Chapter 11

Chanel

I stifled a yawn behind my fist, and bumped along in the truck. Ryan didn’t look half as tired as I was, but then, he didn’t spend the entire morning and afternoon running around the base and making notes of what needed to be changed and how.

I wasn’t close to completing a potential design or mood board. I needed more time on the base and that meant collecting an overnight bag and a whole lot of disdain from my mother with it.

Ryan squeezed my thigh and I swallowed, hard. Flashes of our tryst in the helicopter cleared out my vision for a minute.

There was nothing but the full sense of him pounding inside me and the building pleasure. I shuddered.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Fine,” I replied, over the rattle of wheels on the dirt road. “Just thinking about earlier. Ryan, I – I don’t know what’s going on.”

“What do you mean?” But he removed his hand from my thigh – he knew exactly what I meant. It was ‘us,’ this weird attraction we had going on, and it made him uncomfortable.

“Forget about it.”

“No, you can talk to me, Chanel. What’s on your mind?”

“Just the base and the decorations. That’s all.”

Silence drifted between us, and I focused on the dissipating clouds over the town. Meek Springs sat against the mountain, unassuming and adorned by quaint decorative lamp posts and old school stores with glass front windows and wooden doors.

To an outsider, the town would’ve seemed pleasant – the perfect mini-getaway during the summer months – but I’d lived the truth. Trap. It was all a trap.

Everything. And now, I had a job to do away from Meek Springs and the store, and that might end up a cage of its own.

I turned my head and looked out the passenger window.

We entered the town, and the first of those quiet, cute stores swept by. It was a Sunday. Folks were either getting ready for dinner or church, whichever came first or pleased them the most.

The storm had passed, but an icy wind pricked the coats of walkers at this time of the afternoon. There weren’t many people around.

“You’re sure it’s okay for me to stay over on the base?” I asked. “Like, it’s allowed?”

“Yeah, it’s covered by the temporary contractor’s permit. I’ll contact my Commander tomorrow and confirm the extended length of your initial stay.”

“My initial stay?”

“Well, yeah. You’ll have to present your plan, and afterward, once its approved, you’ll be on base to oversee the implementation of it.”

“How do you manage to make even interior decorating sound like a mission?”

Ryan shrugged. “That’s just who I am.”

I should’ve counted my blessings that he didn’t make sex into a tactical operation. Ugh, what was with the bitterness curling through me? It was as if I’d doomed the excitement of this new ‘relationship’ from the start.

“Here we are,” Ryan said, and turned the corner into my street.

All thoughts of ‘us’ and the crazy, hot helicopter sex we had flew right outta my head.

Home. I was home to pick up the bag and I didn’t want to imagine what my mother’s reaction would be.

Ryan parked in front of the house and cut off the engine. One of the curtains in the front window flickered. God, she’d already witnessed my arrival. I didn’t get out of the truck, but clenched my fists until my knuckles whitened.

“You okay?”

“Fine.”

“Do you want me to come inside with you?” he asked. He didn’t touch me, though. He kept his hands on the wheel, this time.

Had I ruined everything at the mere hint of talking about our dynamic?

“No. I think my mother would have a conniption if I let you into my bedroom.”

He cleared his throat. “Oh.”

“I – yeah, I’ll be right back. Just wait here.” I lingered a second longer, then opened the truck door and slipped out into the failing light. Purple dusk crept over the mountain and between the houses.

I shucked my puffy coat up my arms and buried my neck in the fabric. It still wasn’t warm enough. I bumped the truck’s door closed with my hip, then walked up the short path that led to the porch steps.

The house was eerily silent. The only sign of life the lights on upstairs in my mother’s bedroom, and the smell of a home cooked meal. My mouth watered – I hadn’t eaten all day in the rush to get things down, and my mom could cook, I’d give her that.

I traversed the stairs, crossed the yawning gap to the front, then turned the handle.

The door rattled against the jam.

“What the heck?” She locked me out? “Mom?” I rang the doorbell.

“Everything okay?” Ryan called from the truck.

I waved over my shoulder at him.

The latch on the front door snapped back, and my mother opened up and glared at me. “Where have you been?”

“Out partying,” I replied. “Mom, seriously? You know where I’ve been. I’ve been working all day. Why was the front door locked?”

“It’s late. I was protecting myself.”

“Mom, it’s 6 pm,” I replied. “And it’s Meek Springs.”

Henrietta Scott sniffed. “Well, you never know with all these strange soldiers around.” She stepped back and allowed me entry.

I walked past her and she slammed the door shut behind me, then drew the latch again. She hurried to the curtain, twitching it aside. “Why isn’t he leaving?”

“What?” I made for the stairs.

“Chanel, why isn’t that soldier leaving?”

“Because he’s waiting for me,” I said, and trooped up the stairs. I hit the landing, turned left and scurried toward my bedroom. God, she’d probably follow me up, spitting vim and vitriol once the shock wore off.

