I gots you some Natty Light.”

  “What the hell is he doing?” Trevor asked before flopping down in one of the lawn chairs.

  “He gets his goats drunk.”

  “He’s crazy.”

  “He’s funny.”

  My phone buzzed in my pocket. I took a sip of beer and dug it out, staring at the unknown number before pressing the phone to my ear. “Yeah?”

  “Is this Noah?”

  “Yeah.” I took another sip of beer while watching Old Man dump the Natty Light into on overturned Frisbee for Marvin.

  “This is Brice Tanner, I saw a video of you covering one of my songs and I—”

  Click. I hung the phone up. I didn’t have time for that shit.

  “What was that about?” Trevor asked.

  “Some dipshit trying to be an ass over one of those video’s Daisy keeps posting of me.” I groaned. “I told her to stop doing that shit.”

  “Ah, she thinks you’ll be another Biebs.” He laughed. “That’s why she’s so gung-ho about beddin’ you. You’re her claim to fame, her ticket outta Rockford.” He turned his beer up and shook his head. “You ever fuck her; you better make sure you use a condom, or you’ll end up with a kid.”

  “I’m not sleeping with her.” The thought disgusted me.

  “Right, right. You’re all up on the preacher’s daughter.”

  “I’m not all up on her.”

  I could feel him staring at me and when I turned to look at him, his lip was slightly curled. “You got issues.”

  “Why? Because I’m not trying to screw her?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s not always about sex, fuckface.”

  “You know why Max Summers had her cornered the other night in the bar?”

  I didn’t care why, but he told me anyway. “She dated him. She’s not as innocent as you think, bro.” He tipped his beer back again, smirking.
/>
  My jaw set. That bothered me. “Why would a girl like her date a guy like that?”

  Trevor shrugged. “Girls like the bad guys, Noah. You know that.”

  “He tried to fuck an unconscious seventeen-year-old girl that night at Britney’s party.” I stared at him.

  “And you beat his ass for it.”

  I chugged the rest of my beer and leaned back in the lawn chair, staring over the fence. Why would she date a guy like Max? “I don’t get it.”

  “For what it’s worth, not everyone knew what a piece of crap Max was. Hell, most people still don’t.”

  My phone rang again. Same unknown number. I answered it and immediately hung up. “Look, man, you like her—you like her. It’s just girls like her, they want a relationship. They want commitment, blah fucking blah.”

  The thing was, with a girl like that, I didn’t mind the blah fucking blah.

  ______

  The sun slowly sank below the horizon. The crickets had started early that evening, and the air was unusually pleasant for a mid-summer day.

  I finished rinsing the paint from the paintbrush then laid it on the old brick retaining wall to dry.

  “You out, son?” John called, leaning over the fence and placing his boot on the bottom rung.

  “Yeah, guess so.”

  “Well, thank you for all your hard work. It’s been a mighty help to me and Bo.”

  “Glad to hear it.” I wiped my hands on the leg of my jeans and had started to my truck when the front door creaked open. Hannah stepped onto the porch in a pair of running shorts and a tank, shaking out a tablecloth. She smiled when I stopped at the bottom step of the porch. “You look cute.”

  “Thanks.” She looked over my shoulder at her dad’s shop. “The whitewash looks good.”

  “Appreciate that.” I swatted at a gnat. “What are you doing tonight?”

  “Nothing.”

  Grinning, I took a step back. “Alright, I’ll be back around eight to pick you up.”

  “What?”

  “You said you weren’t doing anything.”

  “Well, I—”

  “Nope, you want to get outta doing something with me, you’ll learn to lie when I ask you what you’re doing. A nothings always a ‘something with you’ as far as I’m concerned.”

  A smirk worked over her lips while she folded the tablecloth over her arm. “Wow, noted.” She laughed.

  “Eight.” I pointed at her.

  “I guess so,” she said before slipping back inside.

  20

  Hannah

  Where are we going?” I asked as we barreled down the interstate.

  “It’s a surprise.”

  “Mmhmm.”

  “Don’t mmhmm me, lady.” He pinched my leg and I swatted his hand away as I watched Exit 3 pass us by.

  “Okay, so we’ve passed Auburn… so it’s not a frat party.”

  His eyes cut over at me. “A frat party? Really.” An arrogant smirk flashed over his lips. “Do I look like the frat boy type?”

  “Of course not, so”—I looped my arm through his and leaned my head on his shoulder—“where are we going?”

  “Patience is a virtue; any preacher’s daughter should know that shit.”

  “Wow,” I laughed. “You are just…” Everything I need and want and…

  A few minutes later he veered off the interstate, taking a right down a two-lane highway.

  “You’ll love it,” he said, tapping his hand over the steering wheel. “At least you better or I’m questioning our friendship.”

  Friendship? My heart sank a little, but I shook it off. What does it matter anyway? It doesn’t. “Mmhmm.”

