Chapter 15 #2
She waits, her hand in mine, while I pay the bill.
Then, I lead her out the front door. We weren’t there very long, maybe forty-five minutes, but suddenly, I don’t want to be around people who aren’t her anymore.
On the street, she winds her hand through mine, and we walk down the center of the empty road.
“Does this feel like a hometown to you?” I ask.
“Not in a negative sense,” she says. “I wasn’t ever desperate to get out. I just didn’t know what to do up at the ranch.”
“So you didn’t want to leave?”
“I love the ranch,” she sighs. “Love the mountains, how quiet it is, even the employee housing. But I don’t really have a skill that translates to Ryder Ranch, so I picked a different path.”
“Do you regret it?”
For a moment, I think I delved too deep. Then, she shakes her head.
“No, but I don’t know that I want to work in the city forever.”
“It’s hard to leave behind the things that made you who you are.”
The words leave my mouth before I realize they’re not really mine.
My therapist said those to me, in my early days of sitting in her office.
I kept asking if I could sit on the porch and smoke, and she kept telling me not to, until one day, she let me.
And it was a fucking mess. The rehab looked out over a manicured lawn, a street, and some office buildings.
I sat there for a long time with the unopened pack in my fingers, thinking about how I didn’t want things to go back to the way they were, but I didn’t know anything else.
“You don’t want them to be,” she said gently.
She was right—I don’t want them to be. God, growth is so painful.
I toughed it out over those next few weeks, but it wasn’t the cigarettes or the pills I missed most. It was sitting on the porch steps, watching the goldenrod wave in the summer wind.
It was how used to desperation I was, how I didn’t feel like I deserved to have enough when the desperation was over.
Meeting Janie—that makes me put a lid on that line of thinking. Because, again, I will not be fucking this up. I don’t care if I have to stay up all night wrestling my demons.
I will keep my aim steady.
We walk for a while without talking. Then, she starts telling me about being a teenager on Ryder Ranch, about all the friends she had and what they got up to.
I’m glad she had all that, and it’s interesting to hear about it firsthand.
Nobody I knew had a particularly happy childhood, and hers seems like something right out of a movie.
She asks a bit more about mine. I tell her about the cabinet factory but not about the mines. That part of my life is a little harder to speak out loud.
We make it back to the truck. I put her in the passenger side, circle the truck, and come to a halt by the tailgate.
I think I’m gonna kiss her when I get inside.
Taking a breath, I look up at the stars hanging heavy in the sky, the same stars I looked up at for years, on nights I couldn’t sleep because the memory of being below ground stifled me like a pillow over my face.
This is one of those moments I want to remember. I missed so fucking much of my life, but starting right here and now, I’m gonna remember.
My feet move me around the truck, and I pull open the door, sinking into the driver’s side.
We’re alone, sheltered by the broad building in front.
My heart is beating real fast, but I barely register it.
She glances sideways, her soft hair falling around her face.
Shifting my knee so I can lean over, I touch her cheek.
She freezes then leans in.
Before I lose my nerve, I bend in and kiss her mouth.
My body tingles, my brain shuts down, and my nerves are on fire. She tastes real sweet, her lips so fucking soft. We both make a soft hmm, and our bodies shift together. My hand slides over her waist, pulling her until we’re up against each other in the dark truck cab. Her fingers grip my lapel.
I shift my hand, and my palm touches her thigh.
Quickly, I start to pull it back. I’m not sure she’s ready for me to be touching her naked skin yet. Without breaking our kiss, she grabs my wrist and puts it back, hitching it up a little higher, just beneath her hem.
God, she feels good.
Kissing escalates to making out in less than a minute.
She kicks off her cowboy boots, and I unhitch the seat, sliding it back to make room.
Then, she’s on my lap, her thighs around my waist. Her hands run through my hair, and my hands are all over her bare hips and thighs.
She doesn’t seem to mind—in fact, it’s the opposite.
I’m hard, there’s no way around it. Hopefully, she can’t feel it.
I fucking can; I might blow any second. We pull apart for a breath, and she smiles, flushed, hair messy in my fingers.
“Sorry,” she whispers.
“Sorry about fucking what?” I say. “Come here. Give me some more of that.”
If tomorrow morning, I run into Andy and he asks me if I respected his daughter, I will not be looking him in the eyes when I answer.
I don’t think making out this hard is really a first date activity.
Hell, maybe it is. I’ve been out of the dating field for a while.
But she’s feisty, and as turned on as I am, it’s a recipe for things getting hot and heavy fast. I think we should probably stick to kissing right now.
It’s good we do, because if she starts grinding those hips into my lap, I’m coming in my pants right here.
The windows steam over. I keep my hands no further than the lace edges of her panties. I keep the top of her dress on, even though I’m dying to unbutton it.
We’re both dazed about an hour later, when we finally resurface. Through the dark, I find the glow of the time on the dashboard. Goddamn, it’s after midnight.
“Reckon we should get back,” I say.
I brush her hair from her eyes. Her mouth is a little swollen, and I think I put a hickey on her neck. Gently, I run my thumb over the faint pink mark on her skin. I like it, knowing I put that there.
“Yeah, probably should,” she whispers.
Awkwardly, I lift her out of my lap and smooth down her skirt. She’s blushing so hard, biting at her lower lip. I start the truck and roll down the windows to clear the steam. Then, I lean over and put her cowboy boots back on.
“Ready?” I ask.
She sneaks her hand across the seat. I take it, winding my fingers through hers, and pull out onto the street.
Neither of us talk much on the drive back, and I like that we don’t have to.
A little bit outside town, around the part where I turn off onto the state route, she shifts her thumb to my pulse point on the underbelly of my wrist.
We don’t say a word, but she feels my heart beat fast for her all the way home.