Lance was gone before I left work. It’s not altogether unusual, but I expected him to hang around to finish our conversation. When his car wasn’t in the spot next to mine and he didn’t jog up behind me, my spirits sank a little.
“How’d your day go?” Whitney asks.
“Fine,” I say, juggling the phone between my hands.
“I’ll try again. How’d your day go, Mariah?”
Laughing, I shake my head. “It was fine.”
“Did you see Lance?”
“Yes.”
“Stop it with the short sentences.” The line gets crackly as she sighs into it.
“Okay. Yes, I saw Lance. Yes, he was gorgeous today. Yes, he brought up the weekend and asked me to cancel my plans tonight and I told him I couldn’t.”
She snorts. “You don’t have plans tonight.”
“So?”
Stopping on the curb to let a car go by, Whitney reads me the riot act. She blabbers on about not knowing a good thing when I see it and how I can’t win at anything without taking some risks. She clamors on and on until I’m on the other side of the street.
“Will you quit it?” I ask, exasperated. “Taking risks means there’s a potential positive outcome to a situation. There’s not with this.”
“How do you know that? Have you asked him?”
“I know that because I know him, Whit.”
“Sounds like a load of bullshit to me.”
Switching hands with the phone and my take-out, I attempt to fortify myself for this conversation. “It’s not bullshit. I’m not judging him. I knew who he was well before I ever let my feelings get involved. I just need to keep a foot in reality over here.”
“Have you asked him what his reality is? He should get a say, don’t you think?”
“Of course he has a say and he’s made it very clear.” My heart drops at the thought. “I need to be just as clear about what I want and what’s real.”
“This is about Eric, isn’t it?”
I wish I could say it’s not. I wish I could say none of what I feel, none of what I worry about, comes from that place. When you’ve been hurt as badly as I have, the pain might go away but it leaves a scar behind to remind you not to repeat it.
“I’m not like you,” I remind her. “I get swept up in my feelings and fall in love way too easily. Hell, I was thinking Eric was going to ask me to marry him and he was screwing my sister.” I kick at a pebble on the sidewalk. “It’s too easy to forget what I know in general. But with Lance, he could wipe out my entire brain if I let him.”
“I still think you should see what happens. People have a way of changing what they want, Mariah.”
“Yeah, well, we’ll see.” A horn blasts me from behind. I grit my teeth. “I gotta go, Whit. Call me later.”
“Ok. See ya.”
Spinning on my heel, ready to give someone the finger, I almost stumble over my own two feet. A car pulls up beside me, the driver’s side window down, and the most handsome face I’ve ever seen smiles at me from inside. “Hey, you,” Lance says.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, not quite believing my eyes.
“I told you to cancel your plans.” He stops the car next to me, shutting off the radio. “Considering you had no plans, I figured I was safe to pop by anytime.”
My heart leaps in my chest. I didn’t plan on seeing him tonight but now that he’s here, I love that he is. I can’t let him know that though. At least not readily.
“I did have plans,” I tell him.
“Fine.” He rolls his eyes. “You had plans. But you cancelled them, right?”
“No.”
He doesn’t flinch. “All right. Well, cancel them now so we can get on with it.”
I start walking down the sidewalk. His car rolls alongside me.
“You look beautiful,” he offers.
“Will you stop the manners thing?” I laugh.
“I didn’t use it that time. You’re supposed to follow a compliment with another line. This time, I spoke from the heart which is in the manners book, but not a method I’ve tried until now. Like it?”
“You’re impossible.”
Stopping at the base of the path leading to my front door, I feel my confidence wobble. I’m not sure what to do now that he’s here. Surely him being here means something. But when you’re trying not to read too much into it, you lose perspective.
Before I can think about it too much, Lance directs the conversation for me.
“Go grab a book and come on. That’s all you’ll need,” he says. The car goes in park. “Maybe a jacket if you get cold easily.”
“I haven’t even eaten yet.” It’s a weak argument, but at least it’s not me giving in right away.
“Bring it with you then.”
“Fine,” I say, heading up the walkway. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
“Don’t forget to cancel those plans!”
I flip him the bird as I unlock the door. It takes a couple of minutes to spritz myself with some perfume, grab my sunglasses and a jacket, and to swipe the book I’ve been reading off my nightstand. It might only be two or three minutes, but it’s long enough for logic to kick in.
This is not going to help anything. There’s no way we can keep our hands off each other and each touch frays my judgment.
Pulling open the curtains just enough to see him in the driveway, I notice he’s out of the car playing with the neighbor’s puppy. He throws a stick and the little black ball of fur goes after it, topples head-over-paws, and then races back for a scratch behind the ears.
Damn it.
I think back to what Whitney said. That maybe people change. Could Lance change? Could he want to be the type of guy who settles down to raise a family? Could I change? Could I just go with the flow and see what happens?
He tosses the stick again for the puppy now ripping across the lawn. If I don’t go, if I play it safe, I won’t spend time with him again. I’ll stay inside and maybe bake something or open a book or clean the bathroom. But if I take a chance, I get to feel this little zip of excitement. Feel like a person who has something to wake up for tomorrow. I get to smile again.
