by Cassia Leo
She thought that Fran might have been right about the eyeliner.
But maybe she should go and ask her, just to make sure. Matt was no help whatsoever, of course, and there wasn’t anyone else around to ask. She guessed she could call Isabella and describe the outfit to her, but Isabella wouldn’t even get it. Isabella had probably bought her dress at the mall or something.
Cathy trooped down the steps. “Fran?”
“Out here, sugar!” came Fran’s voice from the front porch.
Cathy pushed open the front door.
Fran was standing at the edge of the porch with baby Gage on her hip. He was contentedly sucking on a pacifier and tangling his fingers in his mother’s hair. “Looks good,” said Fran. “Don’t you think so, Heath?”
He was staring at her.
He was dirty, smears of something black all over his face, hands, and white t-shirt. He held a can of soda in one hand. He leaned against the porch, his flannel tied around his waist. He watched her as he took a swig of soda.
“Um, hi,” she said, feeling stupid.
Fran looked back and forth between the two of them. “Maybe I’ll leave you two alone for a minute. You like the soda, Heath?”
“It’s good,” said Heath. “Thanks, Fran.”
“Don’t tell Matt I gave it to you.” She swept back into the house.
Cathy wanted to follow her. She wanted to run away.
Heath scratched the back of his head. “Why are you dressed like that?”
“It’s homecoming,” she said.”
He set the soda down on the porch. “Homecoming.”
“You’ve heard of it, haven’t you?” For some reason, it seemed easier to insult him than to talk to him.
“I didn’t think school dances were our thing, Cathy.”
“Maybe they’re not your thing,” she said. “But you never asked me if I wanted to go to a dance. You never asked me a lot of things, Heath. You just kind of assumed.”
Heath took another drink of soda. “Someone picking you up? That kid that always takes you to school?”
She shrugged. “What if he is? It’s not like you ever asked me to be your girlfriend or something.”
He laid his head against one of the pillars on the porch. He looked up at the sky.
And then, out of nowhere, she felt like crying.
“I guess I thought we were bigger than stuff like that. Labels. Girlfriend and boyfriend, whatever. All I know is I’m yours. And you’re mine,” he said.
“It’s a group thing.”
“A group thing?”
“Just a bunch of people going together,” she said. “I’m not… with him.”
“That supposed to make me feel better?”
Her mouth felt dry. “I don’t know.” She turned to go back into the house.
“Cathy.” His voice broke.
She stopped.
“You look beautiful.”
And she did cry then. Her tears were ruining her makeup. She turned back around. She wiped her face, and she went back to him, jumping down off the porch. “You could come get me. Later. Matt goes out on Fridays, and when he gets home, he’s usually wasted. He won’t notice if the truck’s gone. Just come to the parking lot around ten. I’ll meet you. We’ll drive around or hang out or something.”
His gaze flitted up to meet hers, and then he shrugged. And, as usual, his shrug was epic. “What about that guy?”
“What about him?”
He laughed a little, the sound almost bitter. “I’m just supposed to be okay with it?”
She swallowed. “Yes. There’s nothing going on with him and me.”
He picked up his soda and turned away. “Right.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“I’ll see you at ten.”
*
“Where are you going?” Eli was behind her in the empty hallway of the school.
Cathy hadn’t thought he’d seen her go. She’d been in the gym, at the dance. She’d even let Eli dance with her a few times. She’d been close enough to smell the mint of his toothpaste, the spicy scent of his aftershave. He’d smelled so… clean.
She stopped, turning back to look at him. “The bathroom.”
Eli grinned. He sauntered forward. “You walked by the bathrooms.”
“Did I?” She swung her purse into her bare knees.
“I can’t figure you out, you know that?”
She shrugged. “There’s nothing to figure out.” She started walking again.
Eli kept coming behind her. “You keep running from me, but I can’t help feeling like you want me to chase.”
“I’m just going to the bathroom, Eli. I don’t know why you’d want to follow me.” But she couldn’t help smiling. Maybe she did want him to chase. Maybe some part of her wanted that. Which part, she wasn’t sure. Everything was so confusing these days. She knew she loved Heath, that their connection ran deep. But Eli was exciting.
Heath was so intense. Eli was light and fun. He made her smile. Heath made her feel like her soul was being squeezed.
Eli caught her by the shoulder, turning her. “Cathy, why wouldn’t you come with me to this dance, just you and me? Why did you make me dig up all those people? Why’d it have to be a ‘group thing’?”
“I didn’t make you do anything.” She sashayed backwards, inching out of his grasp.
He caught her again, and he held her more tightly this time. “If you aren’t interested in me, just say so.”
She rolled her eyes. “Eli, don’t be so serious. We’re just having fun, right?”
“Why can’t you be straight with me?” he said.
“Maybe because you can’t catch me,” she said, laughing. She took off away from him, running down the empty hallway, streaming past the lockers and the silent, dark classrooms. Her laughter bounced off the ceiling, off the tiled floor.
And then she was at the door. She flung it open, bounding down the stairs and into the parking lot. She didn’t bother to look behind her.
