CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“What’s going on?” I whispered.
“About to ask you the same thing,” Sully said, turning the truck around to head back the way he came. “You look freaked out.”
I looked at him. “It was noon when we got here.”
“Roughly, yes.”
“You talked to Bailey on the porch,” I said. “Got a cabinet.”
“I did,” Sully said, nodding. “Going to refinish it for him.”
“Then I went in,” I said, going through the steps. “You and Carmen waited out here.”
“Yes.” At my probable crazy stare, he added. “Until you texted her you’d be a while. We went home until you texted to come pick you up. I’m on my way to poker night with the guys, and told her I’d grab you on the way.”
“I didn’t text anybody,” I said, clicking over to my text messages. “I was only in there for like twenty minutes.”
Sully scoffed. “Allie, you were in there for a good hour before we left. There’s an apple tree over there that I considered scaling for lunch.”
I shook my head as I pulled up Carmen’s name, and my jaw dropped. Sure enough. There they were.
2:06 p.m.
Me: Looks like this will be a while. Sorry! I should hv followed in the Jeep!
Carmen: No biggie! Do what you have to do & text me later. One of us will come bk.
6:45 p.m.
Me: All done!
Carmen: Sully’s on his way.
“How did I do this?” I asked. “Where—where was I?”
There was quiet for a moment as we bounced softly over the uneven roads.
“All I can tell you,” Sully said, “is that anything is possible with Albert Bailey. Did you shake his hand?”
“No, but he touched mine,” I said. “Nothing happened, so that’s—”
“Anything is possible with Bailey,” Sully repeated, looking at me.
“Jesus,” I muttered, raking my hair back. “Oh, crap. Angel’s probably—and shit! We have contest practice tonight!”
“I’ll get you home in just a few minutes,” he said.
“Good God,” I said, covering my face. “What the hell happened to me?”
I mumbled a thanks as I jumped out of his truck in my driveway and jogged to my front door.
“Angel?” I called out.
“Present.”
Curled up on the couch with her laptop and an earbud in one ear, Angel looked up from a movie.
“Sorry I’m so late,” I said, rushing past. “Did you eat?”
“Had some cereal,” she said. “It was fine,” she said when I stopped. “I had a big lunch, I wanted something light.”
“Do you have homework?”
“Nope.”
“No tests? Projects to do?” I asked, yanking off my T-shirt and kicking off sneakers.
“Nope.”
I headed into my room, my closet, and stared. I wanted—needed something more than a T-shirt. We had to wear the shoes we’d be wearing on the day…it had been one of the rules Vonda had laid out. One I’d actually heard in the midst of my Bash fantasy. I grabbed the heels I already knew would be perfect with the new dress, and held them up to the shirts hanging there.
“Come on, somebody wave,” I said.
“Going out?” Angel said from behind me, flopping onto my bed.
“No, there’s a practice for the King and Queen thing,” I said. “I’m missing the first thirty minutes, but I at least need to show up.”
There was a small pause.
“The red flowy one,” she said finally.
I frowned. “What red flowy one?”
“On the left,” she said. “You keep skipping over it.”
“On the—oh. Damn, I forgot about this shirt.” I pulled it out and held it up. Dark red and sexy. Perfect show of a little cleavage without being overly boobed. Tight in the waist and then flared and flowy little pieces over the ass. I pulled it over my head and tugged it into place. “Yes?”
“Definitely,” Angel said, propping up on her elbow. “Put on the shoes.”
I strapped them on as fast as I could, pranced around a bit to make sure I wouldn’t break an ankle, and held out my arms. “Am I good?”
“Good to go,” she said, drawn back into her phone.
Well, it was fun while it lasted.
“Okay, I should only be about an hour, I’m guessing,” I said, to which she gave me a thumbs up. “Angel.”
She looked up. “No boys in the house, no anyone in the house, I don’t leave. Keep the doors locked till I’m thirty. I know, Mom.”
“And Bash?” I asked pointedly.
She frowned and looked down at her phone. “You shouldn’t have told him.”
“I didn’t,” I said, sighing that we were going to rehash this for the fiftieth time. “He happened to be standing there when you came home.”
