Hot Mess Express (Spruce Texas Romance Book 9), page 28
She yawns, picks something out of her eye, and says, “I have no idea. Divine intervention, probably.”
I smile. At least I’ve got Juni.
She didn’t take Pete’s parting as hard as I took Bridger’s. In fact, she hasn’t changed a bit, as if Pete was never here. She’s the same. Even ordered a dress to try out for this coming weekend when we “totally, definitely will be going back to the Saloon”.
But the idea of going back there.
Without Bridger.
What’s the point?
“Wanna go on a mornin’ jog with me?” I ask her.
She wrinkles up her face like I just fed her a sock. “Uh, no. The heck kinda demented question is that?”
Half an hour later, we’re powerwalking down Main Street.
It’s a decent compromise between full-on jogging and doing fuck-all back at the apartment.
“This isn’t so bad,” she decides.
“Helps clear your head,” I insist, parroting what Bridger said to me the first time I jogged with him without complaining. “Gets the day started on the right foot, know what I mean?”
“My butt is gonna be so tight in a week.”
“We can stop when the smoothie place opens and, like, get us some smoothies to take back,” I suggest. “How’s that sound?”
“Ooh, I want a banana strawberry one.”
“We’ll get you all the smoothies, whatever you want.”
“Do you have any jobs lined up today? I think for lunch, we should have ice cream. T&S is open during the day, too, right? I’m craving one of those sprinkly sundaes with the banana on top.”
I give her a funny look. “Ice cream for lunch?”
“What’s it with me and bananas today? I think I miss having Pete’s banana in my mouth. It curves a little,” she lets me know.
“Didn’t need to hear that.”
“Y’know, like a banana,” she goes on. “It was fun to play with a little bit, off and on. I’d play with it, then leave it alone, over and over. Drove him crazy. Called it my little banana. Gosh, I really … I really want a banana now.”
Her walking has slowed. “Uh, Juni?”
And then, here on Main Street, in the dead-center of Spruce, Juniper explodes into tears.
Inconsolable.
Body-trembling.
Howling tears.
Honestly, my first instinct is to throw a blanket over her and tackle her to the damned ground. She’s so loud, people are poking their heads out of stores or rushing to the windows. Even on an early weekday morning, people are around, and Juni’s big show of tears right now has a full-ass audience.
“Juni, Juni, the fuck?” I get right in her face and take hold of her arms. “What’s going on with you? You’re so dang loud, people are thinkin’ I’m tryin’ to mug you or somethin’!”
She sucks in her sobs, at once going quiet, and whispers, “I … I just really … r-really miss Pete.”
I sigh. I guess she didn’t take their departure as well as I had thought. She’s just better at swallowing it all down.
And waiting for an opportune moment to let it all out.
In the middle of goddamned Main Street in front of the town.
“I really miss spanking him,” she then tells me, right back to using her full voice. “He made the cutest moaning noises through his ball gag …”
I clear my throat. “Uh, Juni.”
“And the way his eyes kept telling me ‘no more!’ but his moans kept telling me not to stop, and he never ever used the safe word, which is awfully good, because I could never remember it.”
“Juni, you can tell me the rest of it back at the apartment.”
“Okay.” She takes my hand for some reason, and the two of us walk on down the street, hand-in-hand, while all the onlookers decide the scene’s over with and go back to their business. When we pass the smoothie place, it’s open, and Juni helps herself to the biggest size of whatever banana cocktail they can whip up. It does the trick of getting her out of her funk.
It’s while sitting on a patch of grass in Spruce Park to suck down our smoothies that Juni says, “You might not believe it, but my favorite thing about playing around with Pete is what happens afterwards. When he gets this look in his eyes. And I get this weird kinda fluttering feeling in my stomach, like I could just … die.” She smiles into the sky, squinting against the sunlight. “Is it too soon to say I think I might be in love with him?”
I stare down at the smoothie I’ve barely drank half of. A smile spills over my face as I lick the sweet taste off my lips, thinking of Bridger. “Nah,” I say. “Not too soon at all.”