Heath was parked across from the door. He stood outside the truck, leaning against it, smoking a cigarette. He’d cleaned up since she saw him last, but he was still scruffy, and he still hadn’t shaved. His hands were shoved in his pockets, and his posture proclaimed that he didn’t give a fuck about anything. But his eyes lit up when he saw her.
She skipped to him, and he opened his arms to her.
She melted into his embrace, his lips finding hers, the sensation of his fingers on her skin slicing through her, making her go weak.
But she still saw Eli, standing in the open door. Watching.
Heath saw him too. He smirked.
He shoved her into the truck, tossing his cigarette on the ground. He climbed in after her.
And then his mouth was on hers again, and she was lost to him. To the world.
*
Cathy’s dress was pushed down around her waist, and Heath was staring at her.
Cathy giggled shyly. She was lying under him in the cab of the truck. They were parked on the farm, out in the fields on one of the back roads.
He wasn’t sure exactly how he’d ended up like this.
He thought he’d just done it. Just picked up the straps on the dress and eased it over her shoulder. She hadn’t stopped him. And she hadn’t been wearing a bra.
And now he was supposed to be doing something, wasn’t he?
But he was just looking at her.
“Heath?” Her hand on his chest. He wasn’t wearing a shirt either, if it came to that.
“Uh huh.” He was whispering. He was pretty sure she was whispering too, but he wasn’t sure about that. He was a little distracted at the moment.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.” He smiled at her.
She smiled back.
He kissed her. His bare chest brushed her breasts.
She gasped.
He gasped.
He kissed his way down her body, trailing down her neck, over her collar bone,
across the swell of them. He kissed one of her nipples.
She moaned softly.
His crotch throbbed.
He gathered her breasts into his hands, rubbing his thumbs over them. They were so soft. He hadn’t realized that anything could be quite that soft and wonderful.
She kept moaning through it. Her moans got louder and louder.
He liked making her do that.
He kept making her moan. He kept touching her, kissing her, running his tongue over her, listening to the noises that he wrung from her. They were turning him on so bad.
He didn’t think his cock had ever been quite this hard. It was uncomfortably hard. It was like there was some kind of stone monument sticking out between his legs.
She had to feel it. He was pressed up against her leg, the fleshy part of her thigh, and he couldn’t help thrusting into her a little bit, and she had to know, she had to feel what she was doing to him.
“Heath?” Cathy’s voice was thick and deep.
“Mmm?” He wasn’t about to take his mouth away from her breasts.
“Do you have, like, condoms?”
He shook his head into her skin. “No.” And he didn’t think he’d ever been more disappointed with himself than at that moment.
“Oh.” She sounded disappointed too. And a little winded. Had he been making her breathe hard?
He smiled, feeling proud of himself.
“We should probably stop then,” she said.
He groaned. Stop? Did that mean she was going to pull her dress back up? He didn’t want her to do that. He covered both of her breasts with his hands again, and waited for her to make noise.
She didn’t.
He pulled back. “Okay.”
“I don’t want to either,” she said. “But, I mean, there should be condoms.”
“It’s not like we have diseases.” He didn’t know why he was arguing about this. She was being perfectly reasonable, and he even agreed with her. But his cock throbbed, and he felt irrationally annoyed with her.
She slipped her dress back up over her chest, covering herself.
He sighed, missing the sight of her breasts already. “We’ve never been with anyone else. I mean I never have.”
She didn’t say anything. She rearranged her dress, smoothing out the skirt.
“Cathy?” he said. “Have you?”
“Have I what?”
“Had sex with someone else.”
“What?” She made a face at him. “Of course not, why would you say that?”
He rubbed his nose. Why? Maybe it was because he watched her getting out of that Linton boy’s car every day. He watched the way she smiled at him. Heath was losing her. He could feel it. It was Matt’s fault. Matt kept him working constantly. Heath barely saw Cathy anymore.
But there was still something powerful between them. They were still Heath and Cathy. When they were close, he could feel it. It was magic. She felt it too, didn’t she?
Fuck.
“Did that guy know you weren’t on a date with him?” Why was he bringing this up? He had her here. He’d practically had her naked. That should be enough, shouldn’t it?
“Eli?” She let out a sullen sigh. “What does he have to do with anything?”
“I don’t know, Cathy. You’re the one who’s spending a lot of time with him.”
“God, you’re impossible to please.” She folded her arms over her chest. “I thought what we did tonight would show you how I felt about you.”
He ran a hand through his hair. Fuck it. He needed to let it go.
“If you had condoms, I probably would have let you—”
“Let me? You make it sound like it’s something I want to do, and you don’t.” He fished his shirt off the floor of the truck. He shrugged into it.
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Do you want to do it?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I mean, I didn’t intend for us to do it tonight, but when we were in the middle of it, it felt really good, and I…” She touched his face. “I want you, Heath. You should get condoms.”
He closed his eyes. She wanted him.
He kissed her again, as deeply and as thoroughly as he could. He tried to kiss Eli Linton right out of her head. “I love you, Cathy. You know that right?”
