17. Seventeen
Seventeen
Bo doesn’t know where we’re going when I pick them up. I’m a woman of so few surprises, and this is something I can give him that nobody else can, and I want that. It’s embarrassing how desperately I want it.
When we turn into my dad’s driveway and the white wooden house and metal-sided shop come into view, Bo recognizes them. Anyone that orders a custom piece in the area comes here to iron out details; he’s probably been here at least once.
He scrubs a hand across his beard and laughs a disbelieving sound. “Your dad is Greg Hawkins.”
George Strait barks from the back of the van when he sees my dad’s waving arm, and Lucy giggles from the noise.
I tap my chin thoughtfully. “Did I forget to mention that?”
“No wonder you’re throwing around phrases like live edge river slab . Little liar,” he teases, poking me in the side with his finger .
When Lucy and the dog tumble out of the back of the van, Bo’s smile nearly cracks his face in half before he wraps a hand around the back of my neck and presses his lips to mine. It’s not passionate, not long. It’s not a kiss that’s supposed to lead to something else. There’s no tongue, no hands cupping my face—it’s almost chaste. His lips are on mine just as fast as they pull away. A peck.
He doesn’t kiss me for sex. His kiss is what I imagine happening at the beginning of the day over a cup of coffee before he asks, How did you sleep last night ? As though I’m familiar—loved, even. Like he’s so happy he couldn’t not and keeping it to himself would go against every instinct of what it means to be alive.
I know that’s not what Bo is thinking as I look into his dark smiling eyes, I know that, but I can’t stop myself from imagining it. With him. What would it be like if he kissed me over coffee in the warm morning light or when he signed a contract for a new cabin because he just couldn’t not?
As often as I’ve replayed the ways we touched each other that first night we met, this simple kiss of his changes me the way the sunrise changes the horizon—drastically.
He pulls away from me, still smiling, and opens the door while I sit like an idiot with my mouth hanging open. I know I should tell him to stop whatever that was, but I can’t. I’m greedy to know him, greedy for his skin to be against mine in any way I can have it. Someday it will hurt. Someday this all might be a bit like Sam’s Best Worst Day stories from Vietnam. But right now? Right now, these are just the best days, and I can’t let myself let that go .
He has a wife, and I might only have a few good months left in me, but as true as those two things are, I care less about them with every day that passes.
Through the windshield, I watch Bo give my dad the kind of hug that’s half handshake, half pat on the back and I can tell he’s introducing Lucy because my dad kneels down to shake her hand. My heart stutters. Seeing my dad with Lucy is a glimpse of something that I’ve stolen from him. The grandchild he’ll never have because my decision took it once, and my shitty genes will take it forever.
He stands, smiles at me, and resumes his too enthusiastic wave overhead.
It’s his familiar hug, smell of wood chips and soap, and easy, “Hey, Little Bird!” when I join them.
“Hi, Dad.” I smile, leaning into him. “I see you’ve met Bo and Lucy.”
“Lucy, I welcome with open arms,” he says, looking down at her fondly. “But this guy?” He nods toward Bo then brings a hand to his chest in mock pain. “Too many bad memories, Birdie. How dare you after what that concrete did to me!”
We’re laughing as we walk into the workshop, busted cookie slab still on the table. The cracks that made it broken before are now filled with turquoise epoxy mixed with gold. It still needs to be sealed, but it’s stunning.
“Dad!” I gasp. “It’s amazing.”
He reaches toward his shelf for a mason jar, but today grabs two, blowing off the dust and pouring a scotch for both him and Bo .
“What are you doing with this piece, Greg?” Bo asks, taking a sip, circling the slab.
My dad drinks from his own glass with a satisfied ahh! before answering.
“Don’t know yet. It’s not what I planned so I’ll need to find someone who likes a different kind of beauty. The unexpected kind. The kind that takes bravery to love.” He eyes me, then Bo, like that’s supposed to mean something, and we fall into a silence that’s either extremely comfortable or completely uncomfortable. I seem to be the only one that notices because they look at the slab and sip their drinks calmly while I can’t stand still. In my thirty-seven years on this planet, I’ve never once brought a boy home—my dad knows this means something. He probably knows what it means more than I do.
It’s Lucy’s high-pitched giggle and the dog’s playful bark from outside that finally cuts the quiet.
“You better feed us old man,” I say. “That dog wants a bone.”
Dinner has its own kind of energy, different than when it’s just Dad and me. Bo and he talk about all things woodworking, lumber, and building, laughing occasionally when one of them tells a story that’s shocking by the other’s standards. Lucy sits next to me on one side and tells me all about a summer camp she went to at a dance studio.
When she says, “My dad tells me to be humble, but I’m pretty sure I was the best one there,” I can’t help but laugh.
Bo’s hand rests on my leg just above my knee, squeezing it every so often, as if reminding me he exists. Little does he know, I’ll never be able to scrub that fact from my mind, body, or soul. Every time his grip tightens, my eyes meet his, and no matter where he is in the conversation with my dad, his lips pull slightly to one side in an almost-smirk, one of his toothpicks dancing in the movement.
