Chapter Eighteen
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
My eyes snap open like those roller window shades, and I heave up to a sitting position on my bed.
Laine.
Did I …
I cover my mouth with my hand, a horrified laugh bouncing against my palm. I did. Drunk on emotions, lust, and a whole lotta wine, last night I exacted what must be the strangest form of revenge ever. My cheeks heat as the memories roll over me. Laine’s finger skimming down my collarbone, her hair in my hands as I pulled her into my kiss, the taste of her thumb in my mouth, the sweet release I felt after punishing her for making me want her so bad .
I launch out of bed.
The shower’s cool water does nothing to release the steam that’s been building inside me ever since Laine looked at me yesterday with stars in her eyes and told me I was beautiful. Scarlet petals from my hair collect in the drain, as trampled now as my resolve to stay away from her. If anything, the magnetic pull toward her has tripled in strength, quadrupled, filling me with the desire to hunt her down and make her pay .
So much for Laine’s ideas of courtship. I want contact , release , to excise her from my brain so I can finally think again. Sure, Laine talked a big game, but she was barely able to resist me last night. I just need to drag her off her high horse and into the mud with me, and maybe that’ll shake this ridiculous notion of courtship out of her head. She’s leaving as soon as Dad comes back, she said so herself! What’s the point in dating when she knows it’s going to end? I can’t even pretend to understand what her motives are, but the sexual tension’s been building for months now—any more and I’ll go insane. It’s a liability, a distraction. It cannot be borne a moment longer. I’ve got to crumble her resolve so we can fuck and this meaningless fling can run its course, like they always do.
I root through my bathroom drawers until I find it—a palette of face paint left over from last year’s family picnic. An evil grin blooms on my face.
It’s on, Laine Woods.
Twenty minutes later, I pull into a spot at the nearly empty rec center lot and throw my truck in park. I check my lipstick in the mirror, then the sparkly #27 glitter-painted on my cheek. Satisfied, I grab my bag and head off for the girls’ middle school soccer practice.
Laine’s out on the field, too busy running drills with the gangly tweens to notice me saunter up and lean over the fence. Once she started coaching Darla and Benny’s team, word got out that the prodigal daughter of the Gilmer County Bobcats had returned. It was a matter of days before the middle school reached out to Laine and asked her to fill in while Coach Wilkinson’s out on paternity leave.
“That’s it, Desiree!” Laine claps. “Excellent pass!”
A lanky girl sporting long rainbow socks covering her shin guards beams at Laine from midfield, and something hot and fiery explodes inside my chest. It didn’t occur to me until now, but these girls have Laine as their adult mentor—ambitious, talented, capable, queer Laine. I would’ve done anything to have a mentor like her growing up. Someone to show me that effort makes you stronger, that there’s power in being true to yourself, even if others aren’t ready to accept you that way.
But then again, I did, didn’t I? Because I had Laine, too.
My eyes mist up, goddamn emotions, and I frantically try to wipe the tears away before they ruin my face paint. Of course, Laine takes this moment to glance over her shoulder and see me at the fence, swiping at my eyes.
Dammit , this is not the you-teased-the-wrong-bitch energy I came here to display!
A smile breaks out on Laine’s face as she adjusts her glasses, making sure that yes, it’s really me standing here, painted up like her biggest fan. She waves, then holds up a finger.
“Take five, team!” she shouts, then breaks into a brisk jog around the far corner of the field before circling back to where I’m standing. In her hand is a small bunch of wild-grown goldenrod and dandelions, and my heart trembles within its cage.
“Milady.” She grins and proffers the makeshift bouquet to me over the fence. I take the flowers, willing myself to quit being so goddamn charmed .
“Do I have any say in this,” I murmur, more to the flowers than to the gorgeous butch soccer coach who gave them to me. “This whole courting thing?”
“Hmm.” Laine tilts her head. She’s wearing a blue baseball hat I recognize as Chance’s. My heart pinches with affection. “Not really, no.”
