Chapter Three
Leighton
“Thanks for picking me up and dropping me off.”
I glance over at Caleb, giving him a soft smile.
He looks older than his fifteen years, but he’s had to grow up quick, just like I did.
From what I’ve been able to gather, Mason’s been a single dad for at least the past thirteen years, and I’m not sure if Caleb’s mom is alive or not.
They don’t talk about her much; no one talks about her at all, to be honest.
“Not a problem. You know I don’t mind helping out if you need it. Do you work tomorrow?”
I waitress at The Café, and Caleb helps in the kitchen and busses the tables.
It’s not much work, but he does it, and does it well.
Mason’s instilling a good work ethic in the kid, and I can’t help but admire it.
I wish I had come by my own work ethic the way he is, and not by helping out with the family business as a teenager.
He nods, a yawn cracking his jaw. “Yeah, I’m gonna be there after football practice. So I’ll be working later than you will be,” he explains as he grabs his bag, reaching for the handle on the door to let himself out of the car.
“Still,” I say, reaching into my pocket and give him a portion of my tips. My way of thanking him for keeping my tables clean and honestly just to help him out because I know he’s living a difficult life right now. “If you need someone to drive you, either I or Holden will help.”
“My dad won’t get in trouble?” he asks quietly, mentioning Mason.
“I hate asking his boss for a ride. It doesn’t seem like something most bosses would do for the people who work for them.
I don’t want charity and I don’t want to inconvenience anyone.
” His voice is strong as he says those words, and I wonder just how much he thinks he’s a burden to other people, how much that weighs on him.
It’s weighed on me for most of my life, and I’m not the person to be helping someone else get rid of that weight, but I want to at least try and make it easier on him.
“We’re here to help,” I explain, like I always do to this teenager who’s got the weight of the world on his shoulders. “Everybody’s here to help. All you have to do is ask. The same way we’d ask you or your dad if we needed help. It’s what families, whether they’re blood or by choice, do.”
I don’t want the weight he has on his shoulders to crush him. Don’t want him to end up in the same situation I was in before Holden rescued me. Not that he has a family making moonshine, but it’s important for me to let him know he’s cared about.
He reluctantly takes the tip out I hand him, before getting out of the car. “I know,” he says with a grin. This kid will be a heartbreaker one day soon, and I can’t help but smile back.
“See ya around, Caleb.”
He gives me a wave as I pull out of the driveway and turn my car, heading for the grocery store.
As I push the cart through the aisles, I glance at the shelves wondering what in the world I’m going to cook tonight.
Sometimes I wish Holden would give me an idea, but he never asks for anything different than what I make.
He never questions, and he never makes demands in everyday life either.
I truly get the feeling he’s happy with the little life we’ve carved out for ourselves, but every once in a while I wonder, what would it be like to live with a man who can’t keep his hands off of me?
What would it be like to go to bed with someone who spooned me from behind because he couldn’t stand not to touch me?
What do Holden’s lips taste like first thing in the morning?
These are all questions I want the answers to, but I know we aren’t there yet, maybe never will be, but I’m holding out hope.
If he cared enough to marry me because of some sense of obligation to protect me, there has to be feelings there.
And honestly, how do I expect him to feel things for me, when I don’t even know what the feelings I have for him are?
All I know is I like it when he’s around and I like it even more when he looks at me like I’m the center of his universe. Which is something I’ll never admit to anyone.
As I pass the alcohol aisle, I glance at the six packs of beer, the bottles of amber liquid, the taller containers of wine, and I wonder what he likes. Things have been tense with us lately, and I’m unsure why.
Maybe it’s because I’m not good at ignoring him anymore. I haven’t been for months now. It used to be I could look objectively at the hot man with whom I share a house.
That changed one day when I came home from work early and caught him masturbating in the shower. He doesn’t know. It would mortify me if he knew, but the way he’d groaned my name had me bracing my hand against the bathroom wall and fighting not to open the shower door.
I’ve woken up countless times since then, my hand between my thighs and his name on my lips as I explode, hoping like hell I haven’t woken him up, since we sleep in the same bed.
The orgasm? It’s empty. As empty as I feel our life together is most of the time.
The hardest part about the emptiness is the little glimpses I get every once in a while that show me how full it could be if we’d both just let our guards down.
“Leighton!”
I steel myself as I hear the sound of Mable Hall – sounds like an eighty-year-old grandma, right?
Wrong. She’s a forty-year-old divorcee who wants my husband.
She’s told me so (in not so many words) on numerous occasions.
Newsflash – I wear his ring, and one day I’ll know what it feels like for him to be inside of me as he loses control.
God as my witness, I will make that man lose control.
Reaching over, I grab a pack of the Corona bottles and drop them in my cart, as I try to get away from Mable. I pretend like I can’t hear her and keep moving my cart up the aisle, farther away from her.
“Leighton, do you not hear me talking to you?” Her voice is high-pitched and like nails on a chalk board to my ears.
Gritting my teeth, I turn around, fake smile on my face, false apologetic tone to my voice.
“Sorry, I’m just in a hurry to get home and get dinner done.
It’s been a long day, and I like to spend my evenings with my husband.
” I twirl my wedding ring around on my finger, hoping she takes the hint.
My husband, not her piece of ass to mess around with.
Her eyes drop to the diamond on my finger, and if I’m not mistaken, I see a glimmer of unease in her eyes.
“I was just wondering if you could give Holden a message for me? He came and spoke to our pre-school class earlier this week, and I had a few things I wanted to verify. Can you have him call me? I didn’t think to get his number in case any of the children needed to know more.”
I grit my teeth, a flush working its way up my neck and chest. I can feel it, and I wish to God my emotions and thoughts weren’t always written all over my face.
This isn’t just embarrassing for me, but also for her.
She wants a man she’s never going to have.
We’ve made it to the checkout lanes, and I start unloading my cart.
“The best thing to do, Mable, would probably be to call the station. Off-duty is time for family and friends. He doesn’t really like to take work home with him, if you know what I mean.”
I’m feeling awfully proud of myself for standing up to her, when she glances at me from head to toe, sniffing in distaste.
She laughs, the tone downright ugly. “You should know better than anyone he takes his work home with him. After all, honey,” the word is dripping with sarcasm, “he married you.”
She waves her fingers in my direction before she turns and walks off.
I try like hell not to throw my purchases on the conveyer belt, but I fail when I think of her standing in the community, how much closer she and Holden are in age, and honestly how much bigger her tits probably are than mine.
It’s a hard realization that Holden made a big mistake in marrying me, and more than likely he can’t wait until we he can correct that mistake.