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Amber lets out a victory whoop and throws her arms in the air like her team just scored the winning field goal. “Three times, Miss Dixie. Pay up!”
Dixie makes a face. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I owe you twenty bucks. As for you, princess”—she points a finger my way, but I see a definite grin lurking beneath her sore-loser expression—“there’s a fine line between glowing and gloating. He’s hot. He’s good in bed. Enough said.”
As if mere words could stop me from glowing or gloating. But for once the old nickname doesn’t sound like an insult. It’s lost its bite because now I’ve done something she can relate to. Possibly even respect. But more importantly, I respect myself. There will be only one first, and I chose a guy who viewed that as an honor. When he looked at me, it was like no one else existed.
My stomach flutters at the memory. “Enough said? So you don’t want to know he was super-attentive? Or that he wiped out my insecurities thirty seconds after I walked through the front door? Or he made me laugh as hard as he made me come?”
“Just don’t fall for him,” Dixie says around her last bite of cereal.
“I won’t,” I quickly say, and disavow all knowledge of the little voice in my mind that whispers it’s a lie. I can’t listen to that voice, and I have no plans to share it with my sisters. Brit is waiting for my call, so she’ll remind me I need to figure out my own life before thinking about a relationship with someone. She’s beyond excited about Vaughn and me having a good time together, but she’s also sensible. Cautionary when it comes to getting too attached when I’m the temporary neighbor and he’s got goals that collide with mine.
“Gotta shower,” I say to cut off any more discussion from either Dixie, Amber, or the whisper in my head. I scoop my stuff up off the counter and take the stairs two at a time to my room. Once inside, I close and lock the door. I strip off my clothes. In the confines of the cream-and-white tiled shower, my muscles and mind relax under the hot water.
I know what I’m doing, right? And what I’m not doing. This is my summer of self-discovery, and Vaughn is an important and unexpected part of it. Being with him released me from the burden on my heart. Mostly. The next step is accepting law school. There are lots of things I can do with a law degree besides practice law. That I can’t think of what those are isn’t cause for concern. I’ll have three years to figure it out.
The thought hurts and helps at the same time.
…
“Good morning!” I walk into Art In Progress on Monday with two iced coffees, one silly grin over memories of my first dirty text, and a gigantic breakfast burrito for Candace and me to share. “I brought sustenance.” She’s been working overtime to get ready for the exhibit, and as the kick-ass assistant I am, I support her efforts with caffeine and carbs.
She looks up from behind the reception desk to give me a quick smile. “Bless you.”
“Is everything okay?” More lines than usual crease her forehead. I hand her a coffee then slide a chair over to the desk. I pull the warm burrito, already cut in half, out of the brown bag. The smell of egg, cheese, and cilantro wafts to my nose.
“I just hung up the phone with Josie. She has the stomach flu,” she laments.
“Josie?”
“Our art teacher. She was supposed to teach a class this morning. The kids are putting the final touches on their paintings for the exhibit.”
“You don’t have anyone who can substitute?” I take a sip of my drink.
“Not on such short notice. And I’d do it, but I’ve got a list a mile long of things to get done before Wednesday and have a meeting with our publicist in an hour and then the framers are coming to start framing the artwork and the lighting company is after that and then the photographer—”
“Did you forget you’ve got me?” I ask, not the least bit offended I seem to have been overlooked. Two days together is hardly enough time to put me at the forefront of her thoughts.
Candace lets out a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I did, kind of. You have no idea how happy I am that you’re here.”
“Tell me what you’d like me to do today and I’ll do it. You have no idea how happy I am to be here, too.”
“How do you feel about teaching?”
“Done.” I peeked in on a music class last week and I’d venture to say “teaching” is a loose term. The students are afforded a lot of creative freedom, and they seem to thrive on it. Guidance might be a better term than teaching, and I can do that. I’ve done my fair share of paint-by-numbers.
“Whatever angel sent you to me, I’m very grateful.” She pulls back the paper covering her burrito and brings the stuffed tortilla to her mouth. “Thank you.”
“I could say the same to you.”
She tilts her head to consider me. She hasn’t asked me to elaborate on the traumatic event I mentioned to her when we met, but I’m certain she’s thinking about it now. If she’d asked me last week, I probably would have declined. But today, I’m okay with it. Actually—I put my burrito down—I’d like to tell her.
“When I was seventeen, I made a huge mistake and got behind the wheel of my boyfriend’s car after winning a game of ‘Who’s more sober?’ Unfortunately, as it turned out, we both lost. I hit a tree and suffered minor injuries, but he went through the windshield.” I talk for another minute, appreciative when Candace doesn’t look at me with pity or disgust. She doesn’t judge. She asks a few questions like, how long before I stopped having dreams in which Mason miraculously recovered and life went back to “normal”? A couple of years, I tell her, and in saying so, realize it’s true. The life I’m living nowadays feels “normal.” My hopes and dreams spring from who I am and where I am now.
When she wants to know if there’s any salsa in the takeout bag—as if a kick-ass assistant like me would neglect to bring salsa—just like that, we fall back into comfortable conversation, talking about the list of things that need to be done in the next forty-eight hours. The more we discuss, the more excited I get. I can’t wait to show her what I’m made of. I’ve never shied away from hard work.
At ten o’clock my summer class starts. “Hi everyone, I’m Kendall, and I’ll be overseeing your class today. How was your weekend?”
“Good,” they return.
