Chapter 10 – GLENNA #4
“Brice doesn’t cut down any trees,” Cash tells me. “He goes out after we get a storm and clears the ones that fell.”
Brice flashes me a quick smile. He’s totally getting bashful now. He heaves open the heavy sliding doors and clicks on the lights. They flicker and then flood the huge space.
The barn has no stalls or hayloft. It’s open space with a skylight that shows nothing but blackness. It’s a cloudy night.
Along one wall, there’s a line of completed pieces. Goddesses. Warriors. Beautiful women with braids down their backs. Men with arms raised to the heavens, all rising from the rough wood. Some fighting to free themselves. Some launching into flight. Some climbing, dragging limbs from the oak.
They’re beautiful. Towering.
I see the piece at the newspaper office all the time, but it’s not until I see them all together, that I see the resemblance.
Every face is different, but just like side-by-side, you can see the Carrolls in every sculpture, no matter the expression.
There’s an echo of the set of Mr. Carroll’s jaw, or Deja’s sharp chin.
Or Brice’s soft smile. Or Mrs. Carroll’s long, graceful arms. The effect isn’t just recognition.
It’s more powerful than that. It’s seeing the tie between the fighter and the victor, the goddess and the woman dancing, head thrown back in joy.
They’re different, but the same.
I could look forever.
In the middle of the floor, there’s a thick trunk surrounded by low scaffolding. Brice’s work in progress. He’s hewn out a head, torso, and arms, but there are no features, yet.
“What’s this one going to be?” I ask.
Brice shrugs, holding an elbow in one hand. “Not sure if it’ll be anything yet.”
“It’s a woman.” Her hair is long and curly, and even though she has a slighter stature than the other pieces, she’s shapely.
He shrugs a shoulder. “Yeah. If it’ll be something.”
Cash is looking at Brice funny. Brice isn’t meeting Cash’s eyes.
“These are so beautiful.” I wish I had better words to describe them. They move .
“He won’t do one of me.” Cash sighs, teasing. “He says I’m too ugly.”
“Yup,” Brice says. His lips twitch. “It wouldn’t sell.”
Cash clicks his cheek.
“Waste of wood,” Brice adds as we head back to the door.
“You don’t have to rub it in, man.”
“Maybe I could do something where you’re holding Granger and his head is in front of yours. That might work.”
I snicker. Brice was always so shy in school. I’m not used to hearing him talk, let alone busting Cash’s chops.
“Come to think of it, maybe it’d be better if I just do the dog.” Brice nods to himself.
“Glenna does not find you funny,” Cash says as we make our way back to the house.
“She’s smiling,” Brice points out.
“‘Cause she’s polite.”
“‘Cause I’m hilarious,” he says, deadpan.
Mr. Carroll hollers “bye” when we pass his workshop, and we duck into the house to thank Mrs. Carroll for dinner. She’s made a plate of leftovers for Cash.
“Now, share with Glenna, all right?” she says and gives me a hug after Cash.
I don’t know what I did to deserve this welcome, but I’m grateful for it.
Brice walks us to the truck, Granger on our heels.
“Working on the cabin tomorrow?” he asks as Cash helps me up into the cab.
“Yeah. Comin’ over?”
“Yeah. Probably.”
They shake hands, and Brice watches us leave, Red Tail and Fancy plopped at his feet.
The lights from the holler fade quickly, and soon, we’re driving in pitch blackness.
It’s bumpy, and Granger’s climbing on me.
I don’t notice right away when Cash turns off the road and heads parallel to the mountain.
“Where are we going?” I find the right spot on Granger’s neck, and he settles down.
“I want to show you my cabin.” He glances over. His face is cast in shadow, but he seems nervous. “That okay?”
Oh.
He wants to “show me his cabin.”
My belly flips, but in a nervous, excited way. And then it flips again.
Do I want to?
Yeah. I’m already taut. Tight. On a spring. But that’s my body. Does my head want to?
How the hell do you know what your head wants?
I guess I’m supposed to want a nice guy who treats me well. A man who knows how to communicate. Someone with a good sense of humor. A partner who makes me a better person. That’s the kind of thing the magazines at my hair stylist say.
But this is Cash Wall. It just doesn’t feel like those criteria apply.
Cash glances at me nervously. “Or I could drive you home.”
As he says it, he slows to a stop and engages the parking brake. I can make out a steep pitched roof. It’s his cabin.
“Well, we’re here.” I don’t know if this is a good idea or what’s going on in my head, but I want to go inside. I want to see what he’s done. Is that a good enough reason?
Does it matter?
I don’t need to justify my choices to anyone. Just myself.
And I choose yes. I don’t want this to end quite yet.
“Really?” Cash’s face lights up. I nod. He hops down, hurries over, and helps me down.
