CHAPTER FIVE
STERLING
When I woke up this morning I had a song in my head. I wonder what Freud would say about this one: Kenny Chesney’s “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy.” Clearly, being in the South has warped my brain already.
Shaking my head and humming the tune, I waltz out of my bedroom, twirling in my white nightgown like I’m performing on stage. The smell of a big country breakfast leads the way. Momma never met a piece of bacon she didn’t fry or an egg she didn’t scramble. My stomach growling, I say, “Momma, I could smell the . . .”
“Morning, Sterling,” Rorke says, grinning at me from my parents’ breakfast nook table.
Suddenly, I realize I haven’t combed my hair or brushed my teeth, and I’m still in my bedclothes. Please let the pimple cream I used last night be rubbed in. Momma tousles Rorke’s hair. “He came by on his way to work to invite us all to supper with his parents tonight. The poor boy hadn’t even had breakfast.”
“Poor boy,” I repeat, my voice tinged with morning hoarseness.
He flashes me a smile, taking a huge bite of bacon, and getting to his feet. “I better get going. Don’t want to be late for school. See you tonight, Sterling,” he says, his eyes heated.
“Bless your heart,” Momma says, patting his hand. “You’re doing God’s work at that school.”
Rolling my eyes, I walk towards the table so I’m standing by Rorke, and whisper shout, “Friends!”
“Come on,” he whispers back. “You know me better than that.”
And I do. “Can I talk to you for a minute in private?” I ask.
“Uh oh. She looks madder than a wet hen,” Momma says.
“You mad at me, Sterling?” he asks with a boyish tone that isn’t fooling anybody.
I open the screen door, holding it open for him. “Don’t want you to be late and have to scrub toilets.” Chuckling, he thanks my mom for the breakfast, locks eyes with me, and walks out. “What are you doing?” I ask.
“Inviting my friend and her parents over for dinner,” he says, walking over to his Jeep and hopping inside.
I watch him drive away. Maybe the song in my head should be I think his Jeep is sexy. His tan arms, deep blue eyes, broad shoulders, tight ass, slight stubble on his face—God, he’s grown into quite a man. His voice is rougher somehow, more commanding. And somehow, it’s commanded me to dinner at his house.
*
I know it’s going to be hot on Rorke’s family farm, even though it’s evening, so I settle on a sundress and cowboy boots, pulling my hair up into a ponytail. Goodness, I don’t look like a New Yorker anymore, not that I ever fit in there. My southern accent was an endless fascination. You’re not a real southerner until someone has told you to “talk” just so they can hear your accent. Some tinted sunscreen and lip-gloss and I’m good to go.
Walking towards the kitchen, I pass my parents open bedroom door. “Pink or red,” I hear Momma ask Daddy. I peek in, seeing her holding up two shades of lipstick.
Daddy pulls her to him, and she fakes like she wants him to let her go. “You don’t need any of that stuff.”
“A little powder and paint make a girl what she ain’t,” Momma says.
That earns her a firm smack on her booty. As a kid, that sort of thing would gross me out, but now I appreciate it. Maybe because I fear I’ll never have it. It’s strange. The thing I want the most is the thing that scares me the most. But I want to know what it’s like to be with someone who loves you as much as you love them. I’ve only felt it one time—that night with Rorke. And God help me, I want to feel that again. And for more than one night. And that scares the piss out of me.
Whoever thought I’d be scared of Rorke Weston? But I am. All day, I’ve been antsy. I called my office to catch up, did some stuff on my laptop, tried to take a nap—nothing worked.
As we turn onto the gravel road leading to the Weston house, something happens. This place has so many childhood memories for me, just me and my horse. Seems like a lifetime ago. And the place doesn’t seem to have the energy, the life it did back then. I wonder if it died when Levi did. The last time I was here was the day we buried him. The night I spent with Rorke.
Daddy opens both car doors, mine and Momma’s. I carry a bouquet of flowers for Rorke’s mom, Mrs. Laurel, and Momma carries a potato casserole.
Rorke’s dad, Mr. Joe, and his mom greet us at the door, embracing my parents like only old friends who’ve been to hell and back with each other can. When I meet someone for the first time after they know what I do for a living, I can tell what they think of me within the first three seconds. So I’m relieved to see only love in their eyes. It warms my heart because I’ve always loved them, too.
