Chapter 15
HENRY
Standing outside of Maisie’s door with her coffee order in hand, I start to feel nervous. I’m usually not one to feel this way but standing here, on her porch… I can’t help my trembling hands. I flex my fingers on my free hand and somehow I manage to knock on her door.
The patter of footsteps comes closer to the door and the latch of her front door unlocks. There are billions of humans roaming this floating rock and somehow I ended up in this small town with the most beautiful woman the world could ever see.
The door opens and I’m left breathless.
“Good morning, Henry.” Maisie looks like the sun shines just for her.
She is sunshine in the purest form.
“Good morning, Maisie.” My skin is getting hot just being in her proximity, another feeling I’ve never felt. “I got you your go-to coffee.” I hand it to her and I’d be lying if I said the brush of my fingertips against hers wasn’t on purpose.
“You remembered my order?” The look in her eyes is pure admiration.
“Of course I did, I wrote it down after I left Lakeside Grounds that day I ran into you.”
”Wow,” she lingers in the doorway, staring at her twitching hands, “that’s very sweet. Thank you, Henry.”
“I am very sweet, after all,” I joke, hoping to ease the anxious energy between us. “You look beautiful today by the way.” Beautiful is an understatement, she deserves to be put in The Louvre.
She has on a yellow dress that hits her mid thigh and a pair of cowboy boots that look like they’ve been well loved.
I wasn’t sure what to wear so I went with a black T-shirt and jeans, and brought a denim jacket in case Maisie gets cold.
“Thank you, you look good yourself.” She blushes. I wonder if I make her as nervous as she makes me.
“Are you ready for day one of your Fuck List?”
“It’s Fuck It List, not a Fuck List.” She grins and grabs her keys from her bag, fumbling with them to lock the front door.
“If it was a Fuck List, I’d still be here anyway,” I whistle, “I’d be number one on it.”
“Let’s go.” She rolls her eyes which only makes me like her more. “Don’t make me regret this.” And with that, she turns and we begin making our way to my truck. “I meant to ask the other day, is this Miles’ old truck?”
“Yeah, he let me borrow it for the summer since he recently upgraded and got a new one.”
I remember when Miles got this truck, it was his pride and joy—a red 1997 Chevy Silverado. When he turned sixteen, we would drive throughout the night, getting into all sorts of trouble. I even had my first kiss in this truck the summer I was seventeen.
“I thought it looked familiar, he used to drive it to school,” she says as I open the door for her. I’m reminded of the other day when I held her waist and set her in the passenger seat. I take her coffee from her and put it on the roof of the truck, holding out my hand for her as she steps inside.
“Wow, what a gentleman,” she says playfully but I don’t miss the hitch in her breath.
“Want to see a real gentleman?” I reach to grab her seatbelt and buckle her in. The whole time trying to mask the inhale as I take in her sweet floral scent. As I step back, I don’t miss how close our faces are to one another and I especially don’t miss the way her eyes graze my lips.
I’ll press my lips to hers one day.
“A real gentleman,” she whispers. “Thank you.”
I shut her door and hop around the front of the truck with a grin on my face I can’t even be embarrassed about. Today is going to be a good day.
Opening my door and sitting in the driver's seat, I give her a pointed look. “Alright, Winslow… time to go check off your first Fuck It List item.”
The Crescent County Fair is about a 20 minute drive out of Ruby Lake, in a town called Willow Creek. The drive takes us around the lake which may be one of the most beautiful drives I’ve ever seen.
The mountains are kissed by the sun, the evergreen trees are bright and green and the lake is moving in waves as boats fly through it. The sky is blue and clear with no clouds to be seen for miles. Today might be the perfect day.
But that might be because of the girl sitting next to me.
Maisie is in the passenger seat with the window down and it’s hard not to look her way as the wind tousles her blonde locks, yet I do. “I’m happy you asked me to help you with your list. Are you excited to make this The Summer of Maisie?”
“Is that what we’re calling it?” She turns to me with a smirk on her face.
“We could call it The Summer of Maisie and Henry, but this is your list.” I shrug. “I’m just lucky enough to be cheering you on from the sidelines.”
A giggle escapes her mouth. “You’re like my own personal cheerleader.”
“I’d be your personal cheerleader for life if you allowed me to, but I’ll take this summer for now.”
She doesn’t say anything, just looks out the window, but I see her twirling with her fingers again.
“This drive really is so beautiful, you’re lucky you got to grow up here,” I say, eyes back on the road but wishing I could continue to look at her.
“It is.” She shifts her body and lays her head near the top of the seatbelt, continuing to gaze out the window. “My mom used to take me to the fair a lot as a child, I haven’t been in… years.”
“Yeah? Why’s that?”
“Life just got too busy as we got older. My grandma needed more help at the diner, and next thing you know, another year had flown by.”
“I find it funny how as kids, all we wanted was to grow up so fast,” I glance at her and the way the sun is hitting her face perfectly, “but now that we’re older, we all long for what we once had. For the time we had.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I notice she ducks her head and stares down at her legs.
“Maisie?” I want to hold her, to touch her, for her to know I’m here. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”
Sighing, she picks up her head and leans against the headrest. “Honestly, I haven’t done anything for myself in a long time and I don’t know how to feel. Excited? Nervous? I’m not sure.”
“It’s okay to feel everything at once, it just means you’re alive.”
“Thank you for doing this.” I notice she still doesn’t look at me as she speaks. Her fingers anxiously playing with the hem of her dress now. “I’m still unsure why you said yes, but… thank you.”
“I will do anything you ask of me, Maisie. I’ll say yes every time.” I glance toward her at the same time as she looks out the window, looking ethereal. “How about some music to get you out of your head? My password is 0403 and Spotify should be on the home page.”
She grabs my phone from the cup holder I tossed it into and opens it, giggling to herself.
“I’m scared to know what you’re laughing at.”
“It’s nothing bad.” She laughs again and shows me the phone screen as we come to a stop sign. “It’s just that your last five liked songs are from the High School Musical soundtrack.”
“A guy can’t love a little nostalgia moment from time to time?” I laugh. “The second one is by far the best movie though.”
“Oh, no don’t get me wrong. I’m a huge High School Musical fan, and I hate to stroke your—” she stops at the same time that I quirk a brow in her direction. “Ego, pervert. I was agreeing with you that High School Musical 2 is superior but didn’t want to stroke your ego.”
“I love messing with you, it’s fun seeing you squirm.”
As if this is a game of who can make the most sexual innuendos, she hits me back with, “I’m sure you’d like to make me squirm.”
“Maisie Winslow, I cannot confirm or deny that accusation.” I try to ignore my hardening cock, not wanting to make this whole situation more sexual than it already is.
She bites her lip in an attempt to hide a smile, knowing exactly what she’s doing.
We drive the last few minutes to the fair with only the High School Musical soundtrack playing in the background.
“Maisie, you’re about to be a kid again like you were when you’d come here with your mom.
The child we both once were that wanted to grow up so bad.
” We pull into the parking lot, kids and families walking to the entrance, teenagers on dates, laughter circling around us.
“Today is about you, and about getting over your fear of the ferris wheel.”
“I almost forgot that’s why we were here.” She tenses up at the thought.
I look toward her and take the moment to touch her, moving a piece of hair that’s astray behind her ear. “I would never make you do something you don’t want to do. If we get there and you no longer want to get on it, we won’t. I promise.”
“Thank you,” she says quietly and I see her shoulders loosen up.
“Now, let’s go have a fun day. There’s no growing up happening today.”