Two Thousand Miles

by Jennifer Davis

  “I think you may have forgotten another occasion worthy of removing your hat,” I said, a slick smile on my lips.

  “You know what,” he said, moving closer to me. “I think you’re right. I did miss one, probably the most important one.”

  “Does it also start with S?” I asked, an eyebrow arched.

  Mason shook his head. “No. It starts with F.”

  “Oh,” I gasped.

  “You, Cali girl, have a very dirty mind,” Mason chuckled.

  “I wasn’t thinking anything dirty,” I protested, feeling my cheeks redden.

  “Liar,” he mouthed.

  I rolled my eyes. I guess I was guilty of thinking of the first “F word” most of us instinctively think of.

  “What is it, then?” I asked.

  “Fighting,” he announced gleefully. Of course. “You ever tried to whoop somebody wearing your favorite shoes?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “I rest my case,” he said, holding his arms in the air like he’d successfully proven his point.

  “I’ve never tried to whoop anybody until today actually,” I admitted.

  “First fight,” he marveled.

  “Yep.”

  “Sissy’s gonna be bruised up good in the mornin’.” Mason touched a spot on my cheek. “Looks like you might have a purple spot come up under your eye, too.”

  “My first black eye,” I mumbled, oddly proud of it.

  Mason looked at me sort of like he was in awe. I knew that look. It was the way I looked at him when he wasn’t watching. I put my hands on his waist then closed my arms around him as his mouth melded with mine. That kiss felt different than the other times Mason had kissed me.

  There were tangible feelings attached to it. Feelings that passed back and forth between us like electricity, waking every nerve ending in my body.

  “J’aime t’embrasser,” Mason whispered against my mouth.

  “J’aime t’embrasser, trop,” I breathed back. He’d said he liked kissing me in French and obviously, I liked kissing him too, so I said so.

  “We should probably get goin’,” Mason said. It took me a second to realize that he meant we should leave. “Okay,” I breathed.

  I pulled my nearly dry clothes from the rock and climbed out of the water. I got dressed and hopped into the truck, folding the dirty towel clean-side-up so I could sit on it. Mason slid on his shorts and laid his shirt across the driver’s seat before getting in.

  The sun was setting, marking the end of a beautiful day. A day I wasn’t ready to be over yet. As we rode down the street, windows down, watching the sky turn dark, I kissed Mason’s shoulder; his skin was warm against my lips and tasted a touch salty. I drew in a deep breath because the scent of his cologne was somehow still present. He put his hand on my thigh and I curved my arm around his, and laid my head against his shoulder. He kissed the top of my head, and I smiled the rest of the way to the Broussard’s.

  Chapter 20

  “Damn, y’all. So much for meetin’ us,” Shelby complained.

  “Sorry, we made a stop,” I said.

  “A stop? We’ve been here over an hour.”

  “Oh,” Cody grinned, and reached out to high-five Mason. “Another one in the books,” he chanted. Shelby punched Cody in the arm. “Shut your rude mouth.”

  “What’s rude?” he asked, rubbing his arm.

  “It wasn’t that kind of stop,” I protested.

  Mason laughed. “No, it wasn’t. I took her to the old campground to rinse off in the creek.”

  “Oh my god, I haven’t been there in years. I loved goin’ to that place,” Shelby whined.

  “We all did,” Cody said. “There’s not much left of it now.”

  “Naw, it’s a little sad,” Mason said.

  “I used to wish the old man would turn that place into a summer camp so I wouldn’t have to go home on those nights when we were having so much fun,” Cody said.

  Ben laughed, “Yeah, I think I actually cried a couple times because I was so pissed that I had to leave.”

  Bitty stuck her head out of the screen door. “Hey, Kat, Mason,” she said, casually.

  “Hey, Bit, we missed you today,” I said.

  “Me and Logan were gonna come out there, but somebody couldn’t wait thirty more minutes for Logan to get off work,” Bit moaned.

  “I told you to come without him,” Shelby said.

  “I didn’t want to come without him.”

  Shelby shrugged. “I’m settin’ up the horseshoes,” she said, and took off walking toward the garage. Cody followed her.