“I love you too,” she murmured. “You’re my Heath. You’re my everything.”
*
Cathy opened the refrigerator in the kitchen and took out a can of beer.
“What do you think you’re doing?” came Matt’s voice from the kitchen table. Stacks of papers were spread out in front of him.
Cathy popped open the beer and took a long drink. “Like you weren’t sneaking beers when you were my age.”
Matt chuckled. “The key word there is sneak, Cathy. Walking into the kitchen and casually taking a beer is hardly trying to hide what you’re doing.”
“You gonna stop me?”
He rubbed his face. “Oh, Cathy, I don’t know what to do with you.”
“It’s just a beer, Matt.”
“Get me one?”
She grinned. “Sure.”
Matt took the beer when she handed it to him. He opened it and drank some, closing his eyes. “Thanks.”
She sat down next to him at the table. “What are you doing?”
“You would not believe what a mess Dad left this farm in.” He shuffled through the papers. “I don’t know what we’re going to do. I couldn’t find anyone to rent the tenant house, but I managed to get some extra hands for the harvest who’ll work for room and board, and they’re going to stay there. Thank god, because we can’t afford to pay them.”
She peered at the papers, but they just looked like rows of gibberish numbers to her. “It’s bad, huh?”
“It’s bad,” he said. “It’s bad enough that I doubt I’m going back to college any time soon.” He sighed. “Not that it matters, not with Fran here, and Gage, and… you.”
“Me?”
“I’m responsible for you, Cathy,” he said. “It’s like one morning I woke up, and I was an adult, and I spend every day wondering where the rest of my youth went.”
She felt sorry for him. “You don’t have to stay, Matt. I could manage without you. If you want to go back to school—”
“No money for school,” he said. “Add that to the pile of fucking debt I’ve inherited.”
She touched his arm. “Sorry.”
He patted her hand. “It’s not your fault. It’s Dad’s fault. He drank too much. He was either drunk or hung over, and he didn’t pay any attention to what was happening to this place.” He went back to his papers. “Don’t make a habit out of stealing my beer, okay?”
Cathy knew he was dismissing her, but she didn’t get up. She couldn’t help but think about how badly Heath wanted the farm. But Matt wouldn’t ever agree to let Heath run it, even if it meant it would give him freedom from the place.
Matt had never wanted the farm any more than she had. It was Heath who’d seemed interested in it, Heath who’d questioned her father on harvests and plantings and plowing and selling at markets. Cathy suspected that sometimes he’d done it because he wanted to distract her father, keep him from getting too drunk and angry, but he still knew things. And hadn’t he said that he wanted Matt off the farm?
If Matt wanted off the farm too…
“Hey,” said Matt. “Fran said you went to homecoming with that Linton kid last night.”
“It was a group thing,” said Cathy.
“But he was there? He takes you to school, right? You know him?”
“Yeah.” Why was Matt asking her this?
“You think you could get him to feel out his dad? Maybe we sell fifty acres or something, you know? We could use the money.”
“Sell the farm?” Cathy asked. Isabella had asked if they wanted to sell. But maybe she was joking. Isabella had a tendency to say whatever popped into her head.
“Not all of it,” said Matt. “You th
ink you could do that for me?”
Cathy wasn’t sure if Eli was going to speak to her again, not after he’d seen her with Heath in the parking lot. But even if he hated her, he might still be persuaded to talk to his father. “Okay.”
“Thanks, Cathy.” Matt smiled. He downed the rest of his beer and crushed the can with his hand. “Get me another beer?”
She went to the refrigerator. “Hey, um, Matt? About the tenant house.”
“What about it?”
She handed him the beer. “Well, it’s going to get cold outside, and Heath’s still in the barn.”
“Not this again,” Matt groaned. “I don’t want you with that boy. He’s not good enough for you.”
She swallowed. “It’s not like that, Matt. I’m moving on, going to dances with other guys and stuff.”
Matt raised his eyebrows. “I thought it was a group thing?”
“You know what I mean,” said Cathy. “It’s only that Heath and I were friends as kids, and I still care about him. And there’s nothing in the barn. There’s no bathroom. There’s no heat. And there are four bedrooms in the tenant house, and if there’s space, I don’t see why he can’t have the same deal as the other workers. Why can’t he live there for room and board?”
Matt sighed. “Because he can’t, that’s why.”
“Because you hate him?”
“I don’t hate him.”
“Really?”
Matt opened his beer. “No, he’s just full of himself. He thinks he’s something he’s not.”
“You can’t blame him for what Dad did, you know. That’s on Dad, not Heath.”
Matt sighed. “He can move back into the tenant house. But only if he keeps working. I can’t afford any other hungry mouths that sit on their asses all day, like you do.”
“He can?” She hugged Matt as hard as she could.
He laughed a little. “Now you’re excited?”
She kissed his temple, a big smacking smooch. “And you know I always help out with the harvest. I’ll even stay home from school if you need me to.”
“Oh, you’re making such a big sacrifice, I can tell.” But he was grinning.