by LJ Evans
Chapter Ten: Breathless
Chapter Eleven: You Look Good in My Shirt
Chapter Twelve: Bruises
Chapter Thirteen: Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad?
Chapter Fourteen: I Didn’t Want to Need You
Chapter Fifteen: Close My Eyes Forever
Chapter Sixteen: Everything
Chapter Seventeen: Strawberry Girl
Chapter Eighteen: Do I Have to Say the Words
Chapter Nineteen: Woman, Amen
Chapter Twenty: You’re the Inspiration
Chapter Twenty-one: Forever and For Always
My Life as a Mixtape Epilogue: Here I Am
Playlist available at http://bit.ly/mlaamtspot
To my daughter, Ally, who was not only my best gift, but has now become my best critic, editor, and encourager. You and your dad are the best parts of my life. I love you.
And to all my readers who have inspired me to continue this incredibly tough journey in the publishing world. Thank you. Here are more words for you. I hope you like them.
Weddings & Tequila
DRUNK GIRL
“Take a drunk girl home.
That’s how you know the difference
Between a boy and a man.”
Performed by Chris Janson
Written by Janson / Douglas / Hill
They sent me to find her, and even though I didn’t want to go, I couldn’t say no. It was always difficult for me to be around the Strawberry Shortcake.
Not that she was short, or even cutesy like that doll my sister used to play with. But she had auburn hair like the doll and skin so pale you’d think it was a white sheer hung on a window, filtering in sunlight. A polka-dotted sheer because she was dusted with cinnamon across her cheeks. Just like that damn doll.
And like the toy, she always seemed to have a fruit scent hovering around her. It was enticing in all the wrong ways.
This strawberry girl never wore her hair curly. It was pretty much always straight. Straight and silky. So, it was like she was the doll, but not.
Somehow, it physically hurt me to be in the same space as her. Every time.
I’d leave her presence with a bellyache and nothing to show for it. A bellyache should come from overindulging in some way, and I never got to overindulge in anything where she was concerned.
Truth was, it would have been more dangerous to other body parts than my stomach to do anything with her.
Now I had to go find her because they wanted to throw the bouquet, and they wanted her there. One of the bridesmaids had gone missing. Bridesmatrons? I’d heard rumors, but wasn’t sure what she was anymore. Married or not. I think I preferred the idea of her married. That way I couldn’t want her.
When I finally found her, she was half-hidden in the depths of the garden. The afternoon light barely filtered through the haze of trees and flowers and cast shadows across her. I heard the sob before she saw me, and I froze. Crying Strawberry Shortcake was going to do me in.
I waited to see if she would see me and stop crying. But she didn’t. She didn’t even raise her head from those slender fingers. What the hell was I supposed to do?
I finally cleared my throat, and she went silent mid-sob. I could see her, even amongst the foliage, wipe her eyes so that the tears wouldn’t show before she turned to me.
“Lonnie?” She seemed surprised.
“Hey…um…they’re about to throw the bouquet and wanted to know if you wanted them to…um…wait?” I didn’t mean to ask it like a question, but I was still trying to slow my stuttering heartbeat. When she finally looked up at me, it was with a smile that I could tell she pasted on her face and a laugh so sarcastic that it hit me in the chest instead of my stomach.
“No. I don’t think I need to catch the bouquet.”
“Okay,” I said, but we both knew it still meant she should head back.
“They sent you to find me? Like some misbehaving toddler?”
I had to grin at her. “Well, maybe not a toddler.”
“What does Mia call you? Lumberjack?”
“Or Idiot. But I think she prefers Lumberjack.”
“I bet we’ve both been called worse,” she said with a wave of her hand to my hair. Hers was ten times better than mine. Mine was almost tomato red, whereas hers was the shade of red that the bottled dye job companies want on their boxes. It was so smooth that my fingers ached to stroke it, and I had to fist them tightly, nails biting my palms, to prevent myself from doing something that stupid.