I’m sliding into his car before I even realize I’ve left my dinner in the foyer. He wastes no time jumping in, switching on the engine, and backing out of the driveway.
The windows are down, the fresh air whipping through the car. I pull my hair up into a quick up-do to keep it from tangling. Lance watches me with rapt attention.
“Road,” I say with an elastic between my teeth. “Watch it.”
He laughs, nodding. “What did you get at Carlson’s?”
“A bacon, avocado, and tomato sandwich but I forgot it at home.”
“Excited much?” he grins.
Jabbing him with my elbow, I get my hair twisted and secured. “What do you get from there?”
“Roast beef, usually. They have a really good pesto wrap thing that I only order when no one is around.”
“Why?” I giggle.
“Because what man orders a fucking wrap?”
“You, apparently.”
“And if you ever tell anyone, that’ll be it for you.”
“Gonna kill me?” I tease.
“No. Withhold the dick.”
“Oh, gee. Please. Not that,” I fake cry. He glares, making me laugh.
The car takes a quick left and into the parking lot of Goodman’s.
“What are we doing here?” I ask.
“We need drinks and they have the best ice.”
“Truth. I found the pebble ice here my first day in town,” I say, getting out of the car and closing the door. “Their Coke is good too.”
“It’s a fountain machine. They’re all the same.”
“They are not all the same. Some machines are better than others.”
“I don’t think so.”
“I know so,” I tell him as the automatic doors slide open.
Goodman’s is a typical Mid-West
gas station filled with pre-packaged donuts and the scent of too-strong coffee. Old men in bib overalls stand around the corner talking about crops and combines and farm animals.
There’s something I love about this place. It might be because whenever I walk in, everyone stops and waves or that the time I had a flat tire, every old man in here tried to help me fix it. It’s an old-fashioned sense of camaraderie in the small town that I appreciate.
“Hey, Lance!” A man three times his age with duct tape around the top of his shoe calls out, coffee cup in hand. “How are you, bud?”
“I’m good, Dave. How are things with you?”
“Not bad. I told Walker last week I hadn’t seen you in a while.”
Lance waits for me to join him at his side. “Been busy,” he says. “You been hanging around Crank?”
“Ah, a little. With my wife gone now, I’ve been trying not to sit at home all the time.”
Lance frowns. “Her funeral was really nice though. I’m sure she would’ve loved all the carnations. I think every carnation in town was at her service.”
Dave beams. “It was. Made me proud.” He pulls his attention away from Lance. “I’m Dave,” he says, extending the coffee-free hand my way.
I take it and give it a soft shake. “I’m Mariah. Nice to meet you.”
“You Lance’s lady?”
“Ah, well …”
“Yeah. She’s my lady all right,” Lance grins, wrapping his arm around my neck and pulling me towards him as I blush. “You know how it goes. You have to keep reminding them until they believe it.”
“This one here is a good one,” Dave says, shaking a finger my way. “Comes from good people. All of those boys are good.”
“But I’m the best,” Lance whispers into my ear. “Dave, we gotta go. I’m taking her up to Bluebird before it gets too dark.”
The old man tosses a wink, like he and Lance share some secret. “You kids have fun.”
“Give Walker a hard time for me,” Lance tells Dave as he moseys out the door.
We make our drinks and Lance pays. We’re almost back to his car when a cute guy with blond hair comes our way. A hat is pulled snugly over his forehead, a Metallica t-shirt that’s been washed a time too many is stretched over his broad shoulders. On his face is a shit-eating grin.
“What’s going on?” he asks, coming around my side of the car. “Is this Miss Mariah?”
“How do you know my name?”
Lance drops his head and sighs. “Mariah, this is my cousin Peck. Peck, yes, this is Mariah.”
“Nice to meet you,” he says. He smells like engine grease and Old Spice as he pulls me into a hug. I look at Lance but he just throws up his hands and unlocks the doors. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“No, you haven’t,” Lance corrects him. “Now get out of here.”
Peck’s eyes are a pure blue, the color of the ocean in pictures of exotic places. There’s nothing but kindness reflecting back as he looks at me.
“You have, have you?” I ask. “What’s he been saying?”
“Oh, just that—”
“Peck, I’m warning you,” Lance growls.
“Just put your glasses on and get in the car and read a National Geographic for a while,” Peck teases him before looking at me. “How do you deal with him?”
“It’s hard,” I say, looking at Lance over my shoulder. “He gets so grouchy. And bossy. Is he this way with you?”
“Nah,” Peck laughs. “He’s just showin’ off for you. Around the rest of us, he knows his place.”
“That’s with my foot in your ass in a minute,” Lance tosses over the roof of the car. “Can we go now?”
Laughing, I turn back to Peck. “It was really nice to meet you.”
“Same.” He salutes Lance. “Have fun.” With a final grin, he jogs into the building, the purple bandana in his back pocket flopping in the breeze.
I get settled in the seat next to Lance. “I have a question.”
“Shoot.”
