by Geneva Lee
“How do you look like that and I look like this?” I ask, gesturing to my wrinkled jeans and t-shirt.
“Hair of the dog,” she confesses. “Kai made mimosas this morning.”
“Day drinking?” She really does belong in Hollywood.
“Just one,” she says as we walk through the hall to her bedroom.
“Is Kai still here?” I look around for him.
She shakes her head. “He’s a runner now. Los Angeles is a bad influence on him.”
“He went for a run?” Maybe they didn’t have as much to drink last night as I did. Still, I’m relieved he isn’t here. It’s not that I don’t love him. It’s just that it’s hard enough to let Poppy see me like this. I don’t think I could stand feeling vulnerable in front of both of them.
“Speaking of last night.” Poppy scans my attire once more. “It looks like you didn’t make it home.”
“I told you that on the phone,” I say defensively. Poppy had readily agreed to let me raid her closet for my impromptu meeting when I called on my way over. Considering our height difference, my options might be limited, but it’s still better than showing up like this.
“You did,” she admits, “but you didn’t tell me where you were.”
“Okay, officer, I confess. I spent the night at Sterling’s place.”
She bounces on her feet, clapping. “I knew it!”
I glare at her and she immediately freezes like I’ve hit her pause button.
“I mean, oh no!” she stammers, sounding confused. “I don’t get it. You’ve been in love with him for years.”
“I have not.” I dig in her closet, shoving hangers back and forth like they’ve offended me, too. “I was in love with him.”
“Forgive me,” she says. “I must have mistaken the fact that you haven’t had a serious relationship with anyone since him for something else.”
“That doesn’t prove anything except that men are stupid and not worth my time.” I should have that put on a shirt. I’d wear it proudly.
“So we aren’t happy about this?” she clarifies.
“Nothing happened.” I still don’t know how to feel about this. I’ve been so angry at the prospect of Sterling taking advantage of me, where did I get off being insulted that he hadn’t? Everything about him is a muddled mess of emotions that I don’t have the time or interest to sort through.
“I know he broke your heart,” she begins.
I shake my head. “It’s not that. It’s…”
“What happened?” she asks softly.
I know she’s not asking about last night. Poppy Landry is my best friend, the person I call when I need a safe place and a warm smile, but for all that we are to each other, there are parts of me I don’t show anyone. Memories too painful to share. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
She sighs heavily. We’ve been here before. “Fine. Have it your way. But even if you don’t want to talk about it, do you think about it?”
“Every day.” My voice sounds far away from me like it’s stuck in some other place and time.
“Do you really?” she presses.
“What’s the point? I can’t change any of it.”
“Those who ignore the past are doomed to repeat it,” she quotes. “Don’t doom yourself. You deserve happiness.” She squeezes my hand, knowing that now isn’t the time for a hug. Not when I’m wrapped in my shell, afraid to even look in the mirror and see what’s staring back at me. Instead, she brushes me away from the closet and rifles through it before finally pulling loose a navy blue wrap dress. “It’s too short on me,” she says as she pushes it into my arms.
I take it gratefully. She always knows exactly what I need. Right now, I need a dress, some space, and something to look forward to before I find myself lost in memories of Sterling Ford.
31
Adair
The Past
Sterling is afraid of horses. He’s not going to admit that, but I can see it. He watches with wary eyes as I check the saddles one more time. I wonder if his second thoughts are going to win out. They’re written all over his face. It’s a little funny. Adorable even.
Big, bad Sterling Ford has met his match.
“You ready?” I ask him.
“Sure.” But he doesn’t move, he just stands there with his hands in his pockets.
“We don’t have to go riding,” I say. “We can do something else. Maybe this needs to be a gradual introduction. You’ve seen the horse. Maybe you can pet him and then you can sit on him—”
He cuts me off mid-suggestion. “I said I was sure.”
“Look, that’s how I started. Slowly,” I tell him.
