Before Hadley (12 page)

Shannon’s eyes nearly popped out of her head. I wondered if anyone had ever spoken to her that way before.

Cass motioned with her finger in a circle. “Keep it moving.”

Shannon actually did what she was told, spinning on her high wedges and strutting across the cafeteria.

I stared across the table at Cass, not knowing what to say. Thank you? You’re nuts?

“If you’re with Hadley, and I mean really with her,” she warned Caynan. “You will keep your eyes and hands off that one and all the rest of the vultures waiting for their chance to move in for the kill.”

He grabbed my hand under the table and linked our fingers. “I’m definitely with Hadley,” he assured her, squeezing my hand tightly as he did.

CHAPTER TEN

Caynan

I lay on my bed Sunday afternoon considering how I fucked everything up with Hadley. Five days had passed since she nearly sent my ass packing. And even after making amends with her, things had been different. Like she didn’t completely trust me. Not once had I seen her outside of school. And during school, she kept me at arm’s length—like at any moment she expected me to disappear again.

The irony was not lost on me.

This weekend had been a turning point. She’d agreed to go out with me, but only on Sunday. Who the hell goes to a carnival on a Sunday? But I’d agreed to go. Because time spent with Hadley was better than time spent without her

And for the record, I had been away like I told her, and it wasn’t by choice. My dad forced me to go to that business meeting with him. And as much as I didn’t want to go, it gave me an out. The no service thing had been bullshit. I knew I should’ve called her, but I convinced myself that putting distance between us would make me forget about her. Make her forget about me.

Then her text came.

And it slayed me. I mean…I knew I’d hurt her by not showing up for dinner and not calling. But instead of being angry—like I knew she really was—she asked if I was okay. That’s why the harder I tried staying away from her, and the more I tried pushing her from my head, the harder it became. Especially when my fucking head was battling another part of my body.

The front door slammed shut. I checked my phone. It was just after three. Footsteps moved toward my room. My door flew open, slamming against the wall. My father stood there glaring down at me. “You’re home?”

I nodded. “Heading out in a few minutes.” He didn’t need to know anything about my personal life. That was mine.

He raised a brow. “I hope you’re being careful. Don’t need you leaving your seed behind in every town we end up in.”

If I wasn’t lying down, my head would’ve shot back because he was clearly drunk. And while he could be blunt, the slur to his voice and crass remark wasn’t him.

“You know what today is?”

“Huh?”

“The date.” His voice grew louder, colder. “You know what today is?”

I shook my head.

“Your mother’s birthday.”

My stomach rolled over. He hadn’t spoken about her in years. With him, it was as though she never existed. I didn’t understand it. But I knew enough never to bring her up. It was probably the reason I’d stopped thinking about her. Except, of course, when her uninvited words popped into my head like some fucked-up, otherworldly conscience. I’d never even visited her grave. Not that I knew where it was. We’d never been back to the same place twice. Just like Jacobsville one day. I’d never return.

* * *

“Why you so quiet?” Hadley asked.

I turned toward her in the passenger seat of my Jeep, licking away at her chocolate ice cream cone. “Just enjoying the view.” Flirting was easier than telling her about my prick of a father. Spending time with her gave me a reprieve. It made it all disappear. How I thought I could push her away was beyond me.

As opposed to actually going
to
the carnival, Hadley preferred parking on a hill overlooking it. We’d spent the early-evening staring out at the carnival all aglow. The dreamy look in her eyes made it clear how much she enjoyed the colorful flashing lights of the rides and the screams from the people on them. Just one more thing that made her so different from every other girl. She grinned. “Yeah, it does look beautiful.”

I reached over, placing a hand on her bare thigh right where her cutoffs stopped. “I was talking about you.”

She smiled and when she smiled at me like that—like I was the prince in her own private fairy tale—it made me happier than I’d been in a long time. It also scared the shit out of me. “How’s your ice cream?” she asked.