“Stay here,” he says. He bounds up onto the porch and into the house, letting the screen door slam, and returns with a Coleman lantern.
Granger lopes off around back.
“He’s got an igloo out back. There’s a dog door, too, so he can come in if he’s cold. He likes it outside, though, ’til about Christmas. Then, he wants in.” Cash’s voice is deeper than usual. Grainier.
He’s nervous.
Me, too.
I’m happy for the dark. The lantern only casts so much light.
“Well, um—" He opens the door for me. I step inside. It’s pitch black. “Oh. Uh.”
Cash skirts around me and light splashes on unpainted drywall.
“Here’s the, uh, living room. Over here.” He goes down the hall and slaps a doorframe. “Closet.”
The lantern shines into a big room, but it’s not strong enough to reach the corners. “There’s a fireplace on the opposite wall. You can’t see it. Hold on.”
He crosses the room and holds the light up so I can see. It’s stone with a mantel made from the same honey-brown oak as the Carroll’s kitchen table.
“Did Brice make the mantel?” I guess.
“Yeah.” Cash smiles and scuffs the toe of his boot on the hardwood floors.
“He likes you.”
“He’s my best friend.”
“What about Logan and Holden and all them?”
“I like them fine.”
“But you like Brice better.”
“Yeah. He reminds me of you.” Cash lowers the lantern so his face is cast in shadow. He slowly stalks back toward me.
“How so?” My heart is thumping. This feels like telling secrets.
“You’re both artists.” He steps so close his boots touch the rubber toes of my sneakers. He bends so his breath hits my cheek when he speaks. “You both like giving me a hard time.”
“I’ve never given you a hard time.”
He chuckles. It’s warm on my cold skin. “You don’t remember when you and Dina would be playing in the treehouse, and I’d bring you popsicles? You knew I only liked grape, and you always picked it, didn’t you?”
I didn’t—only now, I’m remembering—yeah. I did. I knew, and I took the grape, and it was like a test—almost a dare—to see if he’d let me. And he did. Every time.
“That’s only popsicles. We were kids.”
He leans even closer. “You knew I watched you.”
His lips graze the divot below my ear.
Shivers skitter down my spine. “When?”
He’s always watched me, looking for an opening, a chance to strike. At least that’s how it seemed.
“At the pool. After you swam, when you laid out on the chaise lounge. Your eyes were closed, but you knew. You’d arch your back. Bend one knee and then switch. Take your time. Point your toes. You knew you had me hooked.”
It’s instinct to deny it. I was thirteen. But now, yeah, I remember.
I’d keep my eyes screwed shut because it was almost too much, like the slow ride up a roller coaster. I didn’t quite believe he was really looking. It was delicious, the sun, the breeze on my damp skin, his eyes. I ached, and I didn’t know why.
“You did, didn’t you?” His voice has dropped so low, it vibrates.
“Yeah.”
He groans. “Tell me yes, Glenna.”
I don’t even think. “Yes.”
He grabs me by the waist, lifts me up, seizes my thighs, and all I can do is hang on and wrap my legs around him. He kisses me wherever he can reach—my neck, my nose, the base of my throat. And he staggers down the hall, his fingers digging into my ass, panting, moaning my name.
His cock is hard, pressed against the seam of my jeans. It’s pitch black. He dropped the lantern.
He carries me through a doorway, and without warning, he drops me. I bounce. I’m on a king-sized mattress on the floor. No bed frame. The sheets smell like fabric softener, and from the silkiness of the fabric, I’m pretty sure the cover is an unzipped sleeping bag.
I kick off my shoes.
Am I doing this?
Am I ready?
I ache. Crave. Want.
What does ready even mean?
There’s a zip, a thud, a rustling, and then Cash is above me. Naked. Braced on his thick, muscular arms. Kissing me. Tasting me. Stirring up my insides, setting my heart to thumping so loud I swear he must be able to hear it in the quiet dark.
I love the dark.
He takes the hem of my sweater and pulls it over my head, pausing the kiss for the briefest second possible, and then he fumbles at my back. My bra comes loose. He throws it somewhere.
I arch my back, pressing my swollen breasts into his bare chest, grazing my nipples across the bristly hair that dusts his pecs.
“Oh, God, yes,” he pants, popping my button, pulling down my pants. I toe them off, kick them away.
We’re both naked. Cash and I. A wave of panicked shyness overtakes me, but it’s dark, and we’re kissing like we’re sharing secrets, like we haven’t seen each other in a hundred years, and we have to say everything at once.
His hands mold my sides, slide over my hips, test the firmness of my ass, slip between my folds and then draw the wetness up my belly, tickling me. I giggle. He chuckles and winds his fingers in mine, raising my arms above my head, settling himself between my legs.
“Say yes again,” he says.
“Yes.” I’m breathless.
“Say yes, Cash .”
“Yes, Cash.”