by LJ Evans
I nodded, unlocked the door, and slid into the driver’s seat. I reached across and unlocked the passenger side and the BB got in as I adjusted the seat. Daddy was pretty much the only one to drive it after Jake, and they’d been close to the same height at a lean, mean six feet two inches or so. My short frame made it a stretch even with the seat as close to the dash as I could get it. The truth was, sixties muscle cars weren’t made for short girls.
I adjusted the mirrors and then finally, unable to delay it anymore, turned the ignition. It roared to life and instantly brought back memories of me in the treehouse with a flashlight and the sound of Jake coming home from the lake. You could hear the car all the way down the street, typically, with the music blaring. And yet, our neighbors had never complained. No one had ever told my parents that he drove too fast or had his music too loud. They all looked the other way. I guess that was mostly due to his superstar status in town.
“You sure you’re okay?” the BB asked.
“Stop asking that,” I said with a huff that I didn’t really mean. It was bad enough that I had to drive Jake’s car. I didn’t need some perceptive hunk delving into my emotions.
“Okay,” he said with a grin that said he found me slightly humorous, and I didn’t know if I hated that or liked that.
I pulled out of the lot and headed down the street, making the turns automatically till we got out to the pastures and farms. We passed the turn off for the lake and I couldn’t help but let my head be drawn that way ever so slightly. Wondering if Jake was watching over us all from his place by the tree with branches like a goalpost that he and Cam had loved.
“So. You know Cam well then?” he probed further.
“We grew up together,” I said not wanting to be rude, but definitely not wanting to talk.
“So you know Blake then, too?”
I just nodded.
“Don’t feel like you have to elaborate or anything,” the BB said.
I didn’t want to elaborate, but I could also sense my Southern manners kicking in. It wasn’t polite to let your guest do all the talking. Not that he was really my guest. I hadn’t invited him to Jake’s fundraiser, but if Blake and Cam had, then it was pretty much the same thing.
I sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m just a little emotional today. This was Jake’s car.”
I could feel the BB’s eyes boring into me, but I didn’t look over. “Jake, as in the guy the fundraiser is named after?”
I just nodded.
He seemed to be putting it all together, which meant I didn’t have to spell it out for him. “You’re his sister?”
I nodded again. I am his sister, but it still felt like it should be said in the past tense. I was his sister. He’s dead. God, I couldn’t believe I had tears in my eyes. What in bejeezus was wrong with me? I hadn’t cried over Jake in a long time, and especially not openly in front of another human being.
“Wow. I’m sorry. That sucks,” he said.
As we neared the ranch, I tried to get my emotions back under control by turning the attention back to him.
“So, who are you exactly?”
“I was hoping you’d ask,” he said with that infectious, knowing smirk that simultaneously made me want to wipe it off and join along. “I’m Derek Waters. Musician. Songwriter. My band is playing tonight.”
Of course this beautiful BB would be a musician, I thought to myself with a whole pile of sarcasm. Cam had said he was one of Blake’s protégé’s so I should have put two and two together instead of being stunned brain-dead by his gorgeousness. Blake did specialize in writing contracts for up-and-coming musicians after all.
“I can’t believe they were going to let you drive Jake’s car,” I groused before I could help myself. Then I flushed in embarrassment because that was definitely not something a polite Southern girl was supposed to say.
To my surprise, he laughed at me. A big laugh that seemed to come from his belly and had me glancing in that direction, taking in how awfully good he looked in those snug jeans of his. This made me want to rip my eyes off and stuff them away where they couldn’t do any more damage .
I pulled into Blake’s grandparent’s farm and was taken aback by the volume of trucks and cars. A massive tent had been put up near the barn and people were busy hanging twinkle lights and setting up tables with flowers.