Walking inside, I can’t help but glance around. The house looks exactly the same—wood paneled walls, stone fireplace, huge kitchen with pine cabinets. But I’m not looking at any of that. I’m looking for the extender of the invitation.
And I guess I’m not being too subtle because Mrs. Laurel says, “Rorke called. He’s stuck at school. Something about a faculty meeting, then grading papers, then the principal needed to discuss something with him.”
I push out a smile, my anxious mind grateful he’s not here. But it’s the disappointment in my chest I’m more concerned about.
Dinner passes quickly. I find myself glancing at the front door every five minutes or so. I can’t seem to help myself, and I can’t decide if it’s because I want him to walk in or not. When the men offer to clean up, Mrs. Laurel, Momma, and I don’t argue. Walking into the den, my eyes land on an old photograph sitting in the middle of their mantle.
Mrs. Laurel picks it up. “You and Levi at prom. Remember that?”
“No one’s forgetting that dress,” I say, looking at myself in the long, pink nightmare. Catholic schools have a lot of rules for dances—nothing strapless, nothing above the knee, nothing too tight. Basically, we all wore sheets.
“He was so excited that you asked him.”
Yeah, yeah, I asked him. Guess I was a trailblazer even then.
“Why did you ask him?” Rorke asks from behind me.
I jump slightly, turning to him. “There was so much pressure for prom. I just wanted to have fun, and Levi and I always laughed when we were together.”
“Taking the kid with terminal cancer to prom is fun?”
I glance down at the picture. “I didn’t know it was terminal then.”
Mrs. Laurel takes the photograph from me. “Still can’t believe he took off his oxygen for the picture.”
“I was just off camera,” Rorke says, “waiting to help him put it back on.”
“That was a fun night,” I say.
He nods, teasing, “You still owe me a dance from that night.”
“I think there’s more pictures in that album in your room,” his mother says. “Rorke, you know the one.”
He playfully groans. No one wants to see pictures of themselves during their awkward teen years, when you haven’t quite grown into your limbs, and are sporting braces or acne. Smiling, he cocks his head to the side, motioning for me to follow him.
Just as their house hasn’t changed, I’m sure this room is exactly the way it was when Levi was alive. Rorke and Levi shared a room. Each wall flanked with a double bed, two nightstands in the middle, sports stuff hanging on the walls, and a huge bookcase. I look at the letters on the spines. I love old books. You can feel the spine break slightly when you open it, like an old door creaking. And as soon as this door opens, the story engulfs you.
I’m not sure which one of them was the reader. Levi was always sick, so maybe it was him. But Rorke is an English teacher, so maybe the books belong to him. I let myself roam around the open space, my fingers tracing the spines of his book collection. One book catches my attention, and I pull it out. It’s old and tattered and very well read.
“Hey,” he laughs. “Of all the books on those shelves, that’s the one you find.”
“Winnie the Pooh?”
He flashes me that All-American smile. “Our favorite when we were little. Mom must’ve read it a thousand times.”
I’m trying really hard not to completely melt. “Uh huh, likely story.”
Gently, he places it back on the shelf. “I actually had my Honors English class write a paper on A.A. Milne. Some of the best stuff ever written is hidden in plain sight in the children’s section.”
“Who knew Pooh was a literary genius?”
He gently takes my hand and says, “‘If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day, so I never have to live without you.’ Winnie the Pooh said that.”
My heart is a freaking mushy mess right now. And my panties aren’t fairing much better. I should be ashamed for letting Winnie the Pooh do that do me—although I suspect it has more to do with Rorke’s hot body than Pooh’s fluffy one.
Releasing his hand, I pull out a leather-bound album, and he groans as I start to flip through the pages, surprised at how many photos I’m in with Rorke and Levi. We sit on his old bed, taking a stroll through our childhood. There’s us with the horses, their birthday parties, random shots of us at different town events. There’s even one of us on the cabbage ball team together. So many of my childhood memories are wrapped up with theirs.
There aren’t as many as we got older, until I land on the prom photos. “It was sweet you asked him,” Rorke says. “I was jealous as all get out, but it was still sweet.”
My cheeks start to heat. I playfully bump his shoulder, wondering if that’s true.
“And then you had to go and kiss him!” he teases me.
