Keep It Classy

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  She shook her head and brushed her hair out of her face. “Okay.”

  She looked sad, and I felt my heart squeeze.

  “Come back with me,” I offered.

  She shook her head and pushed up off me.

  “I need to stay here,” she said. “I have to do it sometime.”

  I brushed some of her hair out of her face and said, “Did you talk to your dad today?”

  She nodded.

  “He calls me every day,” she admitted. “I think he’s lost.”

  “You have something for thirty-one years like he did, someone that’s always there no matter what you do, it’s hard to function without that,” I admitted. “I watched my grandfather try to function without my grandmother for a year before he finally got the hang of it.”

  She smoothed her hair back once again, and I grinned at the exasperated look that crossed her face.

  “I’m getting this cut before the funeral,” she whispered.

  I immediately started shaking my head. “Don’t.”

  She studied my face for a few long seconds and then sighed. “My momma liked it, too. That’s why it’s so long.”

  “It’s beautiful,” I whispered. “Just like you.”

  ***

  It was as I was walking back out to my bike that I saw the same man that was leaning against his car earlier still there, only now he wasn’t smoking. He was also looking mighty pissed.

  “How’s it goin’?” I muttered as I passed.

  He didn’t reply.

  Not even a grunt this time.

  But since I was running late, I didn’t take the time out of my day to ask him if there was something wrong that I might be able to help with.

  Chapter 14

  Damn, this year went by so fast I didn’t get a chance to lose weight.

  -Turner to Castiel

  Turner

  I opened my eyes and knew without looking at the clock that it was three in the morning.

  I’d woken up at this time every single night since it’d happened.

  Only this time, I was alone.

  Castiel wasn’t there to chase away the bad dreams like he had been the last couple of nights either.

  I reached for my phone and started thumbing through Pinterest, then Facebook, followed up by Instagram. Then I went back through those one more time, all under my dad’s accounts—that I managed—and saw all the well wishes.

  I saw all the nasty comments, too.

  I deleted those.

  Thank God my dad didn’t check it.

  The first time he read ‘good riddance. The fat bitch didn’t do you any favors’ he would’ve lost his shit.

  Most of the comments were great. They were positive and uplifting, as were the majority of my father’s fans. But there were still a few bad apples that had me wanting to delete my father’s entire account.

  However, I knew that his publicist wouldn’t approve, meaning that I had to be the better person and not reply.

  When I got to a post on my father’s Instagram page left by a ‘TFan1186,’ I frowned.

  It was a goddamn novel, and the more that I read of it, the worse my feeling began to be.

  I learned of you last year thanks to your daughter’s beautiful smile. Since then, I have become a devoted fan, and have followed you relentlessly. To learn of your wife’s passing truly makes my heart weep. I’m sorry to hear of your loss, and even sorrier that both you and your daughter had to experience that night, causing you to forget how beautiful she was and have it replaced with an image that will never be able to be torn from your mind. If there is ever a thing you might need, I am here. I live very close to your daughter, and if you ever need me, I’m there. Sincerely, a fan.

  I curled my lip up by the time I was done reading and wondered who this ‘fan’ was.

  I had a feeling that he wasn’t anybody I called a friend, because if he was, I would’ve definitely known that they were a friend.

  NASCAR is a really weird sport. Everybody that is anybody loves to talk about it. They’d never miss an opportunity to bring it up, especially with me.

  Take my brother’s friend, Dogwood. Dogwood loved NASCAR. Even more, my father was his driver. When Dogwood learned that my brother was the son of the famous ‘Hooch Racing Team’ he about shit a brick. My brother had to threaten him with bodily harm to get him to shut up about it.

  Even the less extreme can’t help themselves.

  Sitting up farther in bed so that my back was resting against the headboard, I took a screenshot of the comment, then deleted it.

  I then went to the other social media platforms to see if I could find more info on the guy besides a generic Instagram profile.

  I found another comment on Twitter from the same address, but nothing on Facebook.

  Though, granted, I hadn’t looked as hard as I probably could have.

  However, scanning through thousands and thousands of posts, some of which were awful and derogatory, put me on edge.

  By the time four o’clock rolled around, I was definitely no longer sleepy and in fact well and truly awake.

  Deciding some exercise might be good, and a jog around the campground would be perfect, I changed into running clothes.

  Once I’d located my headphones—which were tangled into a wadded-up mass in my purse—I pocketed my keys to the RV and headed outside. My phone was shoved into my shirt between my two sports bras and my boobs and I was looking down at my headphones as I untangled them.

  Meaning I didn’t realize that someone was outside at the next campground over until I heard them shuffle.

  I blinked and looked up to find a small fire lit in the fire ring. The person sitting outside by his fire was also sitting in his car with the door open. He had a cigarette in his hand pressed up to his lips, and he was half in his car and half out, slouched back so far that he looked uncomfortable.

  His foot was firmly planted on the concrete spot where an RV would normally reside, and he was facing in my direction.