Somewhere in the middle of all that would be Cam, going a mile-a-minute even though she was eight months pregnant. It hadn’t been a planned pregnancy. She and Blake weren’t even married yet. But like all things Cam, stuff happened before she thought about it. She appeared to be taking it in stride, which seemed so not the Cam that Jake and I had grown up with that it made me sad once more.
Old Cam would have been kicking walls at the idea of carrying anyone’s baby and especially the idea of carrying anyone’s but Jake’s.
“Shall I go see where they want the car parked?” the BB asked, and I realized that I needed to start thinking of him by his real name, Derek.
“That would be great,” I said.
He jumped out of the car, and I literally sighed with relief. I thanked God that I could go back to being my normal self instead of the drooling Neanderthal girl I seemed to have become around him.
Blake found me sitting in the car. He leaned his shaggy blonde-haired head into the window to give me a half hug. “Hey Mia! Why don’t you get out, and I’ll drive the car over to where we want it set up?”
“You don’t trust me?” I said, teasing.
“She seems completely trustworthy to me,” Derek said, coming up behind Blake.
I couldn’t help the visible eye-roll. Blake saw it and grinned his joyful smile that was never far from his face. I could tell why Blake and Derek got along. They both seemed like generally happy guys. I wondered what it must be like to be that happy all the time.
Blake turned to Derek and waved his finger at him. “No.”
Derek grinned. “I didn’t…”
“—no!” Blake cut him off.
“Hey!” I protested because I was a good driver. I was as careful driving as I was with almost everything in my life.
Blake took me in and then started back pedaling, “That’s not what I meant. Honest.”
I realized I was missing something, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what it was. Not with Derek belly laughing again. It made my stomach flop like when you flipped backwards over the top of the monkey bars for the first time.
I got out of Jake’s car, grabbed my bag, and headed for the tent. “I’ll leave you two children to whatever it is you’re doing. I’m assuming Cam’s inside?”
I didn’t wait for a response. I could still hear Derek laughing and it sounded like Blake punched his shoulder, but I didn’t bother to look back. I was glad to be leaving gorgeous with gorgeous behind me.
In the tent, I found Cam going a mile-a-minute like I had expected. Which was still good to see because for a while after Jake had died, she’d come to a full stop like she never had in her whole life. Now, with Blake and the baby, she was almost back to normal. Except that it was a different normal.
Her dark hair with its chestnut highlights was shorter than it used to be when we were growing up, but she still had it in a ponytail in acknowledgement of the heat. She was in a t-shirt dress which, again, was so anti the old Cam that it was hard to take in. But it was probably much more comfortable than jeans due to the little round ball sticking out of her middle.
“Cam!” I said and hugged her. She hugged me back, and this stupid emotional me got teary eyed, causing Cam to notice.
“Hey kiddo!” She pulled back, taking me in. “What’s wrong?”
I waved her off. “Nothing.”
“Did the moron upset you?”
“No. No. I think it was just driving the Camaro.”
As I said it, Blake drove it up on the grass near the tent and the beefy engine got to us both. “He really loved that car,” Cam said quietly.
We both stared for a moment,
taking it in. Cam had ridden in the car way more than I had. She’d been Jake’s sidekick and soulmate from the time she was born, and even my birth two years after her had never come in between them.
Blake exited the car, smiled at her, and then went off in a different direction once Cam had smiled back. It made me wonder like I had a million times before what Jake would think of Cam and Blake. Would he be like Ed Sheeran in “Happier”? Would he be happier to see her with someone new rather than with no one? I thought he would like to see her being taken care of and with someone that knew them as well as Blake had. I thought he would like to see her able to smile once more, but I also thought he’d hate the idea of her in anyone’s arms.
Cam was never one for tears, and even though the Camaro had momentarily gotten to her, she’d already turned back into her normal bossy self which was good because it kept her from punching something instead. She handed me a box of mason jars filled with candles.
“Here, they go on all the tables, according to the event planner.”
“Okay, but I have to leave soon to get ready. I’m sweaty as sin,” I told her.