  “You wanna come help me for a minute,” Bit asked me.

  “Sure.” I turned and smiled at Mason before going inside.

  “Why does he have to be so beautiful?” I sighed, leaning against the kitchen counter.

  “Uh-oh,” Bit hummed.

  “Uh-oh, what?”

  “You’re fallin’ for him.”

  I looked at her blankly. Of course, I was falling for him. But she made it sound like I shouldn’t have been.

  “Is that a bad thing?”

  “He’s broken plenty of hearts.” Yeah, well, look at him.

  “I’ll be careful.” I paused, and then added, “He was a little hard to read at first, but he’s been a lot clearer recently.”

  “Alright,” she said, in a you’ve been warned tone and handed me a package of grated cheese. “Spread this over the spaghetti in the pan on the stove, and then put it in the oven.”

  “You’re baking spaghetti?”

  “Yeah, it’s good that way.”

  I heard Dana’s voice outside. She and Mason talked for a minute before she came in the house. “Smells good, girls,” she said, tossing her keys into a drawer of the kitchen island. “I’m gonna change clothes.” She looked glad to be home, but tired.

  “Okay, so tell me the story now,” Bit said. “Start with his name and how you met,” she instructed. I didn’t really want to, but I figured if I didn’t do it now that she’d just ask me again later.

  “His name was Phoenix, but he called himself Nix. He was a foreign exchange student from Australia.”

  “No way!” Bit gasped. “Australia! What’d he look like?”

  “Blond, surfer type. He didn’t look that different from the other boys at school; it was his accent that drove the girls nuts. He was a senior. I was a junior. He was having trouble in algebra and I was asked to tutor him. We started dating and then…”

  “How long were you together? Where’d you do it?”

  “Four months. In a cabana on the beach.”

  Bit smiled. “That sounds romantic.”

  “It was. It was at a beach club so he had dinner delivered and snuck us a little champagne. There were candles everywhere and soft music playing. I felt lucky that he cared so much about me to make everything so perfect, until I found out that I wasn’t the only girl he’d seduced in his host family’s cabana. I was one of many and he’d done the same romantic stuff for all of us—even ordered the same food. So, there was nothing special about it at all.”

  Bit turned pale and looked at me like she had no idea what to say.

  “At first, I was crushed, but he’d gone back to Australia by then and there was nothing I could have done about it anyway.”

  Olivia told me I should consider it a learning experience, because boys were dogs until they turned twenty-five and the frontal lobe of their brains fully developed, making them as mature as girls were by fourteen. I was sure she’d exaggerated that part, but I knew what she meant. “Besides, Kat,” she’d griped. “You knew that almost every girl in school wanted a piece of Nix before you went there with him. You had to have known you weren’t the only one.”

  I’d thought she was going to show up with ice cream, ready to bash Nix for being a cheating slut instead of blaming me for what happened. After getting over the blow Olivia had delivered to my ego, I realized that she had a point. There were signs that something wasn’t rig
ht, I’d just chosen not to see them.

  “I was afraid that Logan would leave me if we did it, but now…what if he cheats?” Bit asked. “That would be so much worse.”

  “I’m not going to cheat,” Logan’s voice boomed from the living room. I’d had no idea he was there and could hear us. Logan came to the kitchen and looked at Bitty. “I’m not gonna leave you either,” he said, and put his arms around her. “I’ve loved you since I was twelve, Bit. I’m not goin’ anywhere.” He pulled back and looked at her. “And it hurts my feelings that you don’t know that about me by now.”

  “I’ve just seen it happen to so many girls at school—” “Those people aren’t us,” Logan said, holding her face in his hands, looking into her eyes. “I’m always gonna be yours, just like you’re always gonna be mine. Nothin’ is gonna change that.”

  Bit smiled, and she and Logan hugged again, holding on for a long while. He kissed her before letting go and then slapped her rear end and said, “Now make me somethin’ to eat, woman.” They laughed and she swatted at him with a dishrag as he ran back to the living room.