“And how old were you?” he asks. My mouth clamps shut and he groans. “Exactly. I’m not a kid. I can handle myself.”
“Okay, well, come over here then.” I do my best to not insult his masculinity as he attempts to climb onto the horse’s back. Once he manages to get on with his feet in the stirrups, he looks even more uncertain. “You okay up there?”
“Fine,” he says through gritted teeth. “Let’s ride.”
“Let me show you a few things first. This is Ember and he’s pretty chill.” I walk him through the harness and explain the bit. He does a good job of listening and glowering simultaneously.
“What’s your horse’s name?” He asks, clutching the reins tightly.
“Buttercup,” I say. I glare at him when he laughs. “I was twelve when I got her!”
“No judgment.” His eyes say he is, in fact, judging me.
I drop a paper sack into my saddle bag and mount Buttercup. With a little encouragement we begin to walk the horses. Sterling settles quickly, looking a bit more at ease, so I increase my pace. Ember, who started life as a child’s training horse—a fact I kept to myself— follows my lead.
Even now, despite his scowl, being with Sterling feels natural. Right. Our relationship is moving from one pace to the next smoothly. I only hope it survives me taking him horseback riding.
The land on the rest of the estate is a mix of rolling hills and valleys. I fall into a trot beside him and we ride quietly until we can no longer see the stables or the rest of Windfall. After a few more minutes, we reach my favorite spot. It’s mostly an open field, too far from the house to be tended. There’s no grass, just a clover field and thousands of yellow wildflowers growing freely. Slowing Buttercup, I dismount and grab her reins. Sterling won’t let me help him down. I pretend to focus intensely on tying the reins to a tree and not on his awkward descent.
“What do you think?” I ask, pulling a blanket out of Buttercup’s saddle bag and spreading it on the ground.
“I’d make a shitty cowboy,” he says truthfully.
I laugh before I can stop myself, covering my mouth when I realize that I actually am laughing at the idea of him as a cowboy and not his joke. But Sterling isn’t angry. He’s watching me with strange eyes I can’t quite read. Then he kisses me.
I’m beginning to anticipate these sudden outbursts of affection, even if I don’t know what I do to deserve them. If I did, I might spend all my time triggering this reaction, because kissing Sterling is all I want to do. Well, that and other things, even if we haven’t gotten there yet.
When he pulls away, his hand stays on the back of my neck and his eyes blaze. I swear he could burn me alive just looking at me like that. I force myself to turn away before he does. Pulling the paper bag out, I hold it up. “It’s starting to get chilly. I figured it might be our last chance for a picnic.”
“A picnic?” he repeats.
I don’t know if it’s a test or if he just thinks this is dumb. I default to the latter as a means of self preservation. “Food. Blanket. Eating outside. Having fun.”
“I know what a picnic is.” He snatches the bag from my hand and drops onto the blanket.
“Well, you acted like I was speaking in tongues,” I complain. So he does think this is stupid. Maybe I’m trying too hard to see Sterling as some romantic fig
ure like Mr. Darcy or Heathcliff.
He reaches up and pulls me into his lap. “Don’t be mad, Lucky.”
I can’t help pouting. Not if he’s going to respond to it. “You were teasing me.”
“I’ll tell you a secret.” He tucks my hair behind my ear and whispers, “I’ve never been on a picnic. That’s why I was surprised.”
“You’ve…what?” I’ve done it again. I’m losing count of the number of times I’ve stuck my foot in my mouth with him.
“City kid, remember?” he says nonchalantly, but he keeps his head turned from mine. He’s missed out on a lot in his life, and it’s not all because of growing up in New York.
“It’s a stupid Southern thing, I bet. We love our picnics and sweet tea and pageantry.” I shrug like I’m over it.
Sterling sees right through me. “It’s okay. You don’t have to feel sorry for me.”
“I hate that I always say the wrong thing,” I confess. I’m not exactly sure when I started caring what he thought. Mostly, because I find myself caring so much now that I can’t remember a time before I did.
