Chapter Four #3
A blush rises to my cheeks, and I clear my throat before I speak, which still takes several seconds.
“Oh my God. Travis.” His blue eyes shine.
Most of him is just as I remember. Tall, with broad shoulders, dimpled smile.
But fine lines form beside his eyes when he smiles now, and a deep crease sits between his brows.
I wonder what he thinks, looking at me. Is he noticing my creases as well?
I’m not sure I’ve held up as well as he has, even with the dermatologist I can now afford.
I wish I’d brushed my teeth before I came down.
Hell, put clothes on. I try to remember if I’d put deodorant on this morning.
“You should’ve seen your face,” Travis says, still laughing. “You looked guilty.”
A small knot tightens in my stomach, but I ignore it. “I look tired is what I look.”
“Nah. You look great.”
His smile matches mine. It’s been almost twenty years since I’ve seen that smile.
Since we rolled on a levee together, his hands making familiar territory of my body.
Since I showed up at his house in the middle of the night, panicked and scared, asking for his help.
Since he helped me. The knot in my stomach turns into a hard stone. And now he’s a cop.
“How’d you know I was here?” I say, working to keep the nerves out of my voice.
He lowers his chin. “Really? You think you could have kept the fact you were back in town secret? News travels fast in small towns. Not to mention my brother said he saw a fancy woman driving around yesterday. And Charlie LaSalle likes to talk loud at Nan’s too.”
The truck that roared past me yesterday on Main Street.
His brother. If I remember correctly, Travis had six brothers, most of whom had moved away by the time I met him.
I figured Travis would have moved, too, considering what his homelife had been like.
He called it shitty back then. I’ve learned enough to call it what it actually was, toxic at best, abusive at worst. It’s one of the things we had in common.
Travis nods and looks around. An awkward silence settles around us. I shuffle on my feet, toying with the idea of lying and saying I have to be somewhere so he’ll leave. This reunion doesn’t need to happen. Definitely not part of the get-in-and-get-out-quickly plan.
“Well, thanks for coming by.”
“Sure. I’m glad I—” Travis starts, and I interrupt.
“Want a cup of coffee?” So much for my plan.
“You bet.” He whistles as he crosses into the foyer. “Been a few years since I’ve been in here. Sorry to show up unannounced. And I was sorry to hear about your great-aunts.”
“It’s fine. Thanks. Been a few years since I’ve been here too.” Our eyes linger on each other a fraction too long. I glance down at my small robe. “You can head on into the kitchen. I need to change.”
He peeks at my legs. “If you insist, but don’t change on my account.”
The heat in my cheeks deepens. What is wrong with me? I feel like I’m fourteen again. I hurry up the steps and return to the kitchen a few minutes later. Travis looks out the window over the sink. “Didn’t this place seem bigger when we were kids?”
“It did.”
He turns around and chokes on his sip of coffee. “What are you wearing?”
I look down at my pressed suit pants. “What?”
He laughs. “You going to court or a funeral?”
I fill my coffee cup. “Ha. Ha.”
He pulls a kitchen chair out for me, and we both sit. He holds his cup up. “Hope you don’t mind, I helped myself.”
“Of course not.” This little reunion seems to be much more comfortable for him than for me. I’m having a hard time keeping my foot from tapping under the table. He looks completely relaxed, like no time has passed.
“Confession,” he says. “I’ve followed your career a little.” He looks down into his coffee. “I even bought your book.” He glances back up. “You really got it together, Willa.”
I cock my head to one side and eye him. “Guess you don’t watch YouTube.”
He grins. “Except for that.”
“Yeah. Except for that.”
Another awkward silence creeps in. Travis’s eyes land on the large silver thermos tucked beside the sink. “Damn, Willa. How much coffee do you drink on a daily basis?”
“Whatever it takes to get the job done.”
“Willa, Willa, Willa,” he says.
He’s staring at me with a faraway look. Travis and his brothers who’d stuck around were like a pack of wolf pups every summer, all paws and tripping over each other to get to me, the only viable out-of-town teenage girl in the entire parish.
And I encouraged it. Hell, I’d learned at the knee of the master.
I’d been raised in a testosterone vacuum: Krystal Lynn, Mabry, the Aunts.
As soon as those Arceneaux boys made an appearance at Shadow Bluff, with their dirty fingernails and tanned chests, I was done for.
I smelled their pheromones and damn near got drunk on them.
Travis was a couple of years older than me, and even though some of the others tried for my attention, my attention stayed on Travis.
Mostly because he ignored me. But he didn’t ignore me long.
Soon, he was sneaking me out of Shadow Bluff in the middle of the night with a six-pack of beer and a blanket.
Then one night his rough hands found their way under my shirt, and I didn’t stop him.
Travis was my first. I was fourteen. The first time was awful, but we got better at it.
We couldn’t keep our hands off each other.
And every summer was the same after that.
I’d come to town, and we’d start back up like no time had passed.
It was so easy, so comfortable. Until that last summer.
I clear my throat, and the sound breaks the silence.
I try to think of something other than his skin against mine.
That was a long time ago. But being in such close proximity brings it back like it was yesterday.
I have an urge to reach over and hold his hand.
But I don’t know that hand anymore. And he doesn’t know mine.
“You know,” I motion around the room, “this house is going to the Historic Preservation Society.”
“Is it?” He’s still staring at me with that crystallized stare.
“Yep. It is.” I sip, shift in my chair. Silence falls again, and I work to come up with something to say, usually not a problem for me.
I built a career on talking. But this setting and this man have me flustered.
“My mom got a letter asking her to clean out anything that belonged to her. So here I am.” Shit.
Why did I tell him that? He doesn’t need to know that.
He doesn’t need to know anything about that box of tapes in the attic, especially given his profession.
“So how long you going to be here?” Travis asks, bringing me back to the kitchen.
“Not long.”
“Too bad.” He checks his watch and grabs his sunglasses, then pushes back from the table. “I guess I better be going.”
I walk him to the front door, where he pauses. “Um.” He slips on his sunglasses, clears his throat. “Maybe we could grab dinner before you leave. Catch up.”
I smile. “Sure.”
“Tonight?”
No, absolutely not. “Oh. I . . . sure. Why not?”
He smiles back at me. “Great.”
“Great.”
We look at each other, and the moment drags a little too long. “Okay then,” I say.
“Guess I should get your number.”
I give it to him, and he punches it into his phone.
He starts for the porch steps, then stops and looks back at me.
“Actually, are you hungry now? I haven’t had breakfast, and you could join me in town if you want.
I know a great breakfast spot.” He exhales a laugh.
“It’s pretty much the only breakfast spot. ”
Tell him no thank you, Willa. Tell him you have things to do.
The box in the attic is waiting. My foot starts tapping again.
I shove my hand in my pocket to keep from chewing on the side of my thumbnail.
No plans, no dinner, no breakfast with a cop, even if it is Travis. Especially because it’s Travis.
“Well?” he says, smiling.
The answer is no, the voice in my head says.
But I am hungry, and I need to eat somewhere, and those boxes are fine for now. I found what I needed. Taking an hour to regroup and eat something isn’t going to make a damn bit of difference. Those tapes are worthless until I can figure out a way to watch them.
Besides, avoidance as a coping mechanism doesn’t sound so awful at the moment.
“Breakfast sounds good,” I say.