Becca

Thursday Afternoon

“I can’t say that anyone has taken me out for vegan food before,” Dax says as we walk the sidewalk downtown.

We ate at a small café called Peace, Love, and Dumplings that serves incredible Thai fusion.

“It’s just food,” I say. “Did you like it?”

“No. I loved it.” He shrugs, accepting without any fuss that he ate a meatless meal. “I love food.”

“Anyone can take you out for Tennessee barbecue. Only someone special can take you for Tennessee Thai.”

He captures my hand, lacing his fingers between mine. Our arms brush as we match each other’s leisurely pace down the sunshine-saturated sidewalk.

“Those sweet potato things . . .” he starts.

“Spicy Thai sweet potato peanut rolls,” I answer. They’re my favorite item on the menu. Deep-fried like an egg roll and filled with the unlikely ingredients of mashed sweet potatoes and spicy vegetables, served with a thick, rich peanut butter sauce for dipping.

“Can you re-create them?”

“Maybe. I’ve never tried. The kitchen at Tad’s house is usually filled with their two kids and Lara tossing everything into a Crock-Pot for that evening’s meal.”

“You sound unimpressed.”

“I’m grateful that she feeds me,” I hedge.

“You don’t cook for them?” His question contains a shimmer of surprise.

“I don’t want to be in the way.” My answer contains a dash of chagrin. Lately Dax has reminded me that I’m valuable, and I’ve been noticing the ways I try to make myself smaller. To get out of the way of people who are leading “real” lives. “I’m interloping hard-core.”

“That’s what family’s for, Princess. They step up and help out when someone they love needs them. It’s what I did for my mom. It’s what I did for Barrett.”

My heart squeezes. What a simple, awesome way of looking at life.

“Who does that for you?” I ask. “Who helps you out when you need it?”

“Don’t need it.” He lifts those big shoulders into a shrug. Shoulders everyone around him leans on.

“Everyone needs someone,” I say quietly.

He squeezes my fingers as we walk.

We pass a gaudy T-shirt store, a movie theater, and an antique shop.

“Oh, I love that.” I stop in front of the window and admire a tall grandfather clock. I can’t stop staring at the intricate woodwork. It’s beautiful—my dad would love it. I wish I could afford to buy it for him for his upcoming birthday.

“Princess.”

“Yeah?” I face Dax, but he’s not transfixed by the clock. He’s pointing at a faded poster taped to a telephone pole. “This you?”

I run a hand over the weather-beaten, faded hot-pink paper. The title reads one night in tuscany. My name is beneath a photo of a country landscape, but the staples have rusted and the orange streaks make it hard to tell what it was.

“A few months ago, I danced at the cancer ward in the hospital.” I pull up a torn bit of paper and flatten it, piecing together the name of the hospital with the address. “I wanted to perform and I wanted to make people happy. I figure people undergoing chemo need a reason to smile. I made the flyers for locals who have relatives going through treatment.”

He’s standing next to me, eyes on the flyer. I glance up at him and he meets my gaze a second later, eyes narrowed in consideration.

“Cute. Sweet. And you care about other people.”

“I just wanted to dance.”

“Yeah, sure,” he says, but I can tell he doesn’t buy my excuse. “You’ll have to show me sometime. What you can do.”

I take his hand and pull him with me. I wait until we pass a few loitering teens to lean close and say, “Was that a request for a striptease?”

“It wasn’t. But I could put in a request for that as well.”

I laugh.

“I’m serious,” he tells me, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk. “I want to see what you did for the hospital. Will you show me?”

“Here?” I look left, then right. People are walking in and out of shops. Couples linger on the edge of the street and sidewalk.

“Why not? Street performers are a thing,” he answers. “Do you have the song on your phone?”

“Yes, but—”

“Perfect.” He drops my hand and walks to the group of teens, has a brief conversation that involves him pulling out his wallet, and returns with a ball cap. The teen holding the money has a bad case of hat hair and a grin on his face.

Dax tosses the hat on the ground and plunks a five-dollar bill into it, along with the change from his pocket to keep the bill from blowing away.

“I’m your first paying customer. Let’s see whatcha got, Princess.” He backs away, leans on the telephone pole, and crosses his arms over his chest.

My heart is fluttering, but not from fear. From excitement. I love to perform. Shakily I pull out my phone and cue up the song, do a few stretches as the music starts, and then I dance.

Dax

Eyes closed, Becca moves her body to the beat. I’m transfixed. On the periphery I notice a crowd gathering, but I can’t take my eyes off her as she dances. I have no idea what kind of dancing this is, whether there are bits of ballet thrown in with interpretive dance, or if this is something new—a combo of the two.

Whatever it is, I’m rapt. And not just me. Even the kid I paid for his hat is at the edge of the circle of people around Becca, his crooked smile suggesting a dirty fantasy is brewing inside his mussed head.

