Chapter 4
CHAPTER
FOUR
I don’t know why I started this conversation, I really do not. I poked the bear. I knew better but I did it anyway. I’m so sorry for trying to understand her. How dare I.
“I just… I’m tryin’ to understand, is all,” I tell Jo Jo, who is currently slamming around things in the kitchen like she’s killin’ spiders.
With a dish in one hand and a spoon in the other, she turns to face me, her cheeks flared with anger. My heart gains another crack at the sight of her unbridled rage. Rage directed toward me.
“Just because you like horseback riding doesn’t mean I do! You already make me go to the farmers market with you and sit next to you like I’m a fucking toddler!” she shouts, and at the use of that word, my eyes snap onto hers immediately.
“Don’t you dare use that language in this house,” I warn her, stern and firm, but not loud. I don’t need to be loud to be heard. Being the head of the house isn’t about being the loudest, and I’ll rest on that laurel.
Her nostrils flare, and my chest is so tight now that I can hardly breathe. She hates me so much. “Not everything is about you. I don’t want to ride horses with you. I don’t want to sit and sell your leather stuff and I don’t want to explain to you why I want to cheer! It’s not like you care anyway!” she shouts, spinning on her heel to shove the dishes away. Angry and silent, she storms past me, down the hall, and I’m met with the familiar slam of her bedroom door.
I walk slowly down the hall, pausing in front of her door. She isn’t crying. Crying is something I’ve learned I can hear through the door. She isn’t typing or on her phone. I raise my hand to knock, but then what? To say what? What could I say that would change anything at this point?
I lower my hand, and go to the only place where I can free my mind from this for a few hours. The garage.
My hands are itching to get to the leather, my mind building out an idea for the next flogger. This one with longer tails, thinner, giving more whip, more sting. I take a seat at my work bench and set my focus on the design, ignoring the occasional hard-on that comes with creating this.
I haven’t fucked a woman since my wife, and that was ten years ago. The woman I see in my mind when I make these floggers isn’t really a specific woman but just… the next one I love. If I get to experience that again. If not, these pieces are accomplishments of their own—an admission of what I want. What I seek. What I need the next time I’m intimate.
My marriage was beautiful, but the loss of Janie changed me. I need different things now, I have new needs.
Running my pricking wheel down the piece of leather I plan on turning into the shaft of the toy, I think about the gorgeous blonde behind the barn the other month. The way her pupils flared when I smacked her hand with mine.
While I make the flogger, I think of all of the things I’d like that make my jeans tight as hell, and none of the things that break my heart.
The blonde with the splinter is my escape.
Jo Jo and I have not spoken anything meaningful in a while, but in the last few days? Extra radio silence, which I previously thought impossible. I’ve asked if I can make her favorite meal, if she wants to watch a movie or play Scrabble, or come down to the shop with me this Sunday for inventory. Even said she could invite some of her friends and we’d order pizza. I didn’t bring up horseback riding or the farmers market, I waited until she had her morning coffee—which is new—I even made sure to not use the “annoying” voice I sometimes use (not that I even know what the hell that means).
Still, next to nothing.
Idling in front of the Bruiser gym, I’m waiting for Jo Jo to leave tryouts when I spot Dean leaving the training office. I throw the truck into park and slide out, catching him in the parking lot as he moves toward his pickup.
“Ho, Jakey, how’s it going? You’re picking Jo Jo up, huh?” he notices, as we shake hands, then make our way to the bed of his truck where we lean against the side, watching the sun drop in the sky.
I knock my hat back an inch or two and welcome the cool air that nips at my sweaty forehead. “Yeah, I gotta inventory the Saddlery this weekend so I’m trying to cut my days short and spend some more time with her this week since Saturday and Sunday are shot.”
Dean nods, reaching back into the bed of the truck to produce a plastic Ziploc of sunflower seeds. He stuffs a handful into his mouth. “How’s that going?”
I let out a heavy sigh. “I am the plague.”
Dean crunches, turning his head to spit out shells. “Yep,” he says, “you surely are. All parents are at that age.”