I shrugged at her. “Probably.”
“Well, let’s go, Lumberjack,” she said, and I followed her, watching as her bridesmaid dress swayed about her hips. It was a good color on her. A deep ocean teal that made her skin and eyes stand out. The dress clung to all the right places on her kick-ass body, showing off nicely shaped legs. Long legs. Because she was pretty tall for a girl. And damn if it wasn’t enough to make other parts of my body want to raise to attention.
We got to the door, and I grabbed it before she could, and she whispered thanks, but it was like that one action was enough to send her back sobbing again. I didn’t know why or how, but I wanted to bust something or someone for making her feel this way.
When we entered, she went directly to Mia’s side. Mia Phillips. Well, I guess Mia Waters now that she just married my best friend, Derek Waters. Derek and I had been friends since high school, and I’d been around as their whirlwind romance came to fruition last summer. Three weeks and they’d become inseparable. So inseparable that Derek and I had uprooted ourselves from Los Angeles and moved across the country to this small town in Tennessee.
It was funny. Everyone around here said it wasn’t a small town, but after you grow up in the L.A. Basin, everything seems small. And especially in this town because everyone seemed to know everything about everyone whether it was their business or not.
When Derek had dumped his whole life to move here after knowing Mia only three weeks, I wasn’t about to let him come on his own. No way in hell. How did I know that Mia and her family wouldn’t become cannibals and eat my boy for dinner some night?
So, I’d come with him. And now I was stuck. Because not only did I need to be here for him, but I was also strangely and unexpectedly attracted to the everyone-knowing everything-about-everyone thing.
Like the fact that I knew—even though it wasn’t any of my damn business—that the Strawberry Shortcake, Wynn, had moved home three months ago with some story about her husband being on assignment in Thailand. I didn’t know if that was the real deal or the story everyone was telling to protect her. Because this town also protected its own carefully.
I didn’t know what the truth was about Wynn because we hadn’t hung out. I’d seen her in passing. Or sometimes at family gatherings that I was invited to like I was part of the family when I wasn’t. She’d hardly spoken but a handful of sentences to me.
But that had been enough for me to know that she and I would never mix. She wasn’t the kind of girl that you took home for the night. She was the kind of girl you took home forever, and me and forever were never going to happen.
When we reached Mia, who looked damn beautiful in her lace-covered wedding dress, she turned her mosaic eyes at us. They filled with fire at the sight of Wynn and her red face.
“What in the fruit salad did you do to her, Idiot?”
Mia’s crazy non-cuss words were always sweet and unexpected, but I was about to object, when Wynn dived in for me.
“He didn’t do anything,” Wynn said. “You know me, I shouldn’t have been anywhere near the hydrangeas, but I couldn’t resist. It’s just allergies.”
Mia eyed us both but seemed willing to buy it or let it go. It was her wedding day after all, but I wouldn’t put it past Mia to actually buy what Wynn had just fed her. Mia tended to be on the gullible side. I think it was part of what had attracted Derek to her. That almost innocence.
Wynn and
Cam—Mia’s almost sister-in-law in another long story—argued over whether Wynn should be out trying to catch the stupid bouquet. Wynn was putting up a good fight.
Except Cam wasn’t used to anyone not doing what she wanted. I didn’t know Cam well, but I knew that. In fact, the only person I’d ever seen her lose a battle to was her significant other, our entertainment lawyer, Blake.
“Wynn, don’t be a schmuck, just get your booty out there.”
“No. I’m married.”
“Not anymore,” Cam snarked back.
Wynn had her smile still pasted on as if Cam’s words hadn’t bothered her. But they hit me hard.
“Cam,” Mia scolded. She must have felt the same as I did. Cam just rolled her eyes. Mia turned to Wynn. “Don’t go out there with Kayla. She wants it so badly that if you accidently got it, we’d have one of those America’s Funniest Videos clips with her pounding you to the ground to take it away.”