“I bet yours tastes better.” I leaned over and kissed her, sucking on her chocolate-coated tongue. She moaned into my mouth, causing me to deepen the kiss, licking away at her mouth like the cone in her hand. She reciprocated, playing a game of push and pull. It was as though my fuck-up never happened. Like this kiss was meant to show me she forgave me for being such a douchebag. It took everything in me not to pull her into my lap so I could kiss the hell out of her all night.

She broke away first, needing to catch a breath, but her eyes stayed on mine as her chest heaved. “I liked yours better.”

I laughed, knowing in that moment that things were returning to normal. Thank God.

She tilted her head, her eyes absorbing the details of my face like she’d never really looked that closely before. “Will you tell me something?”

I shrugged. “Depends.”

“What’s really bothering you?”

“Besides messing things up with you?”

She nodded.

I wanted to say, “I’ve got plenty of issues. Take your pick.” Instead I shrugged. Being honest with someone was completely foreign to me. I’d never been able to be fully open with anyone before. Never been able to let anyone in. I wondered if Hadley was the one. The one I could actually be myself with. Because I really needed someone to confide in. Someone who could know my demons and still care about me. “It’s my mom’s birthday.”

I heard her sharp intake of breath. “Oh, Caynan, I’m so—”

“Don’t. I’m okay. It just gave me something to think about, that’s all.” My eyes latched onto some lightning bugs deep in the woods beside us. I bet Hadley spent summer nights as a kid bottling them up so she could harness the beauty for just a little while longer. I, on the other hand, was probably already knee-deep in shit I wanted nothing to do with at that point. Sure at first having everyone excited about what “the kid” could do, made me feel like a king. But soon admiration turned into expectations. And expectations turned into more jobs. Which turned into me losing my childhood way too soon.

“I don’t understand.” Hadley’s voice broke through my thoughts.

“My dad. He hasn’t mentioned her in years. Then, out of the blue, he did. It just kind of fucked with my head.”

I could see her nod out of the corner of my eyes, as if she understood. “Can I see a picture of her?”

“I don’t have one.”

“None?”

I shook my head. “Lost in the move.” She didn’t need to know which move. It’s not like I even remembered.

Hadley finished off her cone then wiped her lips with her napkin. “Let’s go.”

I thought she’d changed her mind about the carnival since it was only six o’clock, but within minutes, we were at her house. She led me through the elaborate foyer, our footsteps echoing off the high ceilings. If the house looked impressive from the outside, the inside was even more impressive. Everything was sleek and expensive. From the furniture to the art work, it all sat polished and orderly. We climbed the main staircase to the second floor. We passed the first open door on the right. “That’s my room.”

“Will I be getting the tour?”

She grinned. “Maybe later.”

Yup. That’s all it took for my body to respond. Especially with her parents away and knowing we had the entire house to ourselves. I slowed up, readjusting myself in my jeans until we stopped at the next room. That door was open, too, but it was completely dark inside. Hadley switched on the light. I stood in awe as my eyes absorbed the colorful paintings and drawings of people, landscapes, and abstract shapes filling the walls.

An easel sat by the window overlooking the backyard. Carts filled with paints, pencils, chalk, and charcoal sat beside it. Hadley pointed to a sofa pushed against the inside wall. “Sit.”

I did as requested, dropping onto the cushy sofa.

Hadley sat down on the small wooden stool in front of her easel. She picked up some colored pencils. “Tell me what she looked like.”

My head recoiled so quickly you’d have thought she slapped me across the face. “What?”

“Your mom. What’d she look like? Start with the shape of her face. I always draw that first.”

My skin tightened. Was she serious? Did she know what she was asking me to do?

“I’m gonna need your help, Caynan.” She lifted a nude colored pencil to the white paper, nudging me on.

I closed my eyes, letting my head drop to the back of the sofa. I could do it. I could explain the hazy image of my mom on Christmas morning. The one of her passing me a gift she couldn’t wait for me to open. “Long. Oval. Kind of like mine.” My eyes cracked open. Hadley wasn’t looking at me. Her pencil flew across the paper. I couldn’t see the drawing, but she worked quickly.

