Chapter 5
Scottie
“Hello?”Koen answers on the third ring. He sounds distracted—short and a little out of breath.
“Hey. It’s Scottie. If this is a bad time?—”
“Uh, no. Just a sec.”
There are muffled voices in the distance and scratching noises like his phone’s speaker is rubbing against something. Then there’s a click, and it’s quiet.
“Sorry. What’s up?”
Shit.
Nothing is up.
“Really, if this is a bad time. I can call you later.” I pick at a loose thread on the frayed cuff of my denim button-down.
“Nope. The time is fine.”
My nose wrinkles while I silently berate myself. I should have texted.
“Scottie?”
“Yeah, uh …”
“Hi,” he says in his confident tone. “Did you call just to say hi?”
My body relaxes as I slowly spin in circles on the swivel stool behind the counter.
“Or are you calling to cancel our date? That would suck, but I would understand. I was pretty creepy the other night.”
I chuckle. “No. I’m not calling to cancel. I’m bored. It’s a slow day in the store, and I thought maybe you were taking a lunch break. But you sounded busy when you answered. So yeah, I called to say hi.” I can’t stop smiling; I can’t tame those butterflies. “Hi,” I whisper, stopping the stool as a customer enters the store. “Hi,” I say to the customer. “Let me know if I can help you.”
“Sounds like someone came into your store.”
“Yes. I’ll let you get back to work. I’ll try to control my bored impulses in the future.”
“Hey, man! Are you coming?” A deep voice drifts from his side of the call, along with several thumps.
“Well, good chat,” I say with a tiny laugh.
“Just some assholes banging on my truck window. They’re lost without me.”
“Are you their boss?”
“Nope. Just the only one who knows what to do.”
“Ah, gotcha. Well, I’ll see you in eight days.”
“Eight of the longest days of my life.”
I press a hand to my mouth to hold my squeal.
A dog barks.
With a deep breath, I regain my composure. Barely. “Do you take Scrot to work with you?”
“Of course. At least when I can.”
I don’t know why this makes me happy, but it does. “I love that. Well, see ya.”
He hums. It’s deep and sexy. Is he slowly killing me on purpose? “Bye, Scottie.”
I end the call and pull my shirt away from my skin to keep from overheating as the young woman who just came into the store reads the label of a bag of soup mix. Then, another customer comes through the door, and the rest of my afternoon turns into a steady flow of customers.
A few minutes before five, Price steps into the store. There’s something different about him, more than just the long span of years we’ve been apart. I can’t put my finger on it. When I’m with him, I have this urge to hug him and never let go. He’s a man who needs an eternal hug. That wasn’t the Price I met in Philadelphia. And I never thought I would see him again. There are so many things I want to say, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to tell them.
“Hi. Are you feeling okay?” I stare at him while stacking clean glasses on the shelf above the soda fountain.
He draws in a long breath and holds it while smiling. “Just nervous about my new job.”
“I believe everything you’ve done in life until this point has prepared you for this. All that hard work is about to pay off.”
Price’s raised eyebrows don’t seem convinced, but he manages a smile while averting his gaze to the display of crystal necklaces and bracelets.
I stack the last glass and retrieve a bracelet from the rack. “I make these.”
Price eyes me with surprise, or maybe it’s wonder in his eyes.
“This one,” I slide the bracelet onto his wrist, “has selenite, which has cleansing properties, strengthens immunity, and helps protect you from losing control.”
Price stiffens, gaze shifting to mine as I tighten the strings on the bracelet.
“Rose quartz for self-love, fluorite to replace negative energy with positive energy, and citrine for courage.”
He swallows hard. “I fear you think I need a lot of help.”
Holding his gaze for several silent seconds, I smile. “It is I who needs help. So let’s get you trained.”
Price pulls cash from his front pocket.
“Nope. It’s a gift. Wear it every day. That’s all the thanks I need. And when people ask you where you got it, send them my way.”
He stares at the bracelet with a heartbreakingly somber expression, whispering, “Thank you.”