  “Hello.” I waved as I quickly looked away. Reaching up to make sure the trailer was locked, I turned and headed down the road, thankful that the campground had lights on this part of the park.

  The fact that someone was in their car camping really wasn’t out of the norm, but it was for this part of the park. Normally they only allowed RVs on this side due to the high demand of spots—even in the winter.

  At least, that was what the park manager had informed me when I’d brought the RV down.

  When I’d asked to rent out the RV spot next to me, too, he’d shook his head and said that most of the time that one was left open anyway in case the campground owners wanted to come down—which they normally didn’t during the holidays.

  So needless to say, I was surprised to see someone parked there. I was also not happy that it was a man camping out of his car.

  Finally untangling my headphones, I plugged them into my phone and fitted them into my ear.

  Stopping on the side of the road to stretch my calves, I took a look around the sleepy grounds and wondered if everyone there was planning on staying through the holidays next week.

  There were four or five older couples that had been here just as long as I had been, but there were also three elderly men that were by themselves that had come in just last week.

  I didn’t ever have time to stop and talk to them, so I didn’t know their stories, but I doubted that they lived close based solely on their license plates.

  How many of them would leave in four days so they could go home for Thanksgiving? How many would stay?

  Switching to the opposite leg, I reached up and tightened my ponytail and looked to the side as I did.

  My belly clenched when I saw the man walking toward me.

  Quickly looking down so I didn’t make eye contact—thank God I’d already put the headphones in so he wouldn’t talk to me—I waited for him to pass.

 
When he did finally pass—which was way slower than I thought it ought to have been—I decided to start running in the opposite direction.

  I made it a mile and a quarter before I caught up to the man again.

  He’d stopped at another empty campground and was facing the opposite way—the way I would’ve originally been coming from. Meaning I got a very good look at the man as I came up on him, and there was nothing about him that really made him distinguishable.

  Brown hair, medium build and tall, black clothes and black shoes. His skin was tanned, but the only part of it I could see—his face and his hands—weren’t remarkable.

  Keeping my head down as I passed him, I had to fight my instincts to look over my shoulder at the man as I decided that the end of my run had drawn near.

  With that man out there, my instincts were humming.

  Worse, I could tell that when I passed, he’d definitely noticed.

  I was also fairly sure that he was now following.

  Belly in a clench for the last quarter of a mile, I pushed it a lot harder than I normally would have and arrived back at my RV just as I was fairly sure I might die.

  I wasn’t a runner.

  Even more so, I wasn’t athletic, period. Pairing those two things together meant that I was fairly awful at working out.

  However, I’d finally broken ten minutes on my mile, and I was happy.

  At one point in time, that would’ve never been possible for me.

  I was just rounding the back of the RV, finally taking a look behind me to see if the man was as close as I feared—he was. He was gaining fast, as if he was running to keep up now.

  With my eyes on him, I didn’t see the dark, looming figure that was hiding in the shadows until my brother caught me as I started to fall over him.

  “Shit!” I cried out, scared out of my mind.

  “Chill the fuck out,” Bud muttered. “Why are you running in the dark, you dumbass?”

  Hearing my brother’s words had me deflating.

  In more than one way.

  Seconds after he set me to the side and made sure that I was stable, I once again threw myself at him.

  He caught me and allowed me to wrap myself around him, despite my sweaty state.

  He only held me and rubbed my back as I cried into his neck.

  “It’ll be okay, Sissy,” he whispered. “We’ll get through this.”

  He didn’t sound convinced, just like I wasn’t.

  But I had a feeling he was right.

  We would get through this.

  It’d be tough—the toughest thing we’d ever done since we were both so very close to my mother—but we’d do it.

  “I know,” I admitted. “I’m just scared. I’m sad. I’m a lot of things.”

  He grunted in reply. Then suddenly stiffened.

  “Can I help you?” my brother drawled.

  I looked up to find him staring at the man that was once again at his campground, this time standing next to his car watching us.

  I shivered and pulled out my keys. “Let’s go inside.”

  ***

  “I don’t want to do this,” Bud muttered as he walked up my grandmother’s front path with me four hours later.

  “Me, neither,” I admitted. “I’ve been putting it off for four days now.”

  “I really, really don’t want to see her,” Bud said. “I feel like it’s wrong being here without Mom.”

  It was.

  I didn’t think we’d ever been here by ourselves.

  My mother was incredibly close to her mother, so every time we came out, it was with her at our side.

  “You get the funeral all squared away?” Bud asked, trying to distract himself from what we were about to walk into.

  “Yes,” I admitted as I took the first step up onto my grandmother’s front porch. “Tomorrow at nine.”

  He nodded once, then took a deep breath.

  I opened the front door and walked inside without knocking.

  Taking my first step into the house, my eyes automatically went to my grandmother’s chair, and I felt my heart stall in my chest.

  Not because my grandmother was crying. But because my grandmother was laughing. Uproariously.

