“You always get Be My Valentine,” Momma called from the beautician’s desk.
Predictable. I had always been so predictable. My gaze drifted over to the vibrant seafoam green with glitter and I plucked it up with a smile.
When I took a seat next to Momma she glanced at the bottle. “That’s new.” She picked it up. “Diva Mermaid,” she read the label. “Hmmm.”
“I just wanted something different.”
Judy took my hands in hers, rubbing over my knuckles. “You’ve been washing your hands too much.”
“It happens when you work in a hospital.”
“You need to start using lotion…” she tsked. “So, I heard Meg is talking to Trevor again.”
“What?” I wrinkled my brow.
“Georgie said she’d seen Meg’s car over at Trevor’s several times last week, not that it’s any of her business, but that lady ain’t got nothing better to do with her time than stand at that window, and of course she has to come in here blabbing about all the things.” Judy rolled her eyes.
Meridith, one of the nail technicians, set a bowl of soapy water in front of me on the manicure table. She glanced across the room at the wall of hairdryers before leaning down and saying, “Well, I heard he’s seeing Lori Benson.”
“Last week he was over at my granddaughter’s,” Ms. Smith chimed in from one of the salon chairs. Meridith gasped before walking back to the hair washing station. “Told her mother he was bad news and she might oughta take Camille to the clinic to get tested.”
“Well, I never…” Judy said. “See, sweet Hannah’s always had her head on straight. You’ve known better than to be boy crazy.”
Momma patted my leg.
“Still blows my mind that you and Meg McKinney are like Pete and Repeat.” Judy shooed a fly away from the table. “Have been ever since you were little.”
“She’s my best friend…”
“I know, she’s just so…” Judy’s eyes widened for a moment, then she shook her head. “Strongwilled?”
I glared at her.
“Oh, I know she’s a sweet girl, I just like to give you a hard time.” She grabbed the cuticle pusher and started shoving my overgrown cuticles back on my nailbed.
The bell over the door jingled and Judy glanced at the entrance behind me.
“Oh, Lord have mercy,” Judy whispered, setting my fingertips in the bowl of warm, sudsy water. “You ladies prepared for another episode of As the World Turns?” “Hey there, Betty.” A radiantly fake smile spread across her lips. “How are the girls.”
“Oh, they’re wonderful.” The overpowering smell of White Shoulders nearly knocked me over when Betty fell down into the chair beside me and set her generic red nail polish on the table. One of the new nail technicians wheeled over on the rolling chair and went to work pulling out files and clippers.
“How are you doing, Claire?” Betty asked.
“Oh, hanging in there.”
“We been praying for you in Sunday School.”
“I appreciate that, Betty.” Momma smiled. I wondered if it bothered her.
“I’m sure you’re glad to be home, Hannah,” she said. I knew she was only trying to be polite, but I had to grit my teeth and stare at the file working over the edge of my nail. I was only home because of my mother’s health. So no, I wasn’t glad to be home.
“Oh, Claire, doesn’t that Noah boy from over in Sylacauga work at the farm now?” Betty wiggled in her chair, trying to straighten up.
“Yes,” Momma said.
“What do you know about him?”
“Not much.”
“Well, aren’t all those boys John takes in for the summer in some kinda trouble?”
She practically leaned across my lap to whisper. “Sinners led astray.”
“Well, all are led astray from time to time, Betty…”
“Oh, he’s led astray alright. Martha, you know, she works at the Tackle and Gas Stop, she said he’s always gallivanting in with a new girl every weekend, usually drunk as a skunk. Said he’s the sole reason she has to restock the condoms each month.”
“At least he’s using a condom,” Judy said. I could feel my cheeks heating, my chest flaming.
The hum of the hairdryer stopped, and Betty sighed. “Well, condom or not, boys like that are no good. It’s a blessing that John takes them in. They’ll never amount to anything good in my book. Bless his poor grandma, Martha said she’s a lovely lady, just had a bad apple.”