“Make it up to me?” He picks a yellow flower and sticks it behind my ear.
“Anything,” I breathe. This close to him, his arms around my waist, sitting in his lap, I’m overwhelmed. I’d do anything he asks.
“Take me on my first picnic?” He kisses the tip of my nose.
“You’re an easy date,” I tease.
“You have no idea how easy I can be,” he says, and I feel him pressing hard against my butt. “I can show you though.”
“Mr. Ford, I’m a lady.” I pretend to be offended but only to cover how fast my heart begins to beat. We’ve kissed. A lot. And maybe it’s bad luck but every time we start to round a corner, he stops. Sometimes Cyrus comes home. Sometimes he says he’s tired.
“Is that so?” He kisses me until I’m breathless.
It takes me a moment to recover. “I suffered through a debutante ball to prove it.”
“That sounds dangerous.” He’s trying not to laugh.
“Two petticoats and a dress that weighed like thirty pounds,” I say sourly. “It was.”
“I will never question your propriety again.” He draws a cross over his heart.
“Believe me, I’d rather be in the stables with the horses.”
“There’s a whole world between blue jeans and ballgowns, Lucky. It’s just waiting for us.” His words are more than a promise. They’re an invitation. I settle against him and begin to play our game.
“Twenty-five,” I prompt him. We’d come up with it accidentally after the first evening we spent talking. I’m not the only one who wants to travel. One of us names an age and we decide where we’ll go for our birthdays.
“Australia,” he answers.
I’ve been to half the places he lists but thinking about going with him makes it feel like a brand new adventure.
“The outback?” I ask.
“Great barrier reef,” he says. “I just have to learn to snorkel.”
I stop myself before I can express surprise that he’s never snorkeled. I’m getting better at this.
“You?” he prompts.
“Yorkshire,” I say. I tend to be more specific with my choices.
“You’ve been reading the Brontës again, haven’t you?” he asks.
“I think it would be romantic. The moors during autumn, all blustery and cold.” I can picture it in my mind. “Wind howling and leaves falling. I think that’s the only way to see it.”
“When is your birthday?” he asks slowly.
Somehow I’ve managed to dodge this particular bit of information. Given the nature of the game, it’s a small miracle. But Sterling isn’t stupid and I’ve let too much slip. I take a deep breath. “Promise me you won’t make me do anything stupid like a party this year.”
“What about our trips?” He’s joking but the amusement fades when he sees my face.
“Not this year,” I say softly. “I don’t want to celebrate anything this year.”
“I understand.” And I know he’s telling the truth. “The year my mom died was terrible. First they took me and my sister away and then they split us up. I remember refusing to leave my room on Christmas morning, even though my foster family bought me presents. I didn’t want their presents.”
He gets it. I don’t want to blow out candles or sing. Not this year. Not without my mom there to clap and hide that she’s teary-eyed. “My mom cried every year on our birthdays. Happy tears.”
Sterling’s answering smile is tight-lipped and I wonder if I’ve said the wrong thing. He’s never opened up this much about his past before. I ache to know more about him but I can’t risk forcing it. I don’t want him to push me away even if it means there are parts of him I’ll never know.
A cloud moves over the sun and the air turns from crisp to chilly in an instant. It’s like a switch has been flipped, the last remnants of summer swept away. Sterling’s mood seems to shift along with it.
“October 31st,” I blurt out.
He turns confused eyes on me.
“My birthday,” I say. “It’s on Halloween. I know. We usually throw a big party and…”
I see him doing the math. Halloween is a week away. We’ve been playing this game and I’ve been ignoring the fact that my birthday is creeping closer each time we play.
“Want to watch a movie this year?” he asks. “Eat pizza. I promise no cake.”
Tears swell my throat and I swallow against the raw pain.
“Cheer up, Lucky,” he orders me. “We don’t have to do anything.”