  “And then she,” she wiped her eyes, “called and told me what she did.”

  All eyes turned to us as we walked inside the room.

  “What Mom did?” Bud asked curiously.

  That was when Castiel stood up from the chair my grandfather had seated him in and recalled the story my grandmother had just been reciting.

  “Your grandmother was telling me about the time that your mother was trying out your brother’s Airsoft gun,” he explained.

  That was when Bud started laughing his ass off.

  I looked over at him, then at my…Castiel…then back at Bud again.

  “Ummm,” I said carefully. “Am I missing something?”

  Bud wiped tears of mirth that were rolling down his face.

  Castiel grinned and continued his story.

  “Apparently, your brother taught her how to load it before he left for boot camp,” he explained. “And one day, she was trying to shoot the cat with it because it was eating the wires of the television. And instead of hitting the cat, she hit the television itself.”

  My mouth dropped open.

  “That ping in the television?” I gasped.

  Bud started laughing all over again, bending over to breathe when he couldn’t seem to draw enough oxygen into his lungs.

  “She sent me a letter in basic training.” He stood up and once again wiped at his eyes with the backs of his hands. “She said that she only pumped it once, that way she wouldn’t hurt him. But when she went to shoot the cat, your dad started to come in from the bedroom. She jumped and shot the TV instead.”

  The irony in the entire situation was that my mother had lit my brother up about two weeks before he left because he’d thrown his Wii controller at the television and broken it. So my father had to replace it twice in about a month’s time.

  I turned to my brother, practically tearing my gaze away from Castiel’s soft one, and stared at him. “You know that she blamed that on you, right?”

  Bud grinned. “Well, technically, I told her to say that. Although, I meant about shooting at the cat. I was talking to her when she was complaining about the cat eating the wires. I told her what to do and how to work the Airsoft gun, but she had to hang up before she actually shot him so she could use two hands. I didn’t hear about the TV’s demise until I read her letter.”

  I just shook my head in bemusement.

  Then sobered.

  “Bud, come over here and give me a freakin’ kiss already,” my grandmother demanded.

  Bud dutifully followed directions, walking up to my grandmother and bending down over her.

  Then he dropped his weight completely down onto her and smothered her with his body as he peppered her face with kisses.

  “Ughhhhh!” My grandmother wheezed. “You’ve gotten big!”

  I felt my heart press uncomfortably against my ribs.

  “You okay?” I heard Castiel ask from beside me.

  I turned to find him standing at my side, his outstretched arm resting against the beam of wood that I was still standing under in the entranceway.

  “He used to do that with my mom, too,” I admitted. “Lay on them. Bud doesn’t know boundaries.”

  Castiel’s eyes went to Bud.

  “Looks like they enjoy it, though,” he admitted.

  I pressed into Castiel’s side as I said, “They do.”

  He dropped his arm from the wood above my head and wrapped it around me instead.

  “I thought you said you were going to lunch?” I teased, pressing my face down a little harder on his shoulder to get his attention.

  “I was,” he admitted. “Here.”

  I rolled my eyes but couldn’t stop myself from grinni
ng.

  “Y’all two come sit down,” my grandmother ordered. “And then I’ll get you all a plate of chicken and dumplin’s.”

  I closed my eyes as emotions tore through my chest.

  My mother made the best food ever.

  No joke, it was so good that our family from all around used to drive an hour just to eat at her place while she was in town. If she’d been alive right now, there’d be no less than five family members, cousins and or brothers, that would be in her kitchen begging for food right that instant.

  And she got her skills from my grandmother.

  But my grandmother didn’t cook often anymore. She had arthritis in her hands, and it made it hard for her to do the things that she used to be able to do so easily.

  So for her to cook us lunch was a very special occasion.

  Castiel led me to the chair he was using, then went to the dining room and collected another one.

  I looked at my grandmother when she raised her eyebrows up at me.

  “What?” I asked.

  Bud snorted from where he was still practically sitting in my grandmother’s lap.

  “What my ass,” he muttered.

  I flipped him off, and my grandmother smacked us both upside the head.

  “Stop cussing,” she ordered.

  I demurely zipped my mouth with my fingers, causing her to roll her eyes.

  The door to the house slammed, and we all turned just in time to see my Papaw, clad in his regular blue coveralls, shirtless and barefoot, walking into the kitchen with a catfish in each hand. Both of them were flopping around, mad as hell, causing my Papaw to grunt with the effort to hold onto them.

  Once he reached the kitchen sink, he tossed them inside and washed his hands over the top of them.

  Still flopping around in the farmhouse sink—yes, they’d put a new sink in for this very reason—he walked into the living room, not sparing a single person a look.

  “Boy, get out of your grandmother’s lap so she can get me some dumplin’s.” My grandfather came in and sat in his chair.

  Bud rolled his eyes but ultimately did what my grandfather said, going to the dining room and not coming back for a good long while.