Zhanna: Does the field trip involve a shovel, duct tape, and rope?
Bryant: She’s got jokes. I’ll pick you up in thirty.
Zhanna: I’ll meet you in the drive. I don’t want to wake anyone.
Bryant: I’ll be the lucky guy waiting on you with a big smile on his face.
Yeah, he’s definitely a unicorn. And the man who has slowly gotten under my skin is waiting for me in the drive when I emerge from the house half an hour later. I have a moment of deja vu as I walk toward him. He rolls the window down in a big black, diesel truck I’ve never seen before and smiles at me. My heart does that weird thing again and sort of takes my breath away. It feels like I’ve been here before with him and felt the emotions swirling around inside me.
He opens the door, steps down from the tall truck, and meets me at the front of the vehicle. Without a word, he escorts me to the other side and opens my door. As I pass him to climb inside, I catch his masculine scent and grow weak in the knees. It smells like he rolled around in pheromones before he arrived. My poor ovaries can hardly stand it, but I manage to climb into the truck without breaking my neck. Just before he closes the door, he winks at me. Even though it’s a small flirty gesture, I feel it all the way down to my toes.
Once inside the cab, he looks over at me and says, “My parents want to meet you.” I choke on my spit. As I struggle to recover, Bryant claps me on the back to help me out. “Too soon to tell you we’re getting married? They’d like to meet their future daughter-in-law.”
I choke harder and then squeak. “Tonight?!”
He looks at the radio clock. “If you’re really gunning to tie me down, I suppose we could fly to Vegas and be married in the next five hours or so. Soon enough for you?”
“Now,he’sgot jokes.”
He chuckles. “I noticed you didn’t object to the marriage bit. Duly noted. It means I have a real shot. I’m going to count this as a point in the win column.”
“You’re awful full of yourself tonight.”
“Just positive thinking. The law of attraction and all that jazz.”
After he pulls from our neighborhood, he turns the radio on, and we quietly listen to classic rock as he drives out of town to a peaceful upper middle class neighborhood with rocking chair front porches, large wooded lots, and manicured lawns, even in November.
“Is this where you live?” I ask as he turns into the drive of a red brick home with large white columns.
“It’s where I grew up.” He pulls past the house to a fenced backyard, and kills the engine. “I don’t have a lot of time to visit home with football on my plate. I stay in Baton Rouge most of the time.”
We climb from the vehicle and head to a gate on the side of the lot. Inside the fence, he leads me to a massive oak tree. In the top of it is the biggest tree house I’ve ever seen.
“Whoa,” I say.
“I was six feet tall by middle school, so my dad had to engineer a house for a bigger-than-average kid. I can stand up in it even now.”
“How long did it take to build?”
“My dad and I did this together. It took us a year because I was playing football all the time.”
“It’s great you have memories of this. It’s important to cherish them.”
“Up you go,” he says and waves his hand in front of an attached wooden ladder. “You don’t seem 20. You act older. It’s one of the many reasons I’m drawn to you.”
“I had to grow up,” I tell him as I begin to climb ahead of him. “My mom fell apart when my dad died. I took care of Zina so mom could hold everything else together.”
“She seems like she’s in a good place now.”
“Yeah, she is. The first year was hard though.”
“What was he like? Your dad?”
I smile at the mention of Dad. “The famous Zane Hale?” I laugh. “He was super intense about football, but he was laid back about everything else. He was a good dad and an awesome husband. I can understand why my mom fell apart a little bit when he died. She lost her best friend, the person she was supposed to grow old with, and the father of her children at the same time. I can’t imagine raising two kids on my own.”
“It’s why you don’t date football players.”
“Yes. I don’t ever want to have to tell my children their father is gone. Not until I’m old and it’s time.”