I reach into the bag and take a handful. “I hate it.” We crunch together in silence, and then I quit being selfish and ask, “how’s the lineup shaking out?”
Dean peers at me with a smirk. “Killer.”
My brows lift. “Yeah?”
He nods. “Maybe the first team to go to championships since we did.” He thumps his chest. “2008 revival.”
I can’t help but laugh, and Dean joins me. Because we may have won that year, sure, but we were a team of C-stringers at best. If either of us had a lick of true talent, he’d be more than a school teacher and a coach and I’d do more than make saddles and whips I never get to use.
“We were the best of the worst,” Dean laughs, tugging at the Bluebell Bruiser polo clinging to his chest. Despite the fact the sun is setting and seasons are changing, it’s still warm tonight.
The weather tonight reminds me so much of Jo Jo’s childhood. A specific memory comes to mind as Dean crunches seeds, spitting them every minute or so.
Janie and I on the back porch, Jo Jo in a nightdress, already bathed and ready for bed, running through the lawn, collecting dandelions. The sun was melting over her, making her look like a Renaissance painting. I looked over at Janie who was watching Jo Jo, and she looked the same, with orange and yellow dripping over her features, highlighting her natural beauty. The moment itself was beautiful, but when the gym doors open, it knocks the moment from my mind.
“Varsity girls,” Dean notes, watching the stream of sweaty looking girls trail lazily from the gym, exchanging congratulatory high fives.
Knowing there are just a few minutes before Jo Jo comes out, I grip the side of the truck. “She gave up horseback riding and the farmers market for this and I just… I just don’t understand. She’s never even liked team sports.”
Dean adjusts his hat and zips up the bag of seeds, rolling his duffle closed. “Look at us. We played ball together, and we’re still friends. It’s like I told ya before, she’s probably just trying to find a place she feels like she fits.” He claps a hand on my shoulder. “Maybe just support the choice, because it could be a good thing for her.”
The woman from the farmers market flashes through my mind all over again. The gorgeous blonde with those little sandals that would’ve looked mighty good resting on my shoulders–she’s the one I saw Jo Jo with, she’s one of Jo Jo’s teachers. I can’t help but wonder… did she convince Jo Jo to cheer? “What do you know about her coach?” I ask vaguely, be cause I cannot remember Jo Jo’s coach’s name for the life of me. Though I know it’s written on a big list of shit taped to the fridge, as of now, I can’t recall.
“Miss Cadence? Oh she’s alright. Don’t know her too well since she teaches home economics and that’s not near my office but… she seems nice.”
More girls filter out, and my crotch gets hot when I see a swish of long, blonde hair, a white smile and two shining blue eyes. She’s petite, but she’s got more than a handful of breasts, and for some irritating reason, I find myself attracted to her.
She’s even managed to come to mind a few times during my extra long showers.
Though I got no reason, and no business, I keep staring at her until Dean follows my gaze.
“Oh that ain’t Miss Cadence. That’s Miss Riley Rivers, she’s the JV coach. The new health teacher, too.” He cracks the last seed, spitting the shell out between our boots. “Miss Riley is new to Bluebell this year.”
Riley Rivers. Just her name makes me warm, and bumps lift along my neck.
Then an elbow comes into my side, jarring me from staring at Riley. “Jo Jo,” Dean whispers, and I turn to see my daughter, her cheeks red with exhaustion, her hair pulled up in a ponytail with loose pieces sticking out, her gym bag over her shoulder.
“Hello? Let’s go.”
I look at Dean who smiles uncomfortably, adding, “Y’all have a nice night, now. Bye, Jo Jo.”
“Bye, Dean,” she says, jumping into the truck and slamming the door shut. I get into the driver’s seat and the next time I glance up at the pavilion in front of the gym, the blonde is gone .
Jo Jo clips her seatbelt and doesn’t look my way when she says, “Tryouts were tonight. I made the team.”
After showering her with congratulations that go unanswered, I drive us home, and Jo Jo ends up in her room after eating sandwiches with me in silence.
I made another flogger that night, followed by an extra long shower.