“And you couldn’t wait—”
“Angel Greene,” I said. “I don’t have to explain myself to you. I’m the mother. You’re the child. You’re setting yourself up to make giant mistakes, and it’s my job to steer you off that course. You made a bad choice, and then followed that up with treating someone who loves you very badly.”
“I know, I know, I know,” she said, getting up. “Don’t worry. Your mistake is going to her cell now.”
I whirled around. “What did you just say to me?” When she didn’t answer, I stormed down the hall and nearly wobbled off course on a hard turn. “Angel!”
She was flopping onto her bed when I reached her, looking up at me with complete disgust. I knew the feeling.
“Don’t you ignore me,” I said. “Why did you just say that?”
“What, you’re mad at me for being your big bad screw-up?” she said.
I stared at her and sagged against the wall. “Are you kidding me?”
“Do you not hear yourself?”
“Angel,” I said, trying to draw strength from somewhere I hadn’t tapped yet. “You are fif—okay you are almost sixteen,” I amended. “And you feel grown. Your body feels grown. Guys are giving you attention, and they should, you’re gorgeous. But baby, sex is about more than being physically capable. And once you give that away, it’s gone.”
“Like you did,” she retorted.
I inhaled deeply and let it go. “Yes. Like I did. Even older than you, because a charming guy turned my head. Made me think I’d feel beautiful if I did that. But you know what? I didn’t. Because I wasn’t ready. A guy who really cared about me would have known that, and waited.”
Angel shook her head and looked at her phone. “Grown-ups are so full of themselves with this stuff.”
“Full of myself?” I cried, stepping forward. “I’m a thirty-three year old mother of a kid in high school. Other women my age have toddlers, Angel. That’s not being full of myself, that’s walking the damn walk.”
“And I wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t walked the damn walk,” she said. “Your grand mistake.”
A little piece of my heart broke off and shattered into a million pieces. I nodded and swallowed past the crow in my throat.
“I deserve that,” I said, pressing a hand to my belly as I sat on her bed. “Because if you’ve been feeling that way, that’s on me and I’m sorry.” I drew in a shaky breath. “Baby, from the moment you came into this world, I was yours completely. I’ve never been more in love and I have never thought of you as a mistake. But the way you got here?” I shook my head. “I wouldn’t wish that teenage small-town, small-minded, high school drama on anyone. Least of all, you.”
“Seriously, Mom, you go on and on about not making your mistakes, not doing what you did, not having sex, not getting pregnant—”
“Because I don’t want you to be me!” I cried. I didn’t mean to yell it, but the frustration of the day was demanding to be let out.
“I’m not you!” she yelled back, tears in her eyes. “I do the homework, I follow the rules, I don’t do drugs, or drink, or have sex. I’m the most boring teenager to walk the earth, so if you don’t mind, stop harping on me for your sins and wait until I actually do something, okay?”
“Well, to me, buying condoms is something,” I said, swiping under my eyes as I got up. “But you’re right, maybe I’ve been a little too proactive. So consider all that banked for this one, and we’re all caught up.”
“Can we say you still have more, and give me a bonus chip or something?” she asked, wiping at her eyes.
I raised an eyebrow. “A bonus chip?”
“Aaron invited me to dinner.”
“No.”
“With his mother,” she added quickly. “She invited me.”
“His mother would let you have sex in her living room while she knitted baby blankets,” I said. “Free will and all that. No.”
She scrunched up her face. “Ew.”
“You have no idea.”
“Then can he come over here one night for dinner with us?” she asked, eyes pleading. “To meet you?”
The no was right there tap dancing on my tongue, but I bit it down. I had to grow with this, too. Ugh.
“We’ll see.”
Best I could do.
I so much didn’t want to leave. I felt like that boy—that guy—would be in my house before I even made it down the street. But I had an obligation, and she had a promise. I could trust her or lose my mind not trusting her. I really didn’t appreciate those toddler years enough at twenty-one.
* * *
I nearly fell getting out of the Jeep, forgetting the heels I had on. I chose to believe that wasn’t an omen.