I snorted.
The ladies all remembered I was there and turned to me with a scowl. I put my hands up and backed off because you never interfere with a bride on her wedding day. I’d learned that the hard way from my cousin when I was only ten, and I’d stuffed my face into her cake before she’d cut it. I’m lucky I still have hands to play my bass with.
I’d taken two steps away when Derek came up behind me, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Thanks for finding her,” he said with a nod toward Wynn.
“Sure.”
“You okay?”
“Yep, all good. You?” I turned, looking back toward the short brunette he’d made his wife.
“You are an idiot. Everything’s perfect,” Derek said with his smile that stretched his whole face and attracted the ladies like wax on a surfboard. But the ladies were out of luck now because he only had eyes for his Little Bird.
I grinned at him. “You really did it.”
“Did you doubt it?”
I shrugged at him. “No. It’s right.”
Derek got serious and nodded.
“You don’t need to stay in Tennessee, you know,” he said. “I appreciate that you did. To make sure I’d be okay, but this is exactly where I belong.”
I got kind of choked up, but there was no way I was showing that shit to him. “Well, I needed to make sure my lead singer didn’t disappear before our album reached platinum.”
“So, you going back to L.A.?” he asked.
“Hell no. I kind of like it here.”
“Really?” He was surprised.
“Yep.”
His eyes narrowed at me like he was expecting me to cough up some kind of hidden secret. There really wasn’t one. I just liked Tennessee in a way that I hadn’t expected.
The scream of girls, like the ones at our concerts, brought our attention back to the dance floor. Wynn’s stepsister, Kayla, a stunning blonde with curves that could easily grace the PlayBabe Mansion that Derek used to live in, caught the bouquet and flushed happily. She cast an eye in the direction of her date who looked like he’d just eaten a guppy.
“Wow. Stay away from that one,” Derek said with a smile. “Otherwise you’ll be married before I get back from my honeymoon.”
“Well, that’s two weeks, which is about as long as it took you and Mia.”
“Don’t go for that, dude, she’s not right for you.”
I just nodded because it was true. Kayla—the blonde bombshell—wasn’t right for me. And her stepsister, Wynn—the Strawberry Shortcake—wasn’t right for me either, even though my loins objected to everything my head was telling me.
♫ ♫ ♫
Somehow I’d gotten roped into loading up all the presents and bringing them back to Derek and Mia’s place while they took off for their honeymoon. Maybe it was because I’d bought a goddamn truck like I actually belonged in this Tennessee town. Maybe it was because Derek could count on me to not steal the presents or leave them some ugly welcome home gift of beer stains and discarded pizza boxes like our idiot friends might have.
The other members of our band, Mitch, Owen, and our fairly new drummer, Eli, helped haul the presents out to the truck while Marina, Mia’s mama, supervised. I liked Marina. She let me call her Mama which was more than I could say for my own mother. My mother was known as Rochelle. To me and everyone else. She’d been Rochelle since I was barely old enough to speak.
The guys took off to the hotel, or more specifically, the bar at the hotel, leaving me with the presents to unload on my own when I got to Derek’s house. I just sighed and drove away. If I’d pitched a fit, one or more of them would have come with me, but they were already half-ass drunk, and I needed some time to myself after the long day.
When I pulled into Derek’s driveway, I was surprised to see a red Audi sports coupe sitting in the driveway and the lights already on in the house.
When I got to the door, it opened to reveal Wynn. She’d already changed from her sexy bridesmaid’s dress to jeans and a tank top that clung to her curves even better. I wondered, crazily, if the jeans would make her hot enough to shed them in the July heat that clung to the twilight.
We stared at each other for a moment as if we were both equally shocked to see the other.
“I have the presents,” I explained, even though she hadn’t asked.
“I’m staying to watch Jane while they're gone,” she explained, even though I hadn’t asked.