Over the next two hours, I teach him how to make the sodas, malts, and sundaes and form a perfectly round scoop of ice cream to fit atop the sugar cones. Then I offer a tutorial on the cash register and finish his training by mopping the floor. I feel his gaze when I’m focused on showing him something. It’s like the night Koen came into the store, repeatedly inspecting me when he didn’t think I was looking.
“I won’t make you close up yet. I’ll be sure I’m here by eight to do that.” I return the mop to the back room.
“You don’t trust me with a key? Or you have to ask your boss?” he asks, resting his shoulder against the doorframe while I wheel the mop bucket into the corner by the broom.
Wiping my hands on my jeans, I glance up at him. “Neither. I just don’t want to overwhelm you.”
“The soda fountain overwhelmed me.”
I smirk. “As I recall, you mixed drinks like a seasoned bartender, trying to get a nineteen-year-old girl drunk. I don’t believe sodas overwhelm you. There’s a cheat sheet.”
When I reach the doorway, he doesn’t move but fiddles with his bracelet.
“You conquered the world, didn’t you?”
The corners of his mouth twitch. “Why do you think that?”
“Because you look like a man who conquered the world.”
He grunts. “I look like shit.”
“You look like someone who trained for months to run a marathon, then collapsed at the finish line.”
He seems to give it some thought before nodding several times.
“Well, I didn’t conquer the world. In fact, I don’t own this store or that trailer because I don’t need much.”
“To be happy?”
“To live.”
A tiny crease forms along the bridge of his nose. “It’s almost too simple,” he whispers as if his words aren’t meant for me.
“Price, I just wanna be here. I want to breathe the air, eat the food, converse with people, gaze at mountains, and dive into oceans. Make love. Watch movies that make me laugh until I nearly wet myself. Read books that tear out my heart. I want to live. Happiness is an emotion, a state of mind. But humans are not static. We’re constantly evolving, and our emotions shift without warning. The question is: What do you need to feel like you’re living?”
His lips part for a second. “I need not to?—”
The door chimes.
“What do you need?”
He shakes his head as if the thought has gone. “I should head home. Or do you want me to help this last customer?”
“No. I’m the one who forgot to lock the door and shut off the Open sign. Can you work from five to eight this Friday? I’ll be here by eight to close.”
“Friday.” He nods and turns. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.” I follow him out of the back room. Just as he exits through the front door, I catch a glimpse of my last customer of the night—and his adorable Fox Terrier.
“Sorry, sir. We’re closed. I can’t have you lingering too long.” I turn off the Open sign and immediately feel those darn butterflies.
Koen grins, snagging a bottle of our local ginger beer. “Sorry, I’m just really nervous about our date. How are you feeling about it?” He sets the bottle on the counter with some cash and adjusts his baseball cap. He makes that navy flannel shirt look better than I ever knew flannel could look. Plaid is officially sexy.
And I don’t believe he’s nervous about anything for one second.
I squat beside him to pet Scrot behind his ears. “Terrified. You will ask me if working in a general store is my life’s aspiration. And I will tell you that I also make crystal jewelry and essential oil perfumes. No 401K. No health insurance. I might even reveal that the people who own this general store also own the Airstream where I sleep. But in the next breath, I’ll confess that I wouldn’t change anything about my life. And you’ll either find it endearing or pathetic. But either way, you’ll stay through dinner, and I’ll ask you about your job. Since you’re a welder, I’ll run out of follow-up questions because I know nothing about welding. So … yeah. I’m nervous about our date.” I stand, giving him a toothy grin before making my way around the counter to get his change for the ginger beer while he twists off the top.
“Damn.” He takes a swig. “This is going to be a weird date. I’ve never thought to ask someone about their life’s aspirations. You’re the kind of woman who enjoys deep conversations, and I’m the guy who has a million things running through my head at once but can rarely articulate any of them in a way that makes sense. So I usually default to talking about sports or my favorite places to travel.”
I slide his change to him. “I like tennis. I used to be pretty good at it, and I love watching it. I like college football more than professional. Golf bores me in every way imaginable.”
Koen taps his knuckles on the counter several times while twisting his lips. “I need to walk Scrot. And I owe him a game of fetch. It was a busy afternoon.”