The practice stage was set up on the pavilion, with speakers and wires and a block-styled set of bleacher steps probably twelve to fifteen feet high that made my progress falter halfway there. We were going to be expected to traverse that? In stripper heels?
“Allie!”
It was Vonda, hurrying toward me. Fabulous.
“Hey, sorry I’m late,” I said. “I got stuck and—time got away from me.”
Nothing had ever been so aptly described.
“Just head over there,” she said, whizzing past me. “Bash will fill you in.”
Bash, who was chatting it up with Kia by a table. My mouth went dry as I continued to walk toward their laughing, at ease selves. He never looked at me like that anymore. Like he was comfortable with me. With himself. He never had those friggin dancing blue eyes that were up to no good. Not with me. He looked at me like—
His head turned when my heels hit the wood, and I felt the flutter from my belly down to everything south of the border.
He looked at me like that.
And walked away from Kia as if she were a tabletop statue.
Wow.
I saw her eyebrows raise and an amused smirk touch her face, and for the first time I felt like—like something. Like she wasn’t a threat, like no one was a threat, like I was actually the pretty girl for once in my life.
“Hey,” Bash said as he met me, looking all kinds of tasty in a dark blue button-down shirt, tucked in to dark jeans. “I didn’t know if you got held up, or—”
“Something like that,” I said.
He nodded, and his eyes panned me. “You look really nice.”
I winced. This wasn’t us. You look really nice? I blew out a breath and made to move around him. I was too emotionally and physically wound up to play games with him tonight.
“Thanks.”
“Hey,” he said, putting a hand on my arm as I passed.
“Bash, I’m really tired,” I said. “I have a lot on my mind, it’s been an exhausting day, and I need to go ask Kia what I missed. I’m not in the mood to dance around you.”
“Dance—what?” he said, looking ticked off.
Good. We got more accomplished that way. Well, except for the last time. In my kitchen. Yeah.
“You know what I’m saying,” I said.
He held out his hands. “I’m standing all the way over here, what am I doing that you can’t talk to me?”
I blinked a couple of times. “You told me I look nice.”
One eyebrow raised in question. “And that’s—wrong?”
I sighed and rubbed at my temple in advance of the headache I felt was coming.
“The old Bash would have told me I looked hot and then asked me if I wanted to get lucky.”
A grin pulled at his lips, and my stomach shimmied at the sight of it.
“Do you realize what that would sound like now?” he asked, glancing downward. “I kind of have to pick my words.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and looked away as I fought a smile, too.
“I hate that,” I said. “That’s not us.”
“I know,” he said. “So let’s make it us.” He made a gesture with his hands. “Talk to me. Tell me what’s going on. Anything more with Angel? She’s not getting married now, is she?”
“Not today,” I said, still weary from the earlier conversation. “Tomorrow’s a new day.”
“Okay guys,” Vonda called out. “Break’s over. We have to stage the essay reading—pretend, of course,” she added over her shoulder with a wink to Bash. Gah. “Then plan in the quick change—everybody find themselves a good spot, and then we’ll practice the grand finale with the steps.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, raising my hand. “Quick change?”
“From your business casual clothes to your formal,” Vonda said. She tilted her head endearingly. Well, it would be endearingly if she wasn’t celebrating her son’s manhood. “It’s all in your e-mail. The formal attire is for the grand finale and the dance afterward.”
“The formal attire is the dress you bought the other day,” Katrina Bowman said, strutting by.
I smiled sweetly. “Yes, I’m quite sure I got that, thank you,” I said. “But a quick change?” I pointed around us. “We’re outside. That’s a pavilion with—bleachers on it. Where is this change supposed to happen?”
“Behind the dividers we’ll have up,” Vonda said, as if that were perfectly clear. “Your assistant can help you.”
“My—” I stopped myself and took a breath. “It’s in the e-mail, isn’t it?” I asked Bash quietly. He nodded. “And there’s a dance. Got it.”
“Are we ready?” Vonda asked. “Oh and take your hair down,” she added, pointing to my head. “So much prettier with that outfit. Great shoes, by the way.”