  Watching the two of them together made me smile. I looked at Bit. “What happened to me isn’t going to happen to you. That boy is obviously nuts over you. Your experience is going to be yours, and unlike anyone else’s. It’s time to stop imagining yourself in another girl’s place so you and Logan can start building your own story.”

  “He really is nuts over me, isn’t he?” she said, and bit her bottom lip—probably to keep from smiling too wide.

  “Damn straight!” Logan called from the couch. We laughed and then the oven dinged, letting us know the garlic bread had browned. We made a pitcher of tea and began setting out paper plates and plastic forks.

  “Come get it!” Bit yelled, jarring me. Then she pushed the screen door open. “It’s ready,” she shouted, and let the door slap loudly against the house.

  Everyone fixed a plate and went outside to eat at the teak table. “This is really good, Bit,” I said. She smiled. “Yep, good babe,” Logan said, his mouth full. Everyone else mumbled in agreement, as they chewed. The pasta was full of peppers, onions, hamburger, andouille sausage, and gooey cheese.

  “Is he ever goin’ back to Baton Rouge?” Shelby moaned after hearing Garrett’s truck pull into the front yard.

  “What’s the problem with G bein’ here?” Dana asked.

  “He’s just gettin’ on my nerves.”

  “Maybe you’re gettin’ on his,” Bit offered.

  Shelby rolled her eyes like it wasn’t possible.

  Garrett appeared, dragging Dixie behind him. “Mmmm, Bit’s spaghetti,” he said, and picked a piece of sausage from Shelby’s plate. She slapped at his hand. He laughed. “Ha, too slow,” he said, and popped the sausage into his mouth.

  “Hey, Dixie,” Shelby sang. “You hear ‘bout Kat whippin’ Sissy Coombs out at the Babin farm today?”

  “No, I’ve been really busy today.”

  Shelby looked at me. “Busy blowin’ G’s whistle,” she mumbled. I laughed out loud. I couldn’t help it.

  “What’s so funny, princess?” Dixie scowled.

  Um, imagining Garrett having a whistle in his pants.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  Shelby laughed again then yelped, holding her lip.

  “What’s wrong?” Dana asked.

  “Some heifer popped me in the mouth today and split open my bottom lip.”

  “Ha! Good, so I won’t have to do it later,” Garrett said. Shelby threw a slice of sausage with a long noodle dangling from it at him.

  “You better hope that sauce doesn’t stain my shirt,” he threatened.

  While the two of them argued back and forth, I noticed Dixie watching Mason. When she realized I’d caught her, she cut her eyes back to Garrett. “I’ll be inside,” she told him.

  “There’s plenty to eat, fix yourself a plate,” Dana offered.

  “Thanks,” Dixie said and went inside.

  It was different being on the other side of things with Dixie. She was annoyed that I was still around, but at least she wasn’t looking at me like she wished I would die anymore.

  Garrett told Shelby to be on high alert because he would be getting her back. Then he kissed Dana’s cheek and followed after Dixie.

  “They’re sure spending a lot of time together,” Cody said.

  “Thank you, Captain Obvious,” Shelby groaned.

  “He’ll get bored and be gone by the end of the week,” Logan said.

  “And then Dixie’ll be all yours again,” Ben said, looking at Mason. Everyone went quiet and stared at him. “Joking!” he yelped. “I was joking!”

  Nobody bothered telling him that that shit wasn’t funny, but Shelby threw a piece of bread crust at him. Then we went back to eating like his comment had never been made.

  After dinner, we spread out around the back porch and played horseshoes for a while. I’d never played before, but turned out to be decent at it. Shelby was the best and wasn’t shy about letting everyone know.

  When my game was over, I sat on one of the couches and watched the others in the yard. Mason sat next to me and stared at me so hard that it could have made me self-conscious. But more than anything, it made me want to be alone with him. To finish what we’d started in the creek earlier. I inched my hand closer and hooked my pinky finger around his.

  “Whoo! I win again!” Shelby cawed.

  “I’m done,” Bit said, and plopped down on the end of the couch. The others followed her.

  “Y’all are quittin’? Really?” Shelby whined.