When our after-dinner routine leads us to the front porch, it’s the three of us in rocking chairs, the dog chewing a bone, and Lucy chasing lightning bugs.
“So, Bo,” my dad says in his slow easy voice, the slightest hint of playfulness. “What are your intentions with my daughter?”
If there were a drink in my mouth, I’d spit it. Instead, my eyes bug out with an exasperated, “Dad!”
Bo chuckles, unfazed, and reaches over to my lap and grabs my hand in his. “Well, Greg, I’m trying not to fall in love with her, but she’s making that damn difficult.”
My head snaps to face him and I try to yank my hand away. His grip only tightens. He smiles. Smiles!
“That she does,” my dad says, lifting his glass to his lips, giving me a smirk.
I yank my hand free and raise my palms toward them both as I stand. “You know what? No, Bo, that’s not funny. And, Dad, seriously? That’s how you defend my honor?!”
Hands on my hips, the heat in my words cools instantly when the song that floats through the screen door shifts to the familiar George Strait tune. My dad sets his glass down and grabs my hand, grinning as he stands.
He wants to dance. After that. With Bo just sitting here .
As though my dad can hear my thoughts, he says, “Bo,” –takes my hand in his—“Birdie and I have a George Strait dance every Thursday. It’s tradition, right, Little Bird?”
I’m annoyed, with both of them, but I hear myself say, “Yep!” as my dad starts twirling me around the porch. My annoyance fades to contentment in a matter of seconds from the familiarity of it all. When he spins me, I’m mid-laugh when Bo and Lucy start dancing right next to us. She’s hugging his legs, standing on his toes, and he’s smiling as he looks down at her, fingers tickling her hair. My heart swells so much there isn’t enough room for a full breath to get into my lungs.
“Your momma’s eyes are happy tonight, Birdie,” my dad says as we dance. “He’s a good one.”
“He is,” I say softly, looking over my dad’s shoulder to Bo. Our gazes collide and hold. There’s an intensity in the way he looks at me. Like it might be generating an actual temperature that could burn anything that comes between our line of sight on each other.
When the song stops, my dad hugs me. “Do it scared, Little Bird,” he whispers in my ear. “Some time will always be better than none.” Just like he always does, my dad sees me and all the worry I carry around with me like a suitcase that’s permanently fused to my hand.
What if I get sick? is all I can think. Only I’m not just thinking it, I say it out loud because my dad’s arm is around my shoulder, squeezing it, as we watch Bo run around with Lucy and the dog in the yard. “Then you’ll have someone to fight with you, Birdie. Just like your mom did.”
Lucy is asleep when I park in front of Bo’s house. When he lifts her out, her eyes stay closed as he carries her inside to her bed. I wait on his porch, unable to stand still.
Do it scared. My dad’s words could be my life slogan.
When Bo’s back outside with me, his Bo-ness is intoxicating. Casual T-shirt, jeans, tousled hair, dark eyes—under the warm glow of the porch light, everything about him has a sexier texture.
Then his hands are on my hips, and my breathing stops.
“What are we doing, Bo?” My eyes search his, praying to find some kind of answer revealed in the way he looks at me.
He shrugs. “Living.”
Living . He’s right. I know it down to my marrow. Down to whatever marrow is made out of. The way he makes me feel—makes me want to feel.
I swallow. Scared, but alive. “If I get sick?”
“I’ll be here.”
“And Mandy?”
He sighs. “And Mandy.”
I close my eyes, blowing out a breath, not knowing what his response means but somehow understanding it. Because, just as much as I’m destined to die of cancer, he’s married.
He lifts his palm to the side of my neck, fingers resting lightly on my skin as his thumb brushes my earlobe, tilting my chin toward him.
“I want to kiss you,” he says, his rusty voice crawling all over my skin. Under it.
“I think I want that too,” I whisper, sliding my hands around his waist, pressing my fingers into his back.
Then, he does.
Lips to lips, tongue to tongue, scrape of his beard against the smoothness of my skin. The way Bo kisses me melts my bones.
My hands move from his waist, up the length of his torso, and press into his chest.
When his mouth leaves mine, it’s to nip a trail down the column of my neck that sends heat firing through me.
Pulling away, his forehead drops to mine.
His breathy, “I want you to come inside,” meets my nervous, “I’m not ready.”
He smiles.
“I’ll wait.”
I smile.
“Okay.”
No arguing, no telling him not to ask again. The okay I give him is the best I have.
“Okay,” he says, smiling, pulling his forehead away from mine. “Can I see you Saturday?”
“Actually, I have a date.”
“Oh really, Pam Beesly?” The way he raises his eyebrows tells me he only half-believes me .
“I do. With one of my clients. At the Veterans of Blue Ridge. There’s a fundraiser with music and Vietnam vets. I might find my once in a lifetime love there,” I say with a grin.
He ghosts one last kiss on my lips. “Maybe you will.”