One of the first details I noticed about Becca was the way she moves. She’s in complete control of her body. And she’s not the least bit afraid to use her body to communicate. What’s she’s thinking. What she’s feeling.

That’s when it hits me. She’s shared a million tiny secrets over the course of the last week, and she’s said them all with her body. When we make love, when she cooks, when she snuggles against me and we watch TV.

She’s incredible.

At once the instrumental music shifts and the beat picks up and, yeah, I’m not ashamed to say that I recognize the pop princess my pop princess is now shaking her ass to.

The crowd knows their Taylor Swift. They’re clapping, cheering, and dancing along with the moves Becca shows them.

She drops her head back and laughs—a sound of pure joy—when a little girl steps into the middle of the circle and starts dancing too.

Becca meets my eyes over the crowd as she lifts her arms, drops her hips, and swivels. I uncross my arms and clap, as mesmerized as the rest of them. We’re all eating out of the palm of her hand.

Or maybe I have been since the beginning.

She finishes with a flourish, doing a dramatic bow as the song fades to an end. More clapping accompanies more cash in the hat.

Becca scoops up the money, puts the hat on the head of the boy I bought it from—who gives her a sheepish smile—and stuffs the bills into her pocket. She delivers a hug and allows a photo with the little girl who danced with her before waving farewell to her new fans.

At her side, I put an arm around her and pull all that warmth against me. She’s a little out of breath. Lately there’s nothing I’ve been enjoying more than the sound of her catching her breath.

“That was incredible.”

“Thank you.” She grips my waist with one arm, coming so close, our hips bump as we walk. “Now that I’m independently wealthy, can I offer to take you for dessert?”

“No. Save that money for the restaurant you open. Or, hell, the dance studio.”

“How do you do it? Own two bars and have a life? I’ve seen the way Tad burns the candle at both ends—and then buys more candles and lights those up too.” She shakes her head. “It’s a nightmare.”

“Hire people you trust. Don’t hover. That’s how I do it. I put in a bid for another location about a week and a half ago.” The new place is close enough to my other two that I can check in on it, though it’s going to need a lot of work inside. “It used to be a coffeehouse. I want to turn it into a restaurant and bar like McGreevy’s. But with a different style.”

“Sounds amazing.”

“It doesn’t have to be as miserable as your brother makes it look, Princess. Some of us can handle running a business alongside burying a family member and still appreciate that life is pretty fucking great.”

“You’re pretty fucking great.” She lifts her chin for a kiss that I duck my head to deliver.

“Yeah, so are you. On second thought, where are you taking me for dessert? Is there any other weird food you’d like to treat me to while I’m here?”

“Actually . . .” she stops in front of a shop with a sign that reads herbal remedies. “Why don’t I make you something special tonight?”

She drags me forward and we step into a shop that’s half health-food store, half apothecary. Nearly everything the store sells is displayed in big glass containers. Blooming teas, dried herbs, essential oils . . .

“Oh, I get it. You’re going to sacrifice me to the gods,” I say as she tugs me down the aisles.

“No. But I am thinking sake bombs for a nightcap and maybe some of the really cool chocolates they sell by the ounce.”

“Sake bombs?”

“Mm-hm. You haven’t lived until you’ve dropped a shot of sake into your beer by banging the table and knocking it off the chopsticks it’s balanced on.” She says this while grabbing two sets of chopsticks and a small bottle of sake from the shelf.

“Just you wait.” Becca and I stop in front of a glass case filled with chocolates as the woman behind it greets us with a smile.

“Let me guess,” the woman tells us. “Lovers’ special? We have many aphrodisiac chocolates. Ones with strawberries, chili peppers, and, if you’re truly daring, oysters.”

“Good God,” Becca says at the same time I have to mentally will my lunch to stay in my stomach. “I don’t think we’ll be that daring. Thanks, though.”

Becca buys an array of chocolates—oyster free, thank you very much. We drop the goods off at the Jeep and drive up the mountain for one last experience she insists I have while I’m visiting.

Zip-lining.

No. I’ve never done it.

She says she hasn’t either, but she double-checks her harness like a pro. Twilight is setting in, and from the top of the hill I watch as several visitors scream their way down. The rocks and tops of trees resemble a canyon gradually getting darker. Once I’m strapped in, a surge of excitement laced with adrenaline courses through my veins. Like with Becca, I’m trusting that I’ll let go and the ride will have been worth it.

Turns out zip-lining is fast, fun, and over before I know it.

As we’re disconnecting from the cable with the help of the guy working the platform, I can’t help thinking that zip-lining is very similar to what it’s like to be with blonde at my side.

The fast and fun I like.

But the closer we get to “over,” the less inclined I am to wrap things up with her.