“Some might even say hot,” Bash said as he passed.
I smirked. “Cute.”
* * *
An hour in, my feet hated me, Angel had called once and texted twice to ask when I was coming home because she had something important to talk about, and Bash had disappeared with a phone call. In summary: a fucking fabulous night.
Now we were to the climb-the-stupid-mountain portion of the evening, and the only person who understood my insanity with heights was nowhere to be found.
My throat closed as I looked up. Only ten feet. Not fifteen or twelve. Only ten feet, Kia had said (when Vonda allowed her to), with no railing. No purpose. If it were steps from a building I’d think nothing of it, but this was climbing what was essentially a glorified ladder on steroids to stand atop a reasonless block, looming above the stage. No sides.
I felt hot. Katrina went up first and I watched her navigate over the top like it was nothing. I was going to choke. I was going to make a giant fool of myself.
Miss Mavis headed up next, maneuvering the rungs just fine in her Keds. Christ, I was doomed to die on a ladder. If the height didn’t give me cardiac arrest, my shoes were destined to take me down.
Breathe.
My hands shook, so I pressed them against my ribs. Hard. One over the other, making sure to slightly pinch the back of one hand. Anything to keep me present and breathing.
The guys were lined up like show ponies on either side, hands outstretched to greet their queens. Fuck. All but Bash. My eyes darted frantically for him, in desperate need of that contact to ground me, but he was nowhere.
“Okay, Allie,” Kia’s voice said over the speaker. “Head on up when you see her disappear over the top.”
Bash was still out of sight. Gone. I had to do this on my own.
The floor felt like liquid as I looked up. Like I was standing on a water bed. I gripped the railing, but the attack was coming on fast, the blackness touching the corners of my vision. I lifted my hair off my neck, fanning myself with it.
“Shit,” I whispered, mortified at what was about to happen in front of everyone. What was I thinking? I couldn’t do this. This stupid weakness of mine was sabotaging me again.
“Allie?” said one of the other women behind me. I couldn’t tell who. Everyone sounded alike inside a well.
“I’m—” I began. “I—”
“I’ve got you.”
Solid man was suddenly at my back, a hand against my stomach pulling me tightly against him. I gulped in air like he’d just delivered it, and let my weight rest against his body.
“Just breathe, Al, you can do this,” Bash said, his breath warm against my ear. “It’s just perspective, remember?”
“Perspective,” I echoed, breathing deep and closing my eyes, letting the oxygen reenter my blood.
“One step at a time,” he whispered. “I’m right here. When you reach the top, I’ll be right where you can see me.”
“Swear?”
“Swear to God.”
Leaving the solid warmth of Bash’s body was the hardest thing ever. I grabbed the railing with trembling hands and started up on shaky legs I didn’t feel, praying my shoes didn’t stage a coup.
“Please,” I whispered with each step.
Focus. Perspective.
“It’s just steps,” I said softly. “It’s solid.”
There were handles that went over the top, much like I imagined the last ladder should have had. Then I was topping it, and suddenly up went down.
“No,” I cried, a choked sound down in my throat.
“Focus, Allie,” I heard Bash say behind me, and the sound propelled me one more step. Then one more. And—
“Holy shit,” I said, standing at the top like a deer in the headlights.
“Okay, come down,” Kia was saying. Vonda was a few feet further, nodding.
Walk down. Don’t fall. You can do this.
Then there he was. Running to his spot up front so that I could see him. Holding out his hand and waiting for me. Looking up with those eyes that said I’ve got you.
I was halfway down before I knew I was moving, and my hand was in his a second later. His expression beamed with relief and pride and things I felt too emotional to attempt to name. So I did the next best thing. I flung my arms around his neck.
He caught me, laughing; his arms coming up around me in a tight embrace.
“You did it,” he said against my ear.
“I did!” I chuckled.
“I’m proud of you, Al,” he said, putting me down slowly and keeping his hands in place. His eyes were dancing. Like they used to, except there was more.
“Um, are we missing something?” Vonda asked, coming forward.
My hands were still on his chest, and I reached up to touch his cheek.
“No, but we were.”