Chapter 26
Delilah
“Don’t walk ten miles into the woods and expect to get out in five.”
~ Grant Turner
“See,” Jade tugged at my arm. “I told you that this would be fun! Aren’t you glad you came?”
No. I was not glad I came. This was not fun. Unless you considered torture fun because that was what this was.
“Yeah!” I smiled, hoping that she didn’t see the truth behind it.
Sawyer was here.
I could count on one hand how many times he’d been to Movies in the Park in my entire life. Four times. That’s how many. I thought for sure there would be no way that I’d have a Sawyer sighting tonight. I mean, his dad was still in the hospital. But there he stood, on the other side of the grass in the barbecue area at the main booth that overlooked the lawn of the town square.
Wishing Well was a small town, so obviously, I knew that I was going to have to get used to seeing him around. But, I wasn’t there yet. I was doing my best not to look at him, but I guess my best wasn’t good enough. Every five seconds or so my eyes would drift to where he stood across the grass in the picnic area.
He stood with his arms crossed, looking like a king holding court as his subjects came to speak to him. My heart squeezed as I watched him interact with person after person. Even from this distance, I could see that he looked tired. I wanted to go to him, to ask if he was okay, to tell him that I was here if he needed anything. But I knew that was a bad idea. Before I could even consider trying to be his friend again, I had to get over my feelings for him. As much as I cared about him, I had to take care of myself first.
Logically, I knew that the fat lady had sung, that’s all folks, it was game over with Sawyer. Emotionally, I was still pining away for him like he was the Romeo to my Juliet. And physically, I ached for him like an arthritic ninety-year-old.
I was a hot mess.
“Oh!” My friend snapped her fingers. “I almost forgot, I asked about my mom about your donation.”
Jade’s mom Nora was on the committee that distributed the money raised, so I’d asked her to see if she knew anything.
“What did she say?” Mrs. Porter had been oddly resistant to clearing up the situation.
“She said that they’d received an anonymous donation the morning after the fundraiser covering your donation.”
“The day after?”
“Yep.” She nodded.
“Anonymous donation?”
“Yeah.” Jade smiled brightly. “So I’m thinking shopping spree.”
Before I had a chance to process that information, Brady Calhoun sat between Jade and me.
“Hey, there Delilah,” Brady Calhoun sing-songed as threw his arm around me, winked, and tipped his hat. “What’s it like in Wishing Well, Texas?”
Ever since the Plain White T’s came out with the song that included my name in the title over a decade ago, people have been singing it to me, sometimes changing the words like Brady and sometimes reciting the lyrics verbatim. It had grown old after about…oh…the first month. Now, it was just funny to me that people actually thought they were being original. Even people, like Brady, who’d referenced it a hundred times before. They acted like we were sharing some inside joke.
“Hi, Brady.” I removed his arm from my shoulders and scooted away.
At my dismissal, he turned to Jade and began to sing, “Heeey, Jade.”
“No.” She held up her hand stopping his rendition of the Beatles classic “Hey Jude.” “Just no.”
I laughed.
Jade O’Sullivan was just…cool. She always had been. Not to mention stunningly beautiful with her long raven hair, bright green eyes, and olive skin.
I’d known her since we were five years old. She moved from Ireland with her family when she was four, and she’d still had an Irish lilt when she started school. We’d been table buddies in Mrs. Lindy’s kindergarten class, and I remember that, even then, the boys in class had tried to get her attention by any means necessary.
One day, Tucker Timmons wrote her name with Elmer’s glue on his arm, let it dry, and then peeled it off and set it on our desk in hopes to impress her. Even at five, she’d handled the unwanted attention with grace and poise. She’d thanked him and asked if he could tape it to a piece of paper so she could keep it. She’d been so convincing, I’d thought that his stunt might’ve worked and she wasn’t as grossed out by it as I was. Then when he walked away she turned to me and made a gagging face and we’d dissolved into stitches.
But, when Tucker came back with the dried glue name taped to a pink piece of construction paper, she’d thanked him again, smiled, and put it in her backpack. As far as I knew, to this day, he didn’t know that she’d thought it was disgusting.
Now, as Brady sat between us, she took off the kid gloves that she’d used for Tucker.
“What are we drinkin’?” Brady picked up the bottle that I’d brought.
“We,” Jade emphasized as she took the bottle out of his hand, her southern charm and smile firmly in place, “are drinking Moscato. And this blanket is a two-seater, but thanks for stopping by and saying hi.”
“Wow.” Brady mimed as if there were a knife twisting in his chest. “If you wanted me to leave, you could’ve just said so.”
Her smile never faltered, “I think I just did, darlin’.”
Inside I was slow clapping for her. Outside, I was trying not to laugh.
After a few more back and forth exchanges, Brady finally left. When he did, like a magnet, my eyes were immediately drawn back to the man that I wished was sitting on my two-seater blanket, no offense to Jade.
Sawyer stood talking with Hayden Reed, and both men were looking our way. I immediately swung my head back so that I was facing forward, feeling like I’d been caught with my hand in the cookie jar when our eyes met.
“What?” Jade asked, noticing my behavior. “Is Brady coming bac—”
She looked in the direction that I’d just been looking in and then proceeded to spin back around as fast as I had. Hayden Reed had been back in Wishing Well for about a month now after serving as an Army Ranger for over a decade. I think that Jade was the only person in town that wasn’t ready to throw a ticker tape parade for the decorated war veteran.
And no one knew why. Not her best friend Bella, not Tami Lynn a waitress at the Spoon who knew everything about everyone, not my sisters who were the hub of gossip central. No one. It’d been the source of many a water cooler conversation.
As the movie started to flicker on the screen, I leaned in close to her so I wouldn’t be heard by the people sitting around us. “Ever think you’re gonna want to talk about what happened between you and Hayden?”
She didn’t miss a beat, shooting back, “Ever think you’re gonna want to talk about what happened between you and Sawyer?”
No. I tapped her wine glass with mine. “Touché.”
As we sat back and sipped our wine, I tried to lose myself in Princess Buttercup and her farm boy, but instead, my eyes shifted over my shoulder back towards Sawyer. But he wasn’t there. He was gone…something I needed to get used to.