“I don’t want to make this weird between us at all …”
Just saying that makes it weird. I look at the floorboard where a piece of gravel sits all bright against the black carpeting.
“Mariah? Ask me,” he says.
“Fine.” I take a deep breath. “I guess it’s not so much a question as a statement.”
He lifts a brow. “Fine. Say it.”
“Fine.” I take another deep breath. “I really do like spending time with you. People always make assumptions and that has to put you on the spot a little because I know what you think about those type of things, but—”
“Hey.” He waits for me to stop talking before he continues. “I like spending time with you too. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t keep doing it.”
“Okay,” I say, looking straight ahead. “I just wanted to get that out of the way.”
He laughs as he pulls out of the gas station. “I’m glad we got that settled.”
Twenty-Three
Mariah
“Wow,” I say, stepping into the soft grass. “This is amazing.”
Lance leans on the hood of his car, an arm extended towards me. Like on auto-pilot, I step next to him and take in the view.
The entire city of Linton can be seen from up here. There are pine trees and tulip poplars dotting the hills that flow on all sides of this peak. On the left there are fields with muddy ruts and to the right the trees have been knocked down on the gentler slope.
“This is Bluebird,” Lance says, resting his cheek on the top of my head. “We used to come up here drinking when we were young and dumb. And in the winter, my brothers and I still get together at least once and slide down that side just to prove we aren’t too old to do it.”
“Looks painful.”
“It can be,” he chuckles. “Peck always devises some crazy sled and tests it out. One year it was an inner tube sprayed with cooking spray. Last year he used a piece of Plexiglas that almost killed him.”
“He seems really nice,” I note.
“He is. We all give him hell, but he’s a good guy.”
We stand still for a few moments, taking in the scenery. Lance’s heart thumps steadily, his chest rising and falling in a way that could put me to sleep if I let it. Every time I’m with him, I just want to be with him more. Every time I want to be with him more, I know I better watch myself because if the rug gets pulled out from under me, it’s going to hurt like hell.
“What do you do up here?” I ask, pulling away.
“Lots of things,” he says, strolling to the back of the car. “But today, I have about a hundred essays to grade.”
“Sounds awful,” I kid, joining him at the trunk. He pulls out a blanket and a worn leather briefcase before latching the lid.
I follow him to the front of the car where he spreads the multicolored blanket out on the grass. “Nana made this,” he tells me. “She made each of her grandkids a blanket when we graduated high school.”
“And you’re putting it on the ground?”
“Trust me. She’d be happier to hear I’m using it than have it rotting in a closet somewhere.”
We grab our drinks and my book and settle on the blanket. The sun hovers over the tops of the trees, a large, orange circle that seems to shine just for us.
The only sound is the crinkle of Lance’s papers and the occasional swirl of the pen against them. The air is tinged with the scent of pine and the spice of Lance’s cologne.
My book rests on my lap, a love story with a heroine loved by two drastically different men. I’ve wondered what it would feel like to be loved by two heroes, but now that I sit on top of this hill with Lance at my side, I wonder what it would feel like to be loved by one, everyday kind-of-guy.
A guy like him.
“What?” Lance’s voice startles me, bringing me out of a daze I didn’t know I was in. He removes his glasses and wipes them on the end of his shirt. He watches me with a careful curiosity. “Something wrong?”
“No. Nothing is wrong.”
“Um, yeah. Something is going on. I can tell by the way you’re looking at me.”
I’m not about to tell him what I was thinking, so I glance down at the stack of papers next to his side. “What made you want to be a history teacher?” I say off the cuff.
“Honestly?” He places his glasses on his lap. “I couldn’t imagine working for an asshole eight, ten hours a day. I saw what my dad went through owning his own business and I didn’t really want that either. I didn’t want to spend my entire life at work like everyone else.”
“But why teaching?” I ask.
“Well, I dislike most adults,” he laughs. “Kids have always been more my speed. They’re pretty innocent most of the time and you can still mold them into becoming something good for the world. So, it was either that or becoming a veterinarian and I don’t like getting bitten. Most of the time.”
We exchange a grin as he clamps the shoulder I marred a couple of days ago. My body hums with the memory. Instead of going there, I keep us focused.
“Was there a moment though when you knew teaching was it for you?” I ask.
“What’s with all the teaching questions?”
“I’m curious.”
“When did you know you wanted to be a librarian?” he asks, turning the tables.
“When I was eight and we took a field trip to the library,” I say easily. “I walked in that building with its dusty shelves and tattered covers and knew it was where I wanted to spend every day for the rest of my life. Now you. When did you know?”
He stretches back, his hands on the line where the blanket meets the grass. His watch sparkles in the sunlight, his forearm flexed beneath it.
“When I was in high school, there was a girl in my grade who was going through some shit at home. We all knew it. It was a different time then though, people didn’t get in other people’s business like they do now. Know what I mean?”
“Yeah. It was a different world then.”
He nods, gazing off into the distance. “Her dad killed himself accidentally in a hunting accident the year before and she never really got over that, I don’t think. I remember her sort of not being in the gymnasium, not being in the cafeteria, not really participating in classes we had together.”
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