My fingers twitched. “You know,” I blurted. “You probably shouldn’t judge someone you don’t know.”
“Oh,” Betty turned to face me, and Judy stopped filing my nails. “You know him, Hannah?”
“Yes. Very well.”
“I see.” The way her lips puckered while her judgmental glare skimmed me from head to toe caused my skin to crawl. “We’ll be sure to pray for you then.”
“Neither one of them need your prayers, Betty,” Momma said, a slight shake in her tone.
Daisy laughed from the other side of the salon, and I turned in the chair to see her push up from her seat. “I wouldn’t worry, Betty, from what I hear, he doesn’t go for good girls. But, you might want to be careful Hannah, hanging out with him could tarnish your reputation.” The smile that crossed her lips looked about as genuine as her boob job.
Judy cleared her throat and grabbed the nail polish, shaking it. “You know, I think this color will really pop against your fair skin, Hannah, I really do.”
The rest of the visit to the salon was oddly quiet. For the first time, likely since those doors had opened in 1985, the only noise was the sound of the hairdryers and the jets to the pedicure tubs.
After our nails dried, me and Momma went to Ruby’s for lunch. It was a rundown diner on the outskirts of town, but they had amazing soul food. Collard greens and fried pickles. It was Momma’s favorite, and I knew as soon as the new treatment began, her appetite would be gone. We gorged on the buffet and finished it off with Ruby’s famous Silk Chocolate Pie.
Momma licked the end of the fork, rolling her eyes back in her head. “That has to be the best chocolate pie in the entire world.”
“I’d have to agree.” I shoved my plate across the table with nothing but a dollop of whipped cream left. I caught a glimpse of Martha from the Bait and Tackle as she shuffled through the buffet line. All it did was remind me of the hateful tone in Betty’s voice when she talked about Noah, and God, did that grate my nerves. People gossiped, and gossip spreads like wildfire in a small town like Rockford. Each person adds a little something to make the tale juicier. So what if he’d slept with all those girls. He hadn’t even tried to sleep with me? He respected me—after all, that is what a woman is supposed to want, isn’t it? A man who respects her, but if it was, I wondered why my stomach was knotting. What happened when I did end up sleeping with him, what would that make me? Just another girl who lost her way for the guy with the pretty voice?
“What are you over there thinking about?” Momma asked.
“Oh…” I glanced up just as the waiter placed the check on the table. “Nothing.” I didn’t even check the bill, just laid my credit card on top of it.
Her eyes narrowed. “You’re my baby girl, I know when something’s bothering you.”
“I’m just tired.”
She reached across the table and squeezed my hand. “Don’t let what Betty said about Noah get to you.”
I sunk down in the seat a little. Embarrassed that my mother was calling me out.
“You feel like you’ve known him forever, don’t you?”
“Yeah.”
She nodded. “Those are always tough ones.”
The waiter grabbed the check on his way back by. “What do you mean?”
“Boys like that—the ones that make you feel like your whole world’s been set on fire—they are hard to say no to.”
“I don’t know about my world being set on fire…” That was a lie. “I’ve just never met anyone like him
before.”
“And you probably never will again. The heart can usually only take one of them.”
“One of them?”
She nodded once. “Soulmates.”
“Okay, I didn’t say anything about being in love with him or—”
“You don’t have to, it’s in your eyes when you say his name.” She smiled. “Soulmates are people put here to guide us in life.”
“What? Guide us? Aren’t you just supposed to spend your life with them?”
“No, honey, they’re the person who changes your entire life. Flips it upside down and around. They’re like a fire you can’t tame, one that feels like Heaven when it heats you and Hell when it engulfs you. You can’t stay with ‘em.”
Momma had always talked about how Daddy was her one, so I was curious why she’d say something like that. “But you and Daddy…”
Her lips pressed into a frown and she shook her head. “He’s my life mate. Not my soulmate. The summer after my senior year—right before me and mother moved back to Rockford—I met this boy named Frankie Haywood.” A nostalgic smile lifted the corners of her mouth. “He wore a leather jacket and smoked cigarettes and listened to Elvis Presley, everything that made my mother cringe. Oh, I fell hard and fast for him, and he broke my heart.”