“Anthony, what can you make out of an X, two I’s, three E’s …”
“Alphabet soup,” I answer my mom from the office as I pore over my dad’s work binders, flipping the pages.
“Oh, you and your funny answers.” I hear her cuss to herself—I guess she’s losing her current game, muttering something about having crummy letters—and then: “Do you want to stay for lunch, sweetheart? We’re havin’ hotdogs.”
“Thanks, but I gotta head out once I get what I’m gettin’.”
Her chair creaks as she shifts in it. “What are you gettin’?”
“Dad’s so dang unorganized,” I mutter to myself, shutting one binder and opening the next. “He needs a secretary.”
“Ooh … well, that’s usually me.”
“A secretary that ain’t playin’ Scrabble all the time,” I amend.
There’s noise in the hallway, and then she appears at the door with a scowl. “If you’re implying that I don’t keep this stuff as neat and organized as you think it ought to be because I’m busy playing Scrabble all day long, you’re only half right, I’ll have you know …”
“I’m sure you do plenty,” I mumble, flipping pages so fast, I’m afraid I’ll tear them.
Suddenly her cool hands cover mine, stopping me.
I look up. “What?”
She rubs my hands. “Sweetheart, you’ve been … touchy lately. Is there a reason? You wanna talk about it, maybe?”
My face wrinkles up, prepared to spit some kind of annoyed remark back at her. The next instant, I drop my eyes to the desk. “I’m just goin’ through something.”
“You haven’t been drinking as much.”
I meet her eyes. “Huh?”
“I noticed. Don’t smell any alcohol on you. And your clothes look like you actually washed and ironed them.” She chuckles to herself as she eyeballs my outfit approvingly. “I like some of the changes I’m seein’, though I can understand if it’s a bit hard.”
“What do you mean?”
“You were gettin’ nice n’ close with that young man from out of town, weren’t you?”
And now I’m choking. “What? I … What’d you hear? Huh?”
“Oh, it ain’t no secret, Anthony. Why are you acting like it’s a secret? You two looked so cute together, you and that young man. I saw you out and about one morning a week or two ago with him, jogging around. Dad and I were at the market and saw you.”
“But how does—?” I feel like I’m literally crawling out of my skin trying to form a damned response. “How does me out joggin’ lead to … to thinkin’ I’m keepin’ some big secret from you?”
“Oh, I’ve guessed about it for a while now, ever since the thing that happened between you and Jimmy and Bobby at the movie theater however many years ago. I just had it in my heart and kept it all to myself. Mother’s intuition,” she says with a gentle pat over her heart. “And after seein’ you out with that guy, I just knew, you had found someone to make you happy at last.”
I’ve fallen back, leaning fully on the desk. I wasn’t counting on this conversation occurring today. Or ever. And certainly not in my dad’s musty office filled with binders that are older than I am.
Her cool, soft hand touches my cheek, drawing my eyes back to hers. “And now all of these changes I’m seein’ in you …? I’m so proud of you, sweetheart.” She smiles. “He must be a really good one, that guy.” Her smile breaks. “But now he’s gone back home? Back to wherever he came from? That must be why you’re so sad.”
“I ain’t sad. I’m just …” I drop my eyes back to the desk again. “I’m just … I’m just tryin’ to stay focused is all.”
“Focused on helping out your daddy with the business?”
I sigh at the binders covering the desk. “He don’t even keep proper protocols in here.”
“Protocols? Oh, that nonsense is over here,” she says, letting go of my cheek to fetch a bright orange binder off a shelf, bringing it to the desk. “Protocols out the wazoo. What’s the pest?”
“Opossum.”
She looks at me. “Ohh, now those aren’t really pests, per se …”
“I know. I told Mrs. Pane that, but then she got all fussy about it, and now I’m lookin’ up to see if we even do anything, or if we just call animal control out from Fairview, if there’s a checklist I gotta go through before—”
“Oh, those Panes. Now is the sweet n’ loving opossum causin’ any damage to her property?”
