“I’ll call Bubba, reem his ass, tell him about your situation and he’ll dry out and go back.”

I asked the all important question, “What about Wood?”

His chin came up but his arms didn’t leave me.

“That’s later.”

“I need to call him,” I whispered.

“No, you don’t need to call him. I need to call him. Wood and I need to have words. He’s got more words for you afterwards, we’ll see.”

“We’ll see?”

He nodded. “We’ll see.”

“I should –”

“Later.”

“But –”

His arms gave a squeeze. “Jesus, Lauren. Later.”

We held each other’s eyes in the mirror.

Then he said, “Breakfast, babe.”

“Right,” I whispered.

He dropped his head, kissed my shoulder, his beard tickling my skin and he left the bathroom.

I looked in the mirror at myself wearing my sexy undies. If I was honest, I didn’t look half bad. It was all Tyler’s “working the core”. Weeks of my abs aching like crazy was paying off, there was even some definition at my midriff and the mini-Buddha belly was more like a soft pooch. I hadn’t noticed. It was even kind of cute.

My eyes went from my pooch to my makeup bag; I dropped the blush brush in and pulled out some eye shadow.

Chapter Ten

Grape Kool-Aid

I was lying in the rope hammock between the two elm trees that butted the front edge of my Mom and Dad’s big, square, cement front porch, my eyes on Tate and Mack who were both standing at the raised bottom end of the huge pond that took up the side of our long front yard.

Mom was at the hospital with her best friend Norma.

We’d had breakfast. Tate had let Mom talk him into staying. Mom had let Tate pay for breakfast but not without a fight. She’d pulled the Dad card again, Tate’s eyes had sliced to me and I knew he was about to blow so I’d pulled the my-boyfriend-is-a-macho-man-bounty-hunter-and-if-you-don’t-let-him-pay-my-life-will-be-a-living-hell card and Mom had spent a full minute assessing Tate’s big, bearded badassness and what that might mean to me should he get miffed and wisely relented.

We’d gone to the hospital. I’d visited Dad for ten minutes, all of that time he was sleeping and I was thinking that he looked exactly like he’d had his chest cracked open and how that was the way wrong look for my big, tall, strong, farmer Dad. Carrie had her visit and Mom had hers and then my Mom’s best friend Norma showed up and Mom talked Mack into taking us to the farm and out to lunch at The Station before we came back. Mack drove with Tate in the passenger seat and Carrie and I in the back. Mack talked. Tate didn’t. Carrie and I looked out our windows, both of us, I was sure, not seeing the landscape and instead seeing our Dad in a hospital bed.

Now, Carrie was inside the house, Mack and Tate were inspecting the land and I was freaking out and not just about my Dad.

I heard Carrie approach and I looked up at her.

“Skooch over,” she ordered and handed me one of Mom’s Tupperware tumblers filled with purple liquid.

“No, is that –?” I started as I skooched.

“Grape Kool-Aid,” she affirmed.

It was official, I was home.

With grace borne of years of practice because Mom stretched that hammock out at the beginning of every May and rolled it up and took it in at the end of every September for as long as I could remember, Caroline got in the hammock while holding her tumbler.

Then, as if drawn by an invisible force, both of our eyes went to the men.

“Tate’s hot,” she whispered.

She had no idea.

I took a sip of ice cold Kool-Aid. Delicious, refreshing and Tyler and Wendy’s heads would explode if they knew I was drinking it which made it perfect.

“Laurie, you look awesome,” Carrie said to me and I looked from Tate to her.

“Thanks, honey.”

“And more than just being tan and having cool hair. You look…” she studied me, “happy.”

This surprised me. “I do?”

“Well, outside of looking sad about Dad but, you know, deep down. Content-like.”

I looked toward Tate.

“Is it him?” she asked quietly and my eyes went back to her.

“Sorry?”

“Tate.”

“Um…”

“See, ‘cause, when you were with Brad…” she hesitated then shook her head, “I don’t know. You were never yourself. You weren’t our Laurie. Not when he was around. When you were alone, you were great, you were you. When he was around, there was something off. Like you were on eggshells, like you had to be perfect and spent all your time in an effort to be that way.”

I stared at her, both surprised at this and not surprised because her saying those words made me realize I did try to be perfect for Brad because I thought he was perfect and to keep him I had to match that.

Boy was I wrong about that.

Then I asked, “Really?”

“Yeah,” she nodded. “Mom and I talked about it…” she paused, “a lot.”

I was already surprised at what she said but this surprised me even more.

“You talked about it?”

She turned to me. “He wasn’t all that and I’m glad you know that now. I’m sorry you went through what you did to find out, that totally sucks and I wish you hadn’t had to go through that, but still, I’m glad you know. He was just a guy and not a very nice one. Brad’s cute and all but he knows it. But you, it was like you didn’t know how pretty you were. It was like you thought you were luckier to be with him than he was to be with you when that was the wrong way around. With Tate…” she trailed off and her eyes slid away.

“With Tate what?” I prompted.

Her eyes slid back. “You just seem… I don’t know… you. Like you can be Laurie, you can be yourself and it’s so cool that he’s into that, into you just as you are because, well, he is all that.”

I looked back at Tate. She was right; he was pretty much all that.

He was also other things.

“I have another man back at Carnal,” I blurted and heard my sister gasp.

Then she asked on a whisper, “What?”

I shook my head and turned toward her. “Carrie, it’s all messed up.”