  “God, you and that mmhmm.” We turned onto a dirt road, and half a mile down the headlights shone over a large No Trespassing sign nailed to a tree. Noah, of course, drove right past it.

  “Um…”

  “Yeah?”

  I thumbed back toward the sign. “That said No Trespassing.”

  “Yup.” There was a slight smile on his face.

  “And…”

  “I’m illiterate. What did you say it said?”

  “Noah!” I slapped his arm, letting my hand linger over his bicep for a second.

  “Ah, come on, country girl, don’t tell me you don’t know that anything they tell you not to do is more than worth doing.”

  I sank down in the seat. A tingle of a thrill darted up my spine while my conscious whispered to me that this was not a good idea. I glanced over at Noah, all bad-boy smiles and tattoos, and I knew that wherever he was taking me might end with a night in jail, but when you’re with Noah Greyson, well, a night in jail doesn’t seem so bad.

  We came to the top of the hill and he put the truck into park, cutting the engine. “Alright.” He grinned while he threw the door open. I watched through the windshield as he rounded the front and came to open my door. Without a word, he grabbed my hand and yanked me out. There was nothing around us but a field and at the bottom of the hill, a string of lights. “What are we—”

  He placed a finger on my lips, shushing me. I was tempted to jab my elbow into his ribs, but he threaded his fingers through mine and dragged me to the back of the truck. There was that southern silence surrounding us: the cicadas, a plane humming in the distance. “Alright,” he said, placing his hand on my waist and lifting me into the bed of his truck. “Promise not to scream?”

  A nervous laugh slipped through my lips. “Okay, I’m not so sure I like the way this sounds…”

  “Nah.” He winked as he hopped over the side of the truck, climbing in and taking a seat next to me. “But really, don’t scream.” He grabbed onto me and pulled me back against his chest.

  His fingers went to my hair, brushing through while he hummed in my ear, and just when I closed my eyes and relaxed into him, the roar of the plane grew louder and louder. I tensed, and he squeezed me. “It’s fine.”

  The rumbling got so loud, I went to cover my ears and then—whoosh—my hair whipped across my face. The smell of jet fuel permeated the air as the plane whizzed right over us. The red flash of the landing lights danced over the top of the truck before the tires screeched against a runway. Adrenaline shot through me.

  “Woohoooo,” Noah shouted. “That’s a rush!” He held me tighter. “Isn’t it? Makes you feel alive?”

  “That thing was like a hundred feet above us… if that.” I was still clutching my chest, waiting for my pulse to calm.

  “I know,” he said against my ear, excitement dancing in his voice. Most guys get excited over sports cars, money…the fact that living excited him was intoxicating and addictive. I’m not sure I’d ever met a person who simply enjoyed life the way Noah did, and it made me want to be around him. He was infectious in the best way, especially to my worried heart. He made me forget, all the while making me feel things I had never felt before. And that was the first moment where I felt unexpectedly safe in his arms. My chest went tight. Things like that, you just kind of wait for them to fall apart. Careless things never last. And we were careless…

  “How did you find this place?” I asked.

  “In high school, I worked for some guy that had a house right here. Airport bought it from him. His house used to be”—he pointed behind the truck,—“right there. Paid him like four hundred grand for this little shitshack. He died a happy rich bastard.”

  “That’s sad.”

  “What, that he died?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Nah, Cletus—that was his name—he was damn near eighty. He had a grand ole’ time before he died. Last thing he sent me was a postcard from Bali.”

  “Bali?”

  “Yep, someplace with a bunch of monkeys, evidently it was a bucket list item for him. He crossed off his bucket list from selling this land. You can’t beat that.”

  “I don’t guess so.”

  “So, what’s on your bucket list?”

  “I don’t know…”

  He huffed. “Come on
.”

  “Seriously, I’ve never really thought about it. I guess, going to Paris.”

  “Wow. Paris,” he laughed. “How original.”

  “Let me guess, yours would be skydiving, swimming with Great Whites, something that could possibly kill you.”

  “I mean, the Great White thing sounds pretty fucking amazing.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “I want to travel. I want to pay my grandma back for everything she’s done for me. And, you know, Great Whites and skydiving, making millions of dollars, yadda yadda yadda.” An uneasy laugh rumbled from his chest. “Maybe prove to my parents, wherever they are, that they made a mistake.”

  “That bothers you,” I said as his hand lazily trailed over my arm.

  “I wish it didn’t. I shouldn’t care.”

  “How could you not?”

  I felt him shrug.

  My jaw clenched. It made me angry that not one, but two people could abandon their child. Just up and leave. It made me hurt for him that the people who should have made him feel safe and cherished and loved made him feel like he wasn’t good enough. I sat up and took his hands in mine. “They don’t deserve you.” I shook my head. “I don’t care how bad you say you are, Noah Greyson, you aren’t. You can pretend all you want, say you’re a Tin Man, but you’re a good person, and they don’t deserve so much as a fleeting thought from you.” All I wanted to do was make him believe he was good enough.