“No.”
“Goin’ through their trash? Livin’ out of their attic?”
“Nope, and nope.”
She sighs. “You know what? I’ll go and talk to her. This sort of thing just needs some direct conversation, woman to woman, and we’ll figure it out, no problem at all.”
“What’s no problem at all?” comes my dad’s voice.
We turn to find him there at the door, hands on his hips, eyes zeroed in on us like we have no business in this room.
Instead of answering his question, I poke a finger at the stack of binders on his desk. “Dad, I dunno how to say it any other way, so I’m just gonna say it how I want, it ain’t 1995. Why is everything written or typed out in these binders like someone’s studyin’ for an exam? You need this in a computer. All a’ this.” I start putting them away one by one back onto the shelves. “And if I might be so bold as to suggest … we need a damned website.”
“We?” He folds his arms and chuckles. “Now our business is a ‘we’? Our family business?”
“Rupert, he’s trying,” murmurs my mom quietly.
“I can see that. I’m not mad about it,” he grunts despite his tone of voice. He comes in and stops by the desk, watching me continue to file away his clunky binders. “So you think we need a website, huh? Is that Anthony’s big opinion?”
“It’s called movin’ into the next century, and it ain’t some big innovative idea. It’s just obvious. Everything’s online. If we wanna grow our presence n’ compete with the big companies in Fairview, we’ve gotta do more than just shove flyers at people. We can make a social media presence. Expand. Maybe take some business from Fairview, too. I ain’t afraid of ‘em.”
After a second of silence, I look over at my dad, if for no other reason than to check if he’s still breathing. He is. And he’s looking at me with a curious, pensive expression I wasn’t expecting.
“Huh,” he says, looking me over.
I spread my hands. “Huh? Somethin’ wrong with what I said?”
“Can you do that?” he asks, nodding at the binder in my hand. “Put those into a computer? Make a website? All of that?”
I lower the binder to the desk, surprised by his change. Maybe I expected him to argue or just blow me off.
Instead, I’ve got his attention.
It feels nice, being looked up at instead of down. It’s subtle, but I notice the difference. I feel it like an energy coming from my dad. Tone of respect in his voice. Glint of inspiration in his eyes.
He used to look at me like this, way back when.
I think I missed how it feels to be taken seriously.
“Y-Yeah,” I finally answer him. “I could try. Get some help if I can’t figure it out. Cole’s boyfriend is good with computers.”
“That sounds smart, son. Real smart.”
“G-Great,” I mumble.
Then he clears his throat and adds, “And I agree. I think that handsome military fella did you some good while he was here.”
I shoot my eyes back up at him. “What?”
“You should invite him back out to Spruce sometime,” he goes on. “We’ll have him over for dinner. It’s only fair you let us meet your boyfriend before runnin’ off into the sunset with him.”
He takes the binder straight out of my frozen hands.
“Yep,” he confirms to my silent face as he files it, “I overheard a bit from the hallway before coming in. Eavesdroppin’ dad, that’s me, guilty as charged. What’s his name, by the way? Don’t know if I caught that part.”
I swallow hard. “B-Bridger,” I finally manage to say. “His … His name’s Bridger.”
“And when’s he coming back out to Spruce?”
That question brings my eyes back down to the desk. “I’m not really … sure if … if he’s comin’ back or not.”
My dad huffs at that. “Well, if he knows what’s good for him, he better come back, because whatever he’s been doin’ to you, I want him to keep doin’ it to you.”
Does he mean fuck me against ten different mattresses across town?
“I’ll go call Mrs. Pane,” my mom sweetly decides as we share this unexpected father-son bonding moment, her face beaming at us, overjoyed, happier than I’ve seen her in a long time. Until her phone chimes at her and she looks down at it. “F-O-E-H-N?? What the heck’s a ‘foehn’? That ain’t a real word!”
25
ANTHONY
“Happy one-month-i-versary!” I sing at the phone.
Bridger smiles handsomely back at me, his face almost filling the whole dang screen. “I think you’re off by a week or so.”