“Pizza sounds good.” I’m relieved that my voice doesn’t crack on the emotions crowding inside me. “And cake might be okay.”
“No candles,” he promises. He clears his throat. “What else do you do on a picnic?”
He’s not going to linger on the topic, and I’m grateful. I need to be more patient with him and his past. He respects my boundaries. I need to do this same for him.
I take the cue and return to our picnic. “Well, when I was little, we’d pick flowers.”
He picks another one and puts it next to the first.
“Those are buttercups, by the way,” I inform him.
“Ahh, the famous buttercups.”
“I was a very original child,” I confess with a laugh.
“What else?”
“We’d eat.” I point to the bag. Felix made me sandwiches. I paid for them by listening to his well-meaning romantic advice the whole time. “And we’d make crowns.”
“Come again?” he says.
“No laughing.” I scramble away and kneel near the edge of the blanket. Scattered through the lush green shamrocks, white hop clover grows. I pick a few, careful to keep their stems as long as possible. Settling into a cross-legged position, I hold two up and then carefully tie one stem around the bud of the other.
Sterling watches as I do a few more and then hold up a chain.
“You can also make very fancy bracelets and necklaces,” I inform him.
He looks like he wants to laugh but doesn’t dare. “Let me try.”
It takes him a few tries to get the technique down. A few minutes later, he places a crown of them on my head.
“Princess,” he proclaims.
“I told you not to call me that.”
“Okay.” He plucks a shamrock and puts it between his teeth. He wags a finger at me. “Kiss me and I’ll stick with lucky.”
“It’s only got three leaves,” I say, moving closer to him anyway.
“I don’t need a four-leaf clover.” He drops it to the blanket and brushes his lips over mine. I taste mint. “I have you.”
Sterling’s body moves over mine, his weight pinning me beneath the blanket. My legs drop open instinctively and he presses his hips between my thighs. There’s multiple layers of denim between us but I feel every inch of him like he’s set fire to me.
Sterling? He is the world between blue jeans and
ball gowns. His body. His lips. He’s not easy. He’s hard. His weight shifts again as if to prove it. I’ve gone places and I’ve seen things. I’ve always dreamed of seeing more, and now I’m seeing the whole world in the blue eyes of a boy.
He dips his lips to my neck, travels to my ear, and whispers, “I think I’ve missed you my whole life.”
My heart cracks open and I turn into him, offering him my lips and with it that wide-open spot in my chest. He accepts. I feel it in his touch. A strong hand skims down my shoulder and explores my breast. My nipple hardens as he furthers his study. Then he continues his adventure, slipping his hand to the waistband of my jeans. There’s a moment of hesitance as if asking permission. I grab his hand and shove it into my panties.
“Patience,” he murmurs with a laugh as a finger begins circling the swollen bundle of nerves he finds.
“Easy for you to say.” I buck against him to show just how impatient I am.
“Shut up and kiss me, Lucky.”
Our mouths collide as we twine together, his hand between my legs, my arms coiling around him. His tongue wanders past my lips, licks a path along my teeth, journeys deeper until he’s my oxygen. We could be anywhere. Any place. Any time. I wouldn’t know. There’s only him and the need building inside me. Every nerve in my body hones in on his clever fingers until I’m sure the center of the universe hides between my legs, and he’s found it.
A subtle tremor builds in my muscles, migrating through me, picking up speed. My eyes close and my teeth clamp down on his lower lip as I explode. My legs snap closed around him, but he continues to seek some hidden place. His fingers delve deeper, coaxing out every spasm, every ounce of mindless bliss until I’m hanging off him too spent for words.
Sterling lays me onto the blanket and draws me against him. I peek to find him watching me with amused eyes.
“What?” I ask suspiciously. Did I do something wrong?
“Your cheeks are as red as your hair,” he teases.
I stick my tongue out at him, but I feel myself flush even hotter.
He kisses the tip of my nose. “It’s so adorable that I’ll forgive you for biting me.”