I step closer to where she’s leaning on the fence, smiling slyly behind my flowers. “Then I guess I’ll have to make this hard on you, huh.”
“After last night?” Laine whistles. “I’d like that very much.” Her brown eyes smolder, and I feel every inch of my body as her gaze brushes over me like fingertips. If there was any doubt she saw my act of revenge in the window, it’s gone now. A small, pleased huff escapes me. I like surprising Laine—displacing her expectations gives me a rich, satisfying feeling of winning . What’s more, I enjoyed surprising my self . Last night, I followed my instincts, giving myself permission to explore what I wanted.
And it was hot .
I step even closer, until we’re in kissing distance.
“You’re gonna rue the day you decided to court me , Laine Woods.” My voice is low and dangerously flirtatious, but Laine just smiles and reaches out a hand to gently cup my painted cheek.
“No,” she says simply. “But I rue all the days I didn’t.”
I’ve been standing in our parking lot for a hundred years. At least that’s what it feels like as the old-timer in the pale yellow button-down consults his clipboard again . Though his sleeves are short, Mr. Tommy Sumney of the Gilmer County Licensing and Inspection Department still wears a brown tie covered in tiny, jumping trout. Mr. Sumney does not forego professional attire , even on a blazing early-August afternoon. I learned this the hard way as he viewed my black tank top with disdain when he first arrived for our appointment. It’s been downhill ever since.
“You sure I can’t offer you a glass of water, Mr. Sumney?” I fan myself with my hand. “It’s a million degrees out today, and I’m afraid I’ve had you traipsing all over creation.” Sometimes it helps switching to ultra southern mode with the older folks.
“No, ma’am.” Mr. Sumney looks up over the rim of his wire-framed spectacles. “I do not fraternize with supplicants.”
I squint at him. “Do you mean … applicants, sir?”
“No, ma’am.”
I raise my eyebrows. O- kay .
“Is there any other paperwork you need, sir? I’ve prepared a binder with supplemental materials for your convenience if that would be helpful. Estimated power and water usage, for example, restroom trailer rentals and their locations, updated certificates of insurance—”
“Did you fill out the form?” he drawls, still looking at me over his glasses.
“Yes, sir … that’s how I got this appointment.”
“Then that’s all the paperwork I need”—he pauses to click open his pen—“unless I ask for more.”
Sweet Jesus, deliver me from this old white man on a power trip.
“You don’t know the date of the event?”
“No, sir. As I explained in the application, I’m not sure whether we’ll be selected to host the showcase yet.”
His droopy eyes drift up to regard me. “You tryin’ to get a jump on the competition?”
I have a feeling the truth’s the wrong answer.
“No, sir! It’s just I have a deep respect for the hard work you do at Gilmer County L&I, and I look to your office not only for permission, but guidance , for how to run an event so large. I’m sure you could teach us a thing or two about how it’s done.” I poke him playfully in the arm, which was the wrong thing to do. His Eeyore eyes bulge from their sockets.
“ Miss Brennan . If you do not know how to run an event this large, I will be forced to deny—”
“Well, if it isn’t Grandpa Tommy!” Laine’s voice slides over my sweaty back like cool water, providing instantaneous relief.
Mr. Sumney’s mouth does the weirdest thing: it smiles . “Coach Woods! It’s awful nice to see you.”
“You, too, Tommy. Did you see your grandbaby’s pass at last week’s game? That girl’s got a heck of a kicking foot.”
Mr. Sumney beams as though Laine pointed a spotlight directly on his balding, sunburnt head. “She gets it from my wife.” He smiles shyly.
“Oh, you’re here from L&I, aren’t you? I didn’t realize we lucked out and got the best inspector this side of the county!” Laine gently pats Mr. Sumney’s back as he chuckles, steering him toward the tasting room. “Now you listen here, sir, it’s too hot to do business without a cold glass of lemonade. Or can I get you something with a kick of its own?”
Mr. Sumney laughs. “Coach Woods, you are a troublemaker . I’ll have that lemonade with a side of gin since you suggested.”