I frown. “A week or—? Huh? What’re you goin’ by? Our first date? Like, the one at Nadine’s right before you left? No.” I wag my finger at the phone. “We became a thing when you took my dang virginity at that motel.” I pause a second. “Just realized how gross that sounds. Wish I could take back sayin’ it that way.”
“Nope, too late,” he teases me.
“I lost my virginity … in a motel …?”
“Why’re you announcing it like it’s news?”
“Just never said it out loud. Why am I only now realizin’ …?”
“Hey.” He smacks his lips at me. It never quite looks like a kiss when he does that, but it’s cute as fuck and always brings me right back to him. “I just noticed you’re wearing it.”
I sit up suddenly, having forgotten, and hold my phone back, showing off how his denim jacket fits on me. “You like it? Keeps me nice and warm. Though, this time of year, it isn’t really needed for the warmth. Kinda sweating in it, to be honest.”
“You can take it off, y’know.”
“No way.” I hug myself with my free arm. “When I wear this, it’s like you’re huggin’ me or somethin’.”
Bridger smiles.
It makes me feel just as good as it hurts me to see that smile.
I must show something in my eyes, because his smile I like so much goes away. “Aww, you miss me, huh?” he asks, sounding all sad and mushy about it.
“Nah, not even a little,” I mumble back.
His smile returns. “That’s actually the reason I’m calling, since this isn’t our one month thing. I might have some good news. Very good news.” He comes in closer where I can only see his eyes. “We might be planning a trip back to Spruce in just one more month.”
I lift my eyebrows. “You serious? That soon?”
“Glad you think it’s soon, because a month sounds like forever away to me.”
I smirk. “Aww. Sounds like you’re the one missin’ me.”
“Of course I miss you.” His face turns serious, his eyes shining in the dim lighting of his bedroom in Kansas. “Miss you like crazy, Anthony. Wish you were right here.” He slaps his bed next to him.
I bite my lip and lean back on Juni’s couch, phone raised in the air as I gaze at him. “How’s your brother and mama doing?”
Bridger glances off to the side. “A lot better than I expected,” he admits. “My brother’s thriving with the school he teaches at, all his kids love him, the other teachers, too. Recently told me about a kid in one of his classes who … struggles. He recognizes something in that kid, thinks maybe there’s a problem at home.” He shakes his head, appearing emotional for a moment. “It’s a good thing my brother’s there for kids like that, recognizing the signs. And then there’s my mom,” he goes on, his mood lifting as he laughs. “She’s got a whole army of women friends around her now, I don’t think any man’s got a chance of hurting her ever again.”
I grin at him through the phone. “That sounds perfect.”
“It is, it is,” he agrees, nodding at me. “Better than I could’ve hoped.” His lips droop in thought. “Almost like they don’t need me anymore.”
“Of course they need you,” I throw right back at him.
Bridger sighs, chuckles strangely, then looks off again. “After I got discharged, I was sure my whole life would make sense. Have a job lined up. Help out my mom and little bro again, like I used to back in the day. But my brother isn’t so little anymore. And my mom …” He laughs to himself. “Once told me she’s stronger than she looks. She wasn’t kidding.”
“You got a purpose here,” I tell him, “right here by me, sittin’ on this couch and holdin’ me tight …”
“Oh, I want nothing more than to be right there, you’d better bet.” He looks away again. “But I’ve gotta figure myself out first, Anthony. I’m no good at your side otherwise.”
I want to argue with him, stubbornly insist that all he needs to do is come back here to Spruce and all the answers will fall into his lap—one of those answers being me.
But I know that isn’t true. “I’ve had to figure myself out, too,” I admit to him. “Feels weird, havin’ my dad’s respect again. Being responsible. Wakin’ up for morning jogs.”
His eyes light up. “You still keep up with them?”
“Every morning.” I smile. “Makes me think of you. Wakin’ up at some hour I can barely function, forcin’ my feet into a pair of shoes, then makin’ a circle of Spruce …”