“How about her eyes? Were they close to her forehead?” She shook her head before I could answer. “Okay, that sounded weird. Did she have a high forehead?”

I shrugged. “Normal, I guess.”

She nodded. “Were her eyes close together or far apart?”

I thought for a moment, trying to picture her pretty brown eyes. Not the way they looked in the hospital when they’d become sunken and dark once the cancer invaded her body. “My dad used to say I looked a lot like her.”

Hadley stared across the room at me for a long time. She pulled her hair back into a ponytail and her eyes danced across my face. She was beautiful. Like
really
beautiful. Natural and perfect. At least perfect to me. “Were her eyes the same color as yours?”

I nodded, a vision of my mother laughing materializing in my mind. “And her smile. It was so wide. It showed all her teeth when she laughed.”

Hadley nodded then began drawing again. “Hair color?”

“Dark like mine.”

Her eyes and hand stayed focused on the paper, long strokes moving quickly to all corners of the paper. “Long or short?”

“Long, but wavy like yours. Not curly.”

She nodded her understanding. “I think I can take it from here.”

I watched for the next twenty minutes while she worried her bottom lip as different colored pencils moved across the paper. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with that lip, but held off making any moves while she was so focused on doing something so nice for me. Her little body was capable of such genius. I’d seen it in the art room at school, and I could see it there in her art studio. The way she saw things. The way she contorted normal objects, giving them shadows and depth. The way she shined light on her subjects or even the insignificant background objects, spoke of her eye for detail. And the way she saw something no one else did…it’s what made her the person she was. The unique person she didn’t allow everyone to see.

When her hands finally dropped to her sides, she stared at her work, idle for a long time. I couldn’t tell if she was satisfied or if she’d had difficulty working with the limited details I’d given her. After a long pause, her eyes jumped from the drawing to me.

“So?” I asked, leaning forward from my spot on the sofa.

Her eyes grew big and round as she chewed on her bottom lip. “I’m scared.”

I stood up. “Why are you scared?”

“I just want it to be perfect for you.”

I tilted my head, staring back at this nervous, amazing, talented girl. “You drew it. It’ll be perfect.” I walked over and stopped beside her, brushing my hip against the side of her arm. I stared at the drawing, mesmerized by the woman with flowing dark hair and deep brown eyes staring back at me. It wasn’t quite my mom, or at least what I recalled of her, but it was as if Hadley had taken
my
features and made them softer—more feminine. She even added the light freckles on my nose and the dimple in my cheek. It floored me. Absolutely floored me. She’d barely looked at me while drawing, yet she saw me. She knew me. “I love it.”

She turned her head, looking at me over her shoulder. “You do?”

I met her eyes. “No one’s ever done something this nice for me before.”

She laughed. “I’m sure plenty of girls have done
nice
things for you.”

I leaned down and wrapped my arms around her from behind, loving the soft feel of her body against my chest. I rested my head on her shoulder and burrowed my nose in her hair, inhaling her strawberry scent. “You sure you want to go there?” I asked.

She laughed softly. “I can handle you.”

I moved my lips up the side of her neck, nibbling a soft path up to her ear. “You
think
you can,” I purred into her smooth skin.

Her head rolled to the side, giving me easier access. “I know I can.”

I released her body and grabbed her hand. She gasped as I tugged her off the stool and walked us to the sofa. I dropped down first, pulling her onto my lap so she had no choice but to straddle me. God, I loved her body. The way her breasts crushed into me when I pulled her close. The way her entire being just relaxed into me like it was the safest place she’d ever been.

“See?” She tilted her head thoughtfully. “I can handle you.”

My head fell back and I laughed, feeling myself getting hard with her seated directly on my growing erection. She wiggled her ass, knowing exactly what she was doing to me. I groaned. “Don’t start something you have no intention of finishing.”