“You’ll just get sweaty all over again. We’ve got the misters and fans set up, but today had to be one of the muggiest days of July, didn’t it?”
“Are you wearing that dress?” I asked her.
“You don’t think it works?” Cam gave me her mischievous smile that used to mean she was plotting against Jake, but now was aimed at me.
“Yes! You look beautiful. I’m just trying to decide what I should wear.”
“I’m just teasing, I have a purple dress in the house.”
She was referring to Blake’s grandparent’s house here at the ranch. She and Blake were staying with them for all the fundraiser shenanigans. But honestly, they stayed here a lot when they visited from Nashville. Blake’s grandparents had more rooms. Plus, I think it was easier for Cam to be here than at our house or her house where everything reminded her of Jake. Or, really, of her and Jake; the one being they used to be.
I took the box as instructed and placed the jars on the tables near the flowers that were already wilting in the heat. When I’d made it about halfway through, I was surprised to find the box lifted out of my hands.
I turned to find Derek smiling at me again. “Let me help.”
“Don’t you need to be practicing or something?” I said with a wave to the stage because the last thing I needed was this BB by my side again.
“Won’t make any difference this late in the game. We’ll either suck or be a hit,” he said. He gave a self-deprecating shrug accompanied by yet another sexy smile.
And for some reason, this time the smile reminded me just a little of Hayden’s smile when he wanted something. And, I was trying to forget all of Hayden Hollister’s smiles, even though they lived with me most nights. This had me narrowing my eyes at Derek in a way that probably wasn’t fair to him but I was sure was well deserved anyway.
“I’m sure you have something better to do than help me put out mason jars, unless I’m not trusted to do that either.”
“I’d trust you to do anything you wanted to my… tables,” he said. My stomach did that monkey bar flip again because he was definitely flirting with me. It had taken me awhile to really figure it out for sure because I wasn’t used to guys flirting with me.
Well, that wasn’t exactly true. I was used to slimy guys hitting on my size E’s and talking to them more than my face, but gorgeous BB musicians weren’t normally the kind to do anything with me, much less flirt.
I tried to grab the box back, but he easily shifted it away from me and moved to the next table where he handed me a jar. There wasn’t much I could do unless I wanted to make a huge scene, so I just took the jar and placed it on the table. Thankfully, we were done in no time.
“What are you doing now?” Derek asked as he twirled the empty box in his hands. He seemed wound tight with inner energy. It was like Cam and Jake and even Blake. But never me. I was a read a book and bake cookies kind of girl, not a run-until-I-broke kind of girl.
“Going home to shower and change,” I said with a shrug.
His grinned widened, if possible, cleft stretching even more, and then he said, “You can’t say things like that to me.”
He gave me a once over, and I suddenly hated with a passion my dark pantsuit, even though just that morning I’d loved it as much as I’d loved Hayden. As president of our business fraternity, Hayden had been all about business fashion, setting the tone with his custom-made suits.
I was just about to say something sarcastic back to his sexy innuendo when the box he was spinning flew out of his hands, and the corner hit me in my right breast before falling to the ground.
“Holy profanity!” I gasped, covering my injured part with my hand.
“Shit!” he said at the same time. He reached out to touch me and then stopped, realizing where I was hurt.
“I’m…” He didn’t even know what to say as he stared at my hand and the breast it was covering.
Blake and Cam took that unfortunate moment to come up to us, with me clutching my boob, and Derek acting like he had permanently maimed me.
Blake put his arm around Derek’s shoulders. “I thought I made myself clear on this matter.”
Blake was smiling, but there was a tone to his voice that was deadly serious.
Cam took it all in.
“No way in hell, Derek. She’s off limits,” Cam said. And suddenly, I got what it was all about earlier with Derek and Blake.