“He what?” she called, just as I reached my bedroom. “Why would he be waiting for you?”

I entered the room and closed the door behind me, then leaned against it, chest rising and falling too fast.

Why did she get to me this much? For the longest time, all I had was this bedroom with its teal wall paper and faded carpet. I’d long since stripped the posters from its wall, in the vain hope that it’d mature me enough to find an apartment anywhere but Meek Springs.

The only images were of Paula and myself, on the wall above my desk. Happy snaps from nights out at the restaurant, none of them with men, since I’d never been interested or met one who turned my soul to mush like Ryan did.

“Chanel Scott, why is that man waiting for you?” Her footsteps stomped on the stairs.

I pushed off from my door and went to my armoire instead. I opened the creaky doors, it was an antique from my grandmother, and grabbed my overnight bag from its spot atop my shoes.

“Chanel!” My mother opened the door without knocking.

I placed the bag on my bed, then retrieved an armful of clothes from the cupboard.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m packing a bag. There’s too much work to be done on the base. I have to stay over there for a while until I can put together a presentation on the project.” Formal tone. Clipped off sentences.

“Have you lost your mind?”

I shoveled the clothes into the bag, then picked up a few pairs of shoes. “No.”

“You were gone all day. Do you have any idea how much business we lost today because of this?”

“Business.” I snorted. “We didn’t lose any business. It’s a Sunday.”

“Oh yeah? I received a call from the Pachinko family today. They wanted us to review their home,” she replied. “It’s a huge project.”

“Mom, unless the Pachinkos have a house the size of a military base, I’m not interested,” I replied.

“You’re not the owner of this company, Chanel. I can fire you.”

I hugged the shoes to my chest and stared at her. Who was she? When I was little, too little to understand her control freak nature, I admired my mother. We looked similar, people used ‘you look just like her’ as a compliment.

Now, I couldn’t envision a person I wanted to be less like. “Fire me. If you fire me, I’ll leave this house and I’ll never come back. I’ll live on the streets before I stay here.” And it was true. It hit me like a brick in the gut. It was damn true, and it was a step closer to what I wanted.

A way out.

Mom’s mouth flapped open and closed – she didn’t expect that.

I shoved the shoes into the bag, then zipped it up. “I’ve got to go. I’ve got work to do.”

“Don’t you dare leave this house. What am I supposed to do about the Pachinkos?”

“Do the job yourself.”

“You’re the decorator. I’m the owner. You do the work,” she said, and folded her arms. She hadn’t taken off her apron after cooking the dinner I’d never eat.

“Do you realize how huge this is? This project could change everything for Scott’s Interiors. Who knows, maybe if I complete this one to satisfaction, I’ll be hired for another one. Can you imagine becoming a contractor for the Navy SEALS?”

“Ridiculous. That will never happen.”

“Why not?”

Mom tapped her heel on the carpet – thump, thump, thump. “Because you’re going to fail at this.”

I squeezed my eyes closed but it didn’t block her out.

“You’re good, child, but you’re not good enough to take on an entire military base. There are too many factors to take into account. And when you fail, you’ll bring down the business with you.”

“I won’t fail,” I said, and opened my eyes again. I stared at her. “I’m not a quitter.” I slung the bag’s strap over my shoulder, then made for the exit.

“Chanel, you can’t stay on a base filled with depraved men.”

“Depraved?” I stopped and looked back at her. “I don’t know who you are, but you’re not my mother. The woman I grew up with respected the military.”

“Until the military took everything from her,” she snapped. “Your father is gone and they’re responsible for it.”

“Dad made his own choices and he did so with bravery and integrity,” I replied. “I’m going to follow his example.” I trudged out of my bedroom and down the hall, ignoring the steely silence that chased me.

My mother would make me pay for this, somehow. Either she was actually concerned about losing business or this was another ploy to keep me under her wing, under that beady eye.

“I forbid you,” my mother yelled. “I forbid you to go.”

I unlatched the front door, and opened it. “I’ll be back sometime. No need to thank me or anything.”

“Chanel, don’t you dare get in that truck.” She’d already reached the landing, and she took the stairs two at a time, hair escaping from her bun.

“Have a good night.” I stepped onto the porch and shut the door behind me, then hurried down the front stairs and the garden path.

Night hadn’t quite fallen, but the lampposts up and down the street had already clicked on. No doubt, everyone in the neighborhood heard the fight, and now they’d witness me leaving.

The rumors which had likely started this afternoon would double. I’d be called a turncoat for working with the military, since Meek Springs and its residents held fast to the cracked concept that the soldiers performed nasty experiments in the mountains.

My mother didn’t come out after me. She had the dignity not to, or the pride, rather – making a scene in front of others went against the grain for her.

I marched toward the truck, heart heavy, and the overnight bag slapping against my side.