Chapter 15 #4
Bernice Holden got her fruitcake. She also got quite the surprise when she made it home and found the spare twenty-dollar bill I slipped into the tin. Thanks to her, I’d gotten to kiss Gray again. It was the least I could do.
After I clocked out that night, Gray was waiting for me at the front of the store. Keys jangled in his left hand, and he was holding something behind his back in the right. As I approached him, he smiled, big and bright.
“I brought you something. Thought you might get a kick out of it.”
I reached forward, trying to snatch it from behind his back. Gray took a step back and shook his head. “It comes with conditions.”
“It does?”
“Mhm.” He nodded his head, not even attempting to hold back his smirk. “Gotta let me give you a lift home.”
I peered out the window, looking for headlights. “Mom’s supposed to—”
He shook his head again. “Already called her. She wasn’t too happy to hear from me.” For a moment, his expression changed to one of regret. But he was Gray, and Gray was nothing if not resilient. “So, what do you say? You want to ride in the big truck?”
I arched an eyebrow at him. “It isn’t that big.”
His eyes dipped down to my crotch. “Bigger than yours.”
“I warned you,” I said, fumbling with the button on my jeans.
“I told you if you kept insinuating it was small, I’d whip it out and measure it.
You only have yourself to blame.” I got the zipper halfway down before I heard him gasp.
With my neon-pink boxer briefs visible through the gap, I peeked up at him and winked, pulling the zipper back up and buttoning my pants.
I wasn’t sure if the look on his face was one of relief or regret.
As he steadied his breathing, I held out my hand. “I get to drive.”
The request snapped him out of his lusty, little stupor. “No,” he said, taking a step back. He pointed at the floor and drew an invisible barrier line in front of me with his finger. “No, Kent. I’m sorry, but this is the line and you’ve just crossed it.”
“Oh, I’m about to cross a line, alright. A goddamn police lineup after they find your bloated body floating in our lake.”
Completely unfazed by my threats of murder, but wincing when I took the Lord’s name in vain, he snickered. “See, you could do that.” Bringing his hand into view, he waved a CD in front of me. “But then you wouldn’t get to make fun of me on the ride home.”
“Oh my God!” I lunged, trying to grab the CD case out of his hand. He held it above his head, just out of my reach.
“You’re not driving.”
I shook my head.
“You’re not driving,” he repeated. “Say it.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Fine.” I looked up at the CD, just out of reach. “But you’re signing that CD for me so I can put it in my Gray Collins shrine.”
He cocked his head to the side. “You’ve got a shrine dedicated to me?”
My blood ran cold. In fairness, it wasn’t so much a shrine, as it was simply a drawer filled with relics from our past. Still, he didn’t need to know that.
I snatched the CD case and marched past him, ignoring the sweet sound of his laughter as the sliding doors opened.
Once we made it outside, Gray held the truck door open for me and offered me a hand for support.
I used all of my strength to lift myself into his unnecessarily tall pickup.
There was a bell chiming, indicating his keys were already in the ignition.
He’d just left them inside without worrying someone might steal it.
I was buckling my seatbelt as he slid behind the steering wheel, but Gray had other plans.
He patted the empty seat beside him, beckoning me over.
Once I was at his side, I held the CD case out in front of me.
“Just don’t be too harsh,” he said.
“I make no promises.” Without looking back at him, I studied the CD cover. My mouth hung open. “Sweet mother of God.”
“Like I said earlier; her name’s Mary, Kent, and I’m not gonna keep letting you degrade her.”
I knocked our shoulders together and laid my head on him.
As I stared down at the CD booklet, I was greeted by a delightful sight.
A picture of Gray standing in front of a red barn as he eye-fucked the camera was used as his album cover.
The words, written in Times New Roman, were unnecessarily all capitalized and stretched across the top: UNTIL WE’RE OLD AND GRAY.
I didn’t even try to hide the cheesy smile that was plastered across my face.
Without taking my eyes off the CD, I reached over, sliding my hand into his.
"This is...” When I looked up, he was staring down at our woven fingers, his jaw slack.
“Sorry,” I whispered, pulling away. Opening the case, I took out the booklet and snorted when I saw the first page.
Gray let out a groan and reached over, taking it from me. “Hey! That’s mine. Give it back.”
