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“Hudson, I…” She blinks, her eyes shiny with what I believe are unshed tears. I can’t see Dolly cry. I’m too… fucked up in my head right now.
“Why’d you puncture her tire, Dolly?” I don’t even like Tiffani, but I hate secrets. I hate thinking I know someone, only to know they’re a different person behind your back.
Been there, done that.
She doesn’t answer, so I pull open the front door and usher her out. I watch her walk back to her place, ignoring the attempts at eye contact she makes as she looks over her shoulder several times.
I stack the dinner plates in the sink, and skip my time on the couch in front of the fire with a bourbon, because it smells like her. Instead, I say a prayer of thanks that Bear is safe, I sneak into his room and kiss his forehead, then slide into bed.
Everly and Deuce’s wedding is next weekend.
That’s what I should be focused on– my sister’s big day.
I can’t deny, when my eyes close, I see Dolly in the street, the sun shining over her as she pulls her arm back, stabbing Tiffani’s tire while wearing a sexy, sinister grin.
I doze off, refusing to acknowledge the hard-on it gives me.
twenty-one
I WILL BE HIS HUMAN TOWEL.
Dolly
My alarm sounds, the lyrics of “Every Breath You Take” rousing my senses into the new day. Today is Friday, my day to explore Hudson’s home, and also the eve of Ev and Deuce’s wedding.
I haven’t talked to Hudson much all week.
After Tiffani showed up and killed the most perfect, prime evening between Hudson and I, he’s been very distant.
Learning that I slashed Tiffani’s tire and looked her up seemed to disturb him.
I get it.
It’s the exact reason why I have acome-clean speech. Why I planned to tell him everything, sparing zero details. So that he wouldn’t give me that disturbed, mistrusting look.
I know exactly what he’s thinking. Because we are soulmates, of that, I’m sure.
He’s thinking heknewme, that in the last five years, he’s come to know and appreciate the Dolly next door. The one who skips stones in the creek and paints with his son, the one who sits barefoot under the oak with a paintbrush in her hand and a dream in her heart, the Dolly that helps her sisters pick berries for jam, the woman in overalls that always wants to help and who cherishes the farmers market as much as him.
The thing he’s got wrong, though, is that Iamher. I am also the Dolly that is currently watching him load the pickup truck while she touches herself, binoculars pressed to the window. I’m the Dolly that has been head over heels, utterly and completely in love with him for five years, and has worked tirelessly to learn the ins and outs of him and Bear, so that when they’re ready, so am I.
That side, when not properly introduced, can be…intense.
Attempting to calm down, I reassure myself that when Hudson realizes there’s an answer to every question, I’ll be here. Waiting with answers. All of them.
After enjoying Friday morning Hudson in faded blue jeans, a long-sleeve light blue work shirt, his coffee-colored boots and matching belt, I wash my hands and head to the kitchen to make Ivy’s coffee. She’s already up and awake this morning, so no wall tapping needed.
Once I’m done at Hudson’s, Juni, Ivy and I are going to pick up our dresses from the seamstress in town. We haven’tbeen to a lot of weddings so we each selected a nice dress. Juni’s had to have the hem let out because she’s tall, Ivy needed the hip and waist area let out to make room for her voluptuous curves, and as the shortest of the three, I need my dress taken in some length, and let out some around the boobs. When Bear came by yesterday, he asked if we could paint today. I told him this afternoon, when I’m done with the fittings.
I’m looking forward to seeing him. It’s been days since that night at Hudson’s, when I combed his hair, put him to bed, and told him that pulling him from the creek will be, forever, the best thing I’ve ever done with my life. I miss him. And today he’ll be painting the very last swatch for the project I’ve been working on for ayear.Well, the project Bear and I have been working on.
“How ya doing this morning, Dol?” Juni asks, coming into the kitchen with her white apron tied over her clothes. Her hair is up in a neat bun, two roses speared through. With red lipstick on, and her usual overalls swapped for a floor-length dress, I wiggle my eyebrows.
“I’m okay… but wow, Juniper. You look gorgeous for making jam in your kitchen all day,” I tease her while mixing Ivy’s protein powder with milk, the slow drip of the coffee decanter calming my nervous belly. I run my hand along the back pocket of my jeans, where the new red toothbrush is stashed. Touching it, knowing it’s there and that I’m on the cusp of a much-loved ritual seems to ease my frayed nerves a bit.
“Thanks,” she smiles shyly. “After we pick up our dresses, I’m going on an early dinner date at the diner.”
“Bluebell Locals?” I ask, naming the dating app centric toour small little town. Juni wants to be married, but she doesn’t want to leave this town or our home. She only dates men in Bluebell because of that.