I stand there, shocked, as Laine singlehandedly saves our permitting inspection with the power of athletic charisma.
“Miss Brennan, you better close that mouth of yours, or a fish’ll fly in,” Laine calls over her shoulder and winks, setting Tommy Sumney off into a gale of old-man chuckles.
What in the world ?
I’m rooting around in the back room for my bottle of Hendrick’s when the door swings open behind me, and a pair of hands slink down to my waist.
“You found Grandpa’s gin yet, boss?” Laine asks, and it shouldn’t sound sexy, but it does . She settles her hips directly behind mine and presses, firmly , against my ass. My eyelids flutter as I bite back a groan. She works one hand between us, dragging her thumb from my pussy up the seam of my pants until my back arches in response. I grab the dusty bottle of gin from the lower cabinet and spin around, hoisting myself up on the countertop and pulling her between my legs by the shirt.
“Is that any way to court a lady, Coach Woods?”
Laine grins. “Well, tonight’s our first date. What’s the harm in starting a little early?”
I run my hands over her strong shoulders, sliding them along the hard triceps bracing her against the counter. “Now I hope you won’t think this too forward, but instead of a corsage, I can think of something I’d like more.”
Laine leans back, exposing her throat. “Tell me.”
“A permit.” I smile, handing her the bottle of gin.
Laine grabs me by the strap of my tank top and pulls me toward her. Our faces are inches apart, my lips parted and breathless, when she leans into my ear, nose brushing its shell.
“Yes, boss.” The words are wickedly hot, undoing something in my belly that flows like melting wax through my core. She releases me, winks, and saunters out the door.
Mercy .
“Just what I always wanted!” I hold the store-bought bouquet to my chest, along with the stamped permit tucked within its blooms.
“See? Courting can be fun.” Laine twists me back and forth by the hips in front of her.
I’ve never felt so deliciously pursued by someone before. Ever since the wedding, Laine’s made it no secret that she’s dying to throw me into bed, which thrills me with every groping kiss stolen in the storage room, or pressed against the thrumming metal tanks in the winery, or that one time in the barn while she was feeding Baahlzebub. But it’s the little gestures—the notes tucked beneath my coffee mug, a new pack of my favorite pens on my desk, a midnight text sharing a video so funny that I had to text back, our conversation going so late I fell asleep with my phone nestled to my chest—that I have no experience with. Laine’s version of courting heats me from the inside out, exciting and touching and absolutely terrifying . I’d feel safer if this was just sex, some tryst that’d fall apart before I could develop real feelings, but Laine, damn her to hell, knows that. She lured me out of hiding by my desire first, and once she got me good and exposed, she strapped a collar around my neck and set about domesticating me, one dish of cream at a time.
I didn’t realize how hungry I was until someone decided to feed me. And even though it’s scary, knowing that any meal may be my last, that based on my long, long history, this whatever it is with Laine has a couple of months left at best, how am I supposed to walk away now that I’ve had a taste of what it’s like to be full?
I’ve floated along this entire week in a horny dream state, and after what Laine managed with Grandpa Sumney today, well.
Business wins are my love language. I snap a picture of the permit, then text it to Marisol.
“Extremely important question,” Laine says as she slides behind the wheel of my truck. She insists on driving tonight on the strong condition I don’t hang out of the window. “Ice cream before or after minigolf?”
“Minigolf?” I laugh. “Our courtship’s beginning with minigolf?”
“It’s beginning with every date I should’ve taken you on in high school.” Laine leans over to waggle her eyebrows at me. “Plus, I’m amazing at minigolf. Branson dyke, remember?” She rests her arm along the back of the truck’s bench seat and around my shoulders. “Got to impress my new lady.”
“Show her you can provide.” A wry smile rises on my face.
“That’s right. First comes minigolf, then comes marriage, then comes Zoe with a—”
“Whoa, stop right there!” I twist in my seat to face her. “Are you going to make me wait until marriage?”