“So why the weird smile when you think of him?”
“He taught me not to trust everyone, to stand up for myself, and he taught me how to ride a motorcycle,” she laughed. “No helmet.”
“You rode a motorcycle?” I found that hard to imagine. My prim and proper mother who was terrified to ride the Tilt a Whirl at the State Fair on a motorcycle?
“Stood up on the back of one once.” She looked so proud of that. “He gave me that passionate love that’s only sustainable for so long.”
“Well, that sucks, Mom. Way to give me something to look forward to.”
“What you have to learn, my dear, is that love is someplace that’s safe. It’s something that transcends physical needs and wants. Passionate love is like a wild rose—beautiful and rare, but when you go to pick it, it’s gonna tear you to shreds. You’ll pick one in your lifetime, and while you’ll always recall how sweet it smelled, you’ll never forget the scars.”
“So…” I pushed my chair away from the table and grabbed my purse. “You’re telling me that Noah’s gonna hurt me?”
“I’m telling you there’s a reason he’s in your life and enjoy it while you can. Life is all about the experiences, not the regrets.” She stood up, placing her hand in mine as we walked from the restaurant. “No regrets.”
No regrets. No matter the consequences, I didn’t want to regret keeping myself from him. Soulmate, life mate, it didn’t matter. I wanted my first scar to be from Noah Greyson.
27
Noah
John’s truck was gone when I came in from the field, but Hannah’s car was parked right under the oak tree. Dusk settled in, cooling the muggy air and cueing the crickets in the tall grass. I loaded the half-empty paint cans into the bed of my truck, peeled my sweat-soaked shirt off and threw it to the floorboard. The light to Hannah’s room turned on, catching my attention just as she passed in front of the window in nothing but a little tank top and underwear. She danced around in her room, more carefree than I’d ever seen her. Her back was to the window and she shook her hips from side to side, reminiscent of some Shakira dance move. She grabbed the bottom of her shirt and started to lift it over her head, and while I knew damn well I should look away, I didn’t. Sure, maybe it made me an absolute jerk, but I had slept next to her for nearly a week and done nothing but kiss her. No matter how hard I tried, my dick wouldn’t let me move my eyes away from that window. Her shirt came off. She froze and slowly glanced over her shoulder. Right at me.
My heart banged against my ribs, because how the hell was I going to get out of that without sounding like a complete pervert? Slowly, she turned around, making a show of dropping her shirt to the floor. And there she stood, completely topless in front of her window with her eyes set on me.
I had one hand on the tailgate of my truck, my jaw, no doubt, unhinged. A timid grin worked over her face as she leaned closer to the window, waving before she pulled the curtain closed.
Damn. Damn!
I swiped a hand over my face before glancing back at the road. I had no idea where John had gone, but what I did know was that Hannah was up there with no shirt on and I my dick was harder than concrete. Adjusting myself, I walked up the steps to the front porch and knocked on the door. I could hear feet pound down the steps. The knob twisted. When she opened the door, she was in nothing but a pair of baby blue boy shorts. Nothing but the boy shorts. “Hey,” she smiled.
I swallowed, trying to lift my gaze from her tits to her face. “Well, that’s a greeting.” I bit the inside of my cheek when I stepped inside and closed and locked the door behind me.
I grabbed both sides of her face and kissed her gently. The second her nipples brushed my bare chest, I groaned. Weeks. I’d wanted this woman for weeks and not touched her. I was trying to be good, I was trying to do everything right, but damn it, there was only so much a man could take. I raked my teeth over her bottom lip. “Fuck, Hannah.” I grabbed behind her knees and scooped her up in my arms, carrying her up the stairs and straight to her room.
I kicked the door closed with my foot before laying her on the bed. Her chest rose in ragged swells, her eyes locked on me. I slid my hands along her sides to her breasts before I crawled on top of her. She felt so right half naked and underneath me. Her skin was warm, soft. Perfect. She deserved so much more than I could offer her, and I knew it. It was a war, a struggle I had with myself, but what do you do?