Jane was Derek and Mia’s kitten that they’d picked up on our tour last summer. The tour where they’d fallen in love while driving across the country. It seemed like a story that shouldn’t have ended happily, but it had. Sometimes I was slightly jealous that they fit so painfully well together, even though I didn’t want anything to do with happily ever afters.
I wasn’t lacking in female companionship. Not by any means. There were almost too many women following us around these days—before concerts, after concerts, during concerts. And even though I didn’t always take them up on it, when I did, the sex was just that—sex. I sure as hell didn’t want to wake up with any of them three hundred and sixty-five days a year.
As I turned back to my truck, Wynn followed and helped me unload the gifts. We didn’t talk as we took trips back and forth until all the boxes and bags were in the guest room.
Derek and Mia were almost done renovating the place that hadn’t seen anything new since the nineties. The kitchen was the last major overhaul that needed to be done after tearing down walls and expanding. It looked a lot better than when Derek had bought it sight unseen as we’d rolled into Tennessee last August.
Plus, Derek had his own music studio now, and that kept us both busy.
As Wynn and I left the guestroom for the last time, she turned to me with her polite smile. Today, I’d seen her fake smile, her held together smile, and now her polite smile. I hadn’t seen her real one yet. In fact, I’d only seen the real one once since she’d been home. During the rehearsal dinner, that smile had shined, making her pale blue eyes look like the sunlight was glinting through them.
All the girls here had beautiful eyes. Mine were just dumbass brown. I’d had one girl tell me they looked like God had taken an eyeliner pencil to the iris as if to make a point, but that was the nicest thing anyone had ever said about my eyes. But Wynn and Mia, and even Cam, had eyes that people wrote songs about. Maybe Derek should call our next song that: All the Girls with Beautiful Eyes.
I was standing there, staring at Wynn and her eyes, when she asked, “Would you like some sweet tea?”
She was all manners. Southern girl manners. I’d learned a lot about Southern girls in the eleven months I’d been there. But I also knew she hadn’t meant it. She didn’t really want me there.
“Nah, I’m going to head on over to the bar at the hotel. The guys are there, and I’m sure I’ll have to pull one or all of them off some poor girl before they puke on her.”
I headed for the door and she followed. As I stepped outside, I turned back at the last second,
remembering her sobbing in the garden and wondering if being alone was the last thing she really needed. “Would you like to come with me—us—to have a drink?”
She hesitated. She was hard to read, but I could tell she’d considered it. I couldn’t tell why, but she had, and that made me want to push her to a yes like I’d never pushed a girl before.
“No. Thanks. You boys don’t need a sappy girl getting in the way of your charm tonight.”
“No charm on those bozos. Besides, I think you’ve earned a drink.” I smiled at her, thinking how weddings and divorces didn’t mix.
“I think Derek and Mia have wine here.”
“Wine? No way. You need hard liquor.”
She laughed. My whole body reacted to that laugh. It still hadn’t been with a full, real smile, but it had been close.
“I’m probably not the best company tonight. And if I drank, who knows what mischief I’d get into.”
“I swear on my mother’s grave that I won’t let you do anything stupid. I’ve got your back.”
“Your mama’s dead?”
I looked surprised. “Shit no. That’s just the saying, isn’t it?”
She laughed again, this one even closer to her real laugh and her real smile. “I don’t think that’s the way that saying is supposed to be used at all.”
“Well, hell. If you promise to keep me from saying stupid crap like that, I promise to keep you from embarrassing yourself with your liquor and sappiness.”
She hesitated again.
“Better than sitting here thinking of stuff that ain’t gonna make you feel anything but sad.”
It was the first time I’d even come close to mentioning the fact that I’d found her crying her eyes out in the garden. When she looked at me, her smile was gone, and I wanted to kick myself in the ass, but it was too late.
“You know what? You’re right. Let me just get my keys.”
She turned and went back inside before coming back a moment later with her little purse that had matched the bridesmaids’ dresses, keys twirling.