I was used to Cam protecting me. She’d been my shield when it came to boys ever since I’d entered high school and Jake had gone off to college. The only boy to date me then had gone through her. Which was no easy feat. But I wasn’t a fourteen-year-old virgin anymore, and their protectiveness was just humiliating.
“You guys are embarrassing,” I said.
Cam looked dubiously at my hand on my breast. I removed it even though it was still smarting. “It was an accident.”
Everyone stood there for a moment, Blake sending “back off” vibes to Derek, me still mortified, and Cam looking like she was ready to start a fight, baby bump and all.
“You guys are awful. Anyone able to give me a ride back to town?” I asked, changing the subject.
“I have to go back to the hotel and get ready too. You can ride with me,” Derek said. The three of us groaned.
“It’s just a ride,” Derek said with a smirk that really suggested it might be something else entirely. It seemed that he was egging Blake and Cam on because it wasn’t like he was going to attack my sweaty, suit clad body in the back seat of whatever vehicle he owned.
“You have the rental here?” Blake said.
“Shit, no. Owen dropped me off at the dealership on his way back to the hotel.”
Blake sighed. “Take my truck.”
Blake fished the keys out of his jeans pocket and flung them at Derek, who caught them deftly. I would have dropped them. I was not anywhere near the athlete that Cam and Jake had been. Jake had gotten his football scholarship to UTK and Cam had won a diving medal at the World Championships before she’d been recruited by Virginia Tech. Whereas I could barely stand on a treadmill without falling over.
Cam’s eyes narrowed at Derek as he swung the keys in a circle around his slender fingers. “She’s my sister, dipshit, got it?”
Derek looked all innocence, but his eyes were flashing a challenge that said otherwise. It made me tingle all over in a way that was not normal for me. But, butterbeer, the thought of him treating me in a non-sister like fashion was enough to add another layer of sweat to my already sweaty body.
“God, Cam, I’m not twelve,” I said before turning to Derek. “I’d appreciate the ride.”
Derek and I walked away, but I could feel Blake and Cam’s eyes on us all the way to the truck. The passenger door was closest to us, and Derek grabbed the handle and opened it for me. “Thanks,” I said with a gulp. It felt too date-like for me
to be comfortable with even though I knew we weren’t going on a date. The farthest thing from it.
He climbed into the driver’s side and we took off out of the ranch. I slyly tried to take him in as he drove. He had to be a little older than me. Maybe twenty-four to my twenty-two? But he had a youthfulness to him that made him seem younger. Maybe it was the sense of carefreeness about him. Even before Jake, I hadn’t had a carefree bone in my body. But now, now that I was all that Mama and Daddy had left, I took even fewer risks. Which meant, literally none.
He turned and caught me staring. He lifted an eyebrow and grinned. “They told me no.”
I flushed and looked out the window. “As if.”
“I haven’t heard anyone use that term since the eighties,” he chuckled at me again.
“You weren’t alive in the eighties.”
“Well. I’ve seen a lot of eighties films.”
“They are the best,” I said with a sigh.
“Yep.”
I turned towards him. “You really think that or are you just appeasing me?”
“Two things I never joke about. Music and movies.”
“Those are the only two things?”
“I’m sure there are a few more things, but I can’t think of any at the moment.”
At least not any he wanted to share, because I swear I saw the first look of seriousness flash over his face. But, it was gone as quickly as it had come.
“I get the music, but why movies?”
“Well, my brother is Dylan Waters,” he said, as if that was supposed to answer my question.
“Am I supposed to know who that is?”
Surprise washed over his face. “Director. Producer. The Spy Network?”
He named a movie that had taken the world by storm last year. It was liked by fans and critics, and it had won a bunch of Oscars. But I hadn’t seen it because I’d been busy with senior year and Hayden, or rather busy with not having Hayden. Instead, I’d been busy writing love letters to someone who hadn’t chosen me, and burying my head in books as a way of avoiding my reality.
“I heard it was good,” I said with a shrug.
He laughed again. “You haven’t seen it?”