He shook his head and hid the booklet behind his back. He was still grinning, though I wasn’t sure if it was down to nerves or just general assholery. “It’s terrible. Trust me, there’s nothing to be seen inside there.”
“I think you know that just makes me want to see it even more.”
He lowered his head and held the CD booklet for me to take. I snatched it out of his grip before he could change his mind and flipped through the pages
As I studied the images, my eyes bulged. “Gray Collins, you absolute deviant!” There were so many things to unfold all at once. Pictures that made my heart swell with loving, affectionate cringe.
Gray standing on a church stage as Pentecostal women in their late teens reached up toward him like he was the second coming of Jesus.
Gray, soaking wet with a sultry look on his face as he poured a bottle of anointing oil over his own head.
Then, perhaps the greatest picture to have ever been taken.
“Oh my God-oh my God-oh my God!” I shot the words at him like bullets.
It was too much. It was just far, far too much to take in.
I turned to face him, leaving only inches separating us.
"This is the best thing I’ve ever seen.” In the booklet, Gray was in the centerfold, arms stretched across a wooden crucifix, wearing a cowboy hat for reasons that I couldn’t quite understand.
He was dressed in a button-down shirt with the top three buttons undone.
His head was tilted to the side, and the bastard was winking at the camera.
“This is completely sacrilegious, and I love everything about it.”
Gray winced as the words came out. I cocked my head to the side, my smile fading.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“I begged them not to put that one in. They tried to turn me into this contemporary Christian heartthrob. I just wanted to worship God, and they turned it into something dirty.”
I squeezed his wrist. “Then, fuck them. Fuck every single one of them for ruining it for you.” He attempted a smile, but his heart clearly wasn’t in it.
So, I closed the booklet, tucking it back into the case.
I turned the case around and looked at the list of songs, trying to see if I knew any of the ones he’d chosen.
“Awesome God. Great choice. Glorify Thy Name. Another solid—” When I saw the final song on the track list, a lump formed in the back of my throat. “Gray?”
“What’s wrong?”
My thumb brushed over three words that had always been meant just for me. Abide With Me. My lip trembled, and I turned away so he didn’t see the wetness forming in my eyes. Gray took the case from my hand, searching for the source of my upset.
“Oh,” he said before going completely silent.
“Was that for me?”
He didn’t look up. He didn’t answer. He didn’t do a damn thing. But he didn’t deny it.
Grabbing the case and pulling out the CD, I reached for the stereo, my finger hovering over the button.
I wanted to hear it. I needed to hear his voice singing that song for me again.
“Can we listen to it? Please?” His head bobbed.
Just enough movement to let me know it was okay.
I slid the CD into the player and skipped to the last track.
Gray's truck roared as he pulled out of the parking lot. The song started off soft, and a slow piano played out the familiar tune. He came in, his voice somber. By the time he got to the chorus, it was taking everything in me to keep it together.
My song.
Just for you, Half-pint. Just for you.
I squeezed his hand because it was the only thing I could do. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For remembering me.”
“How could I ever forget you?” He leaned down, pressing his lips against my scalp, and he let out a long, beautiful sigh.
When we pulled into Mom’s driveway, Gray put his truck into park.
We sat there for a while, neither of us speaking.
I’d been cuddled against him the entire ride home, and now that it was over, the act of pulling myself away felt physically impossible.
The warmth pumping out of his pores was like immolation, his heat and fire consuming me completely.
It was like I’d been aimlessly exploring a frozen tundra for years, and at that moment, in that pickup truck, Gray Collins was my refuge from the ravaging winds I’d grown accustomed to.
I didn’t want it to end. The second I slipped away from him and toward the door, we would lose momentum.
The dream. The one where he was still mine, and I would always be his.
Gray must have felt it as well, because even though he was breathing a little too fast, and his hand gripped my knee a bit too tightly, he hummed out that special song.
“I looked for you, you know," I said. "Every few months, I’d search for you online, but you were like a ghost.”
“You tried to find me?” His jaw trembled, and it took everything I had not to reach out and comfort him.
“I just wanted to make sure you were okay. To see how you turned out in the end, I guess.” I couldn’t bring myself to look at him. “To see if you were happy. Were you happy?”
“No,” he whispered, shaking his head. “Were you?”