  Nobody answered her, but it was obvious that everyone was done playing. Nobody liked repeatedly losing at anything, or having it rubbed in their face.

  I yawned; the day’s events had started to catch up with me.

  “You tired?” Mason asked.

  “Not really, just winding down.” I would have fought sleep for a week if it meant I could be with him for a little while longer.

  “Momma, you should make G and Dixie get a room,” Shelby said.

  “You ready for bed, Kat? I’ll run ‘em out,” Dana offered. The thought of having a bed to go to was nice, but thinking about what was going down in Garrett’s room and the fact that Dana would have to break it up was not.

  “I’m okay,” I said.

  “You could spend the night with me,” Mason offered, then looked at Dana. “If Momma D doesn’t care.”

  “Bow chica wow wow,” Shelby sang. She snapped her fingers and did a little booty dance. Super embarrassed, I closed my hands over my face, trying to hide.

  “I don’t think she should spend the night at your house. I don’t let Bit and Shelby stay with Logan and Cody,” Dana said.

  “Alright,” Mason nodded.

  “Oh, come on Momma. Let her go,” Shelby said. “We won’t hold it against you. Besides, even if you did give me and Bit permission, we would never stay at Logan and Cody’s.”

  “Why not?” Cody squeaked.

  “Your stepdad is a perv. He always stares at my chest.”

  “Well, baby, I kinda don’t blame him,” Cody grinned. For such a girl so skinny, Shelby had big knockers.

  “I like sleeping in my own bed too much to stay at Logan’s,” Bit said. “And if you let her go, it’ll really get Dixie’s goat,” she added.

  “I’m not gonna make a decision for the express purpose of hurting another person’s feelings, but I’m sure Dixie bein’ with Garrett right now was meant to bother Mason and put Kat out of a place to sleep,” Dana rambled.

  If I wasn’t allowed to go to Mason’s, I’d be sleeping on the couch across from Garrett’s room, and frankly, I didn’t want to be near him or Dixie. I thought what they were doing was tacky.

  Just as I was considering sleeping in the tent, she agreed to let me go. “Alright,” Dana said, rolling her eyes. “You can go—if you want to. But be safe.”

  Chapter 21

  “Are your parent’s home?” I’d forg
otten to ask Mason if anyone was there—if he’d be sneaking me in through a window of whatever.

  “No, they’re in Mississippi visiting family.”

  “You didn’t want to go?”

  “I wasn’t invited.”

  Mason shut off the truck’s engine and we entered the house the same way we had before—through the garage.

  “You want a drink?” he asked, pulling a bottle of Jim Beam from the freezer.

  “Are you having one?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How are you having it?”

  “Whattya mean—how am I having it?”

  “Straight? On the rocks? With water? In Coke?” I rattled.

  “Oh yeah, I forgot you’re from fancy town,” Mason grinned.

  “Ha-ha,” I said.

  “Here, we have it one of two ways; straight or in Coke. I’m mixing mine.”

  “I’ll have mine the same way—as long as the Coke is diet,” I added.

  “What is it with this diet crap? A splash of Coke isn’t gonna to kill you.”

  “No, but drinking diet Coke is an easy way to eliminate calories, and eating the way I have been recently, I need all the help I can get.”

  “Whatever,” he rolled his eyes. “Diet Coke it is.”

  “I know it’s probably weird of me to ask, but could I take a shower? I still feel dirty.”

  “You didn’t think I was going to let you in my bed tonight smellin’ like mud, did you?”

  “I…um…” I stuttered. Mason laughed. “My bathroom is across the hall from my room.”

  I didn’t say anything, just followed his directions to the bathroom. I opened the linen closet and took out a clean towel. It was nice, pure white, fluffy and smelled of Gain detergent.

  I got in the shower, stood beneath the steaming flow of hot water, and soaked myself. I went to reach for shampoo and realized it was all-in-one shampoo and body wash for men. I loved how Mason smelled, but I didn’t want to smell like him. I wanted him to smell like him.

  I heard Mason’s voice and screamed like I was being stabbed.

  He laughed hard.

  “Sorry, I startle easily,” I said, feeling like a bonehead.

  “Good to know.”