“It was a peck on the cheek.”
“God, he rubbed that in my face for weeks,” Rorke says, shaking his head with a huge grin on his face.
Studying the strong features of his face, I can see how much he loved Levi. Everyone did. He was just that kind of person. But no one loved him more than Rorke. I was the one who brought Rorke’s books to him when he’d missed school because he’d donated marrow for his brother. I watched him carry Levi to the office when he fainted at school one day. And I listened to him eulogize his brother at only eighteen years old.
You learn a lot about a person when something tragic happens. And I learned how Rorke loves. I watched it for years. And had just a taste of it that one night.
“Rorke,” his mom says, sticking her head through the door. “I’m heating you up some dinner.”
“Thanks, I’ll be there in a minute,” he says, and she gives us a smile before she leaves. He turns the final page of the album, a sheet of paper floating to the ground. It’s nothing special. A plain sheet of college ruled notebook paper, but I recognize it immediately.
“Is that Levi’s list?” I ask.
Rorke and Levi had talked about this list so many times growing up. Levi got diagnosed when he was only five. Their mom bought them both journals so they could write about or draw pictures of how they were feeling. Levi used his to start this list. A list of firsts, he called it. It was all first experiences he wanted to have. I glance at it. Everything from the dreams of a young child, like first time riding a bike and first rated R movie, to the dreams of a teenage boy, like driving for the first time, getting drunk, and visiting a strip club, are all checked off.
Gently, Rorke picks it up. “Levi never wanted Mom and Dad to read his stuff, so he’d rip the pages out and hide them in other books.” Rorke points to the list. A huge red checkmark next to first kiss, first dance, and first date. “Those are all you.”
That makes my heart happy and sad all at the same time. “So he got everything done?” I ask, looking at the paper more closely.
Rorke takes the paper from me, getting to his feet. “When he died, he made me promise to finish the list. The checkmarks in black are the ones I finished for him.”
I grab his forearm, wanting to see. The muscles in his arm are tight, but he turns the paper to me. “First time having sex, first love, and first heartbreak are all in black,” I whisper, looking up into his blue eyes. “Those are me, too, aren’t they?”
I’m not sure why I even asked because I already know the answer. He steps towards me, his hand slipping around my waist. “You owe me a dance.”
There’s no music, not even in my head. The only rhythm is the one our hearts are creating. Mine beating a loud drum beat in my ears, his a slow, steady pulse under my fingertips.
His hand at the small of my back, he pulls me tighter. My body seems to remember his, melting into the edges of his muscles. He’s grown, developed, yet somehow, he’s the same. The same strong hold, the same feeling that I’m safe with him.
My hands slide up the muscles of his back. We’re barely moving, this dance more like a hug. A hug that, judging by the hard mass pushing into my belly, might be getting X-rated. His fingers wind in my hair. Pulling back slightly to create a little distance, his blue eyes slowly study my face, his hand sliding to my neck as his thumb gently glides across my bottom lip, causing my lips to part.
Placing my hand on his chest, I step away. This is too much. I don’t do intense relationships. Hell, I don’t do relationships. I’ve got my reasons for not letting anyone get close to me. And it’s worked for a long time. But Rorke seems hell-bent on messing up my perfect little safe existence.
“Rorke, your dinner is ready,” his mom says, stopping in the doorway.
I’ve never been so thankful for a parental interruption in my life. “Mrs. Laurel,” I say. “I’m actually glad I got you alone for a minute. I wanted to see if you’d help me plan a party for my parents’ anniversary. I want to surprise them.”
Quickly and quietly, I tell her the only thing I really need from her is a guest list. I want all their closest friends to be there. She smiles politely and seems happy to help. I keep talking about possible dates, menu, and music, hoping Rorke would get bored and leave, but he sticks around and offers to help. He’s throwing a wrench into my belief that all men, except my daddy, are jerks.
Not nearly soon enough, it’s time to head home. His mom gives me a big hug, and a little wink, too. “You must come by during the day and see the stables. Maybe go for a ride,” she says.
“I’d like that.”
“Rorke can tell you all about his plans for the property.”
“How about Friday? I’ve got to turn in grades by noon. Then I’m all yours,” he says, pulling me into a hug then whispering, “Just like I’ve always been.”