“I want you,” she whispered, trailing her fingers over my back.
“Fuck do I want you. Since I saw you,” I breathed, leaning down and kissing her breast. “Since I saw you, I just wanted this…” I slowly sucked her nipple into my mouth, and she tossed her head against the pillow, the softest moan breaking through her lips. “You.”
She grabbed my hand and shoved it between her thighs. “Touch me.”
My insides tightened when I slid my finger under the hem of her underwear, nervous, anxious. I groaned at how wet she was and buried my face in the crook of her neck. “Shit.”
She placed her hand over mine and pressed. I worked over her, reveling in all the quiet “ahhs” coming between deep breaths. The only way I could describe that sound was fucking beautiful. There was so much more than sexual want, it was me and her. It was the two of us needing to be closer, to feel each other. I kissed her hard, deep, like she was the air I needed to survive the next five minutes. She grabbed my wrist, forcing my hand over her harder while she whispered my name over and over, her other hand clawing at my arm.
“Oh, shit…” She panted, melting into the mattress. I glanced up. Her cheeks were flushed, and there was the faintest of smiles on her face.
She popped the button on my jeans and just when she went to pull the zipper, I heard a car door slam closed outside. My heart froze for a few beats before adrenaline fired over me.
“Crap,” she said, scrambling off the bed and ducking beneath the window while she grabbed her shirt. She quickly pulled it on and peeked out the window. “Crap!” She turned around, her face pale. “Okay, this is…” She dragged a hand over her face. “You don’t have a… and I’m twenty, but that’s my daddy and…”
I grabbed her, pulled her to me and kissed her. “I’ll call you.” Then I hightailed it out of her room and down the hall. I literally jumped over the railing to the first landing, then hurried down the stairs, through the kitchen, and out the back door, catching the screen before it slammed shut. I went right over to the hose and turned the tap, rinsing my hands with the water.
“You’re here late, Noah,” John said when he stepped around the side of the house.
“Just finished up.”
“Some turpentine will take that right off,” he said, staring at t
he paint on my forearm.
“Yeah… I’ll be sure and use that.” I turned the tap and laid the hose down. “See you on Thursday?”
“Yep, good Lord willin’.” He smiled before stepping onto the porch and disappearing inside.
I felt like shit for messing around with his daughter in his house. That girl was starting to make me have morals…
______
“Fuck a duck!” Benji belched before bending over and picking up the bean bag. “You didn’t cut that there hole wide enough, Greyson.”
I glanced at the gigantic hole cut into the plywood of my makeshift cornhole board. “You dipshit, that’s plenty big! It’s half an inch wider than the Google article recommended.”
“Maybe it just needs decorations.” Benji hopped the fence into Old Man’s yard.
“What is he doing?” Trevor asked.
“Hell if I know.”
Benji stared down at the ground, turning in a circle. “Looking for some spray paint.”
“In his yard?”
“Have you seen this yard? There’s all kinds of shit in here.” He bent over and picked up a crumpled can. “This is a Bud Lite circa nineteen eighty-four. This”—he grabbed something else—“a rusted can of Folgers and then…” He kicked at a lump of grass and pulled up a filthy bra that looked like it would fit Dolly Parton. “Probably Old Lady Jenkins’ from some swinger party they had back in the nineties.”
“That’s sick,” I said with a snarled lip.
“Old Lady Jenkins was a slut.” Trevor laughed. “My grandad talked about her when he went senile, and I mean it was gross. Something about a magic eight ball and a liter of Sprite.”
“It wasn’t no Sprite!” We all jumped when Old Man slowly crept up from behind one of the chicken coops. “It was Meller Yeller. Old Lady Jenkins used to go by the name Creampuff down at the Foxtrot. That gentlemen’s club taught them girls how to do all sorts of tricks that’d make them donkey shows blush.”
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