Laine smiles and jostles me by the shoulders toward her. “Maybe.”
“Laine Woods, are you secretly a prude?!”
Laine arches an eyebrow while her lips curve in a smirk. “You do remember how we met, don’t you?”
“The first time? Or the second?”
“You remember the first time we ever met?” Her right hand caresses my shoulder, playing with the strap of my sundress.
“The first time I saw you, at least.”
“Tell me.”
I close my eyes, summoning the picture of Laine I’ve thought of a thousand times. “You were in the meadow behind your house, lying on this old picnic blanket staring up at the clouds. Your hair was fanned out behind you, and you looked so … thoughtful. So serious. I remember staring at the sky all afternoon trying to figure out what you were thinking about.”
We’re quiet for a long moment. Then Laine shakes her head. “You were so gay. Like, right out the gate.”
“Hey!” I laugh, leaning into her touch. “Well. Yeah.”
“I wish I’d known,” she says softly, and we’re quiet again, all the way to the ice-cream shop.
It’s an early August evening in Blue Ridge, the air thick with unspent rain. We eat our ice-cream cones one-handed down Main Street, because Laine won’t let go of my other one. She pauses mid-sentence to lick my scoop, then kiss me with summer-sweet lips for so long, a cold tendril of melt weeps down my fist before she lets me go. She licks that, too. My heart is aloft, beating above us, watching how Laine laughs at my stories, how she teases. When she smiles at me, she feels like home, if home was what I’d always desperately wished it would be.
When we reach the minigolf course, she makes a big deal of picking out our clubs just to make me laugh.
“We could make it interesting.” She squints one eye at me.
“You said you’re amazing! Why would I make a bet I’m sure to lose?”
“If I win,” Laine continues as though she didn’t hear me, “I get to take you out next Friday night. If you win, you get to pillage my body.”
We shake on it.
By the fourth hole, Laine’s kicking my ass so hard, there will be no pillaging.
Fucking athletes .
She’s pretending to help me with my swing when a loud, crackly voice clears behind us.
“Charlaine Woods, is that you?”
Laine straightens, and if Mrs. Peterson, our former high school principal, notices how swollen Laine’s lips are, or the lush mark on my neck she was leaving, she politely does not comment on it.
“Well, hey there, Mrs. Peterson. How you doing?”
“I’m just fine, the good Lord does provide.” Mrs. Peterson presses her hand to her chest. “I heard you were working at Bluebell. Hey there, Zoe.” She gives me a knowing glance that has me adjusting my hemline on reflex.
“Yes, ma’am.” Laine leans on her club like a dapper gent with a cane.
“Our shining star, back in Blue Ridge.” Mrs. Peterson tilts her head as if she’s trying to work out an algebra equation that doesn’t add up. “I have to say, I’m surprised.”
Her words are innocent, but the subtext is clear: You of all people were supposed to make something of yourself. Judging by the stiffness that’s gripped Laine, she heard Mrs. Peterson’s meaning, too.
I wrap my arm around Laine’s tensing back and squeeze. “Well, that’s the thing about stars, Mrs. Peterson. They shine in our skies, too.” I purposefully look over Mrs. Peterson’s shoulder. “Is that your grandson dunking children in the waterfall?”
“Oh, my! Good seeing you, dears.” She hustles off, a principal to the end.
Laine exhales, and I squeeze her a little tighter, leaning up to whisper in her ear, “Your worth doesn’t come from your job title, where you work, or where you live, Laine. You are amazing, just as you are.”
Laine turns to look at me, her tawny eyes a dark, smoky black in this poorly lit tropical jungle course. She drops her club, then takes mine and throws it down, too, and gathers me up in a kiss so scandalous, it takes my breath away. Kids are oohing, adults are shushing, and the poor teenager on duty takes a solid minute to get up the nerve to tap Laine on the arm and remind her this is a family-friendly establishment.
When we break apart, Laine leans her forehead against mine.
“I wish I’d known .”