“Because your date for next weekend disrupted you.”
He chuckles before chugging the rest of his ginger beer. “Not even a little.”
I toss his bottle in the recycling bin and turn off the register. “Why are we not going out this weekend?” I ask.
“Because I’ll be out of town.”
I nod. “I see. How do you play fetch in the dark?”
“A glow-in-the-dark Frisbee.”
“Oh! That reminds me. I like Frisbee golf.” I grin. “So not all golf bores me. And I like the card game we played.”
“Would you like to walk with us to the park and play fetch too?”
I pull on my sweater. “I’d love to. I need to switch my shoes.” I squeeze past him to lock the front door. “We’ll go out back.”
“Mmm, you smell good.”
I pause for a breath before glancing over my shoulder at him just inches from me. Every time he hums, I feel it more than I hear it. And it makes me a little weak in the knees.
“Jesus, that sounded creepy.” He takes a step back and covers his grin with his fist.
“Are you going to suck my blood?”
“Do you want me to suck your blood?” He smirks.
“Herb said you’re shy.”
“Did he? That’s interesting.”
I pull up my sleeve and lift my arm, scooting my bracelets away from my wrist while holding it close to his face. “It’s my newest blend: clary sage and vanilla with bergamot, ylang-ylang, and jasmine notes.”
He turns his hat backward and leans forward, taking a slow inhale. “What’s it called?”
“Oh …” I nervously laugh and slide my sleeve back down my arm while making my way to the back door. “It’s called Foreplay.”
“Is it now? That’s a great name. Who doesn’t love?—”
“Don’t.” I giggle, stepping out back and waiting for him to follow me so I can set the alarm and lock the door. I can’t look at him. “There’s no need to reply. I named it for the women who buy it, not the men who … you know.” When it’s set and locked, I turn toward him.
His lips press together for a beat. “So, what are your life’s aspirations?”
I like him so much. This slow burn is starting to feel like an inferno.
“Well,” I brush past him toward my trailer, “after we play fetch, I want to learn everything I can about welding so we don’t have to talk about me and my erotic concoctions on our date. But other than that, I’m pretty open to whatever life wants to send my way. I’m a proud underachiever.” I open my trailer door.
“If you need help with your welding research, call me. I can help you bone up on that before your big date.”
Koen’s quick wit and unyielding confidence are just two more things to add to the rapidly growing list of traits that make him irresistible. Just like my new perfume, it’s a perfect combination.
It’s foreplay.
“Come in,” I motion with my head.
“Scrotum and I will wait—” He stops.
He should have kept going. I might not have noticed his error. Was it an error?
I slip out of my Birkenstocks, keeping my eyes on him while he stands unblinking with half his body inside and half outside.
“Did you say?—”
He bites his lower lip and nods. “Yeah,” he says slowly. “I found him on a camping trip in Wyoming. He was taunting a mountain lion. I’d never seen anything like it. Eventually, the lion ran off. My brother whistled and said, ‘That dog’s got big balls.’ When we found no identification or a chip on him, I brought him home. And my brother said I should call him Ballsy.” Koen bobs his head a few times. “And perhaps he was right. But I thought Scrotum would be a better name because … well, a scrotum has balls.”
I snort, cupping my mouth.
“I quickly discovered women don’t find the name quite so cool, so I call him Scrot for short.”
I have no words, so I duck my head to hide my grin while I shove my feet into my sneakers. “Well, he’s the most adorable Scrotum I’ve ever seen.”
“Is that saying a lot?”
While I finish tying my shoes, I glance up. “Are you asking if I’ve seen a lot of scrotums?”
Koen scratches the back of his neck and chuckles. “I might be.”
“I’ve seen a handful.” I roll my lips between my teeth while I step closer, and he backs out my door. Koen carries a rugged scent, one of those just-for-men soaps that go for a cedarwood but end up smelling like a mix of leather and campfire. He wears it well.
After I close the door behind me, he cups my wrist and lifts my arm.
“What?” I ask.
“Just seeing how big your hand is.” He releases it. “So you’ve seen like … two scrotums.”
I like him so much I can’t stop smiling.