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“I don’t know for sure. I can’t remember too much. About me, anyway. I remember you.”
“But you didn’t recognize me today,” Oana replies as her baby blues reveal a deep sadness. “Or that time on the street.”
“When was that?”
“Months ago on Main Street, I was with the Trinity women. You were waiting at a light with your sinner friends. You looked right through me.”
Now normally, whenever I feel on the spot, I’ll just go ahead and shove myself into my head where I can ignore the person hassling me. That’s assuming I can’t punch the person to shut them up.
I’ve never been a man with a loose tongue. I rarely have snappy shit to reply with when people razz me. But hiding won’t help me out of this awkward situation. Logic isn’t going to help, either. I don’t know how to explain why Oana’s been on my mind for so long, yet I didn’t recognize her.
I think about the night in the woods. Oana appeared from the shadows. The moonlight shined off her loose blonde hair as it floated in the wind. She’d seemed otherworldly. That’s why I started believing she was a ghost. Well, that and I couldn’t find her in the real world.
“It’s your hair,” I say and wave my hand around her head. “It was down that night. Loose and in your face. Also, I never considered you being one of those fundies. Whenever they’re around, I close myself off. I don’t need to hear how they think I suck. Even today, when you walked over, I just assumed you were planning to stir up trouble. Only when I really looked at you and tugged away the fundie stuff did I see my dream girl.”
Oana’s eyes hold a lot of irritation. I hurt her feelings by not finding her or recognizing her when she found me. Yet, when I say the last three words, a smile warms her beautiful face.
“I thought you saw me and didn’t care,” Oana mumbles, fighting the pain rising in her.
“If I knew one of those fundie chicks was my dream girl from the woods, I’d have ridden over and snatched you up right then. But I’d started doubting you were real. I couldn’t find you. I was too wasted to even figure out where we met. And no one in town seemed magical like you were for me. But I guess I shouldn’t have ruled out the fundie chicks.”
“I’m not one of them,” she says and tugs her hair free from its tight ponytail. “Not really. I was born into that life. It’s not what I want.”
“I remember you saying you were trapped. When I started thinking you were a ghost, I assumed you were stuck between life and death. This kind of trapped is better because I can fix it.”
Oana gets the sweetest grin on her bright face. I realize how sad she must have been when she thought I didn’t want her.
“Are you really going to marry me?” she asks as she studies the restaurant.
“Yes, but the county clerk’s office isn’t open right now. We’ll need to hide out until we can make things official in the morning.”
“Hide out here?”
“No, we’re eating here. Afterward, we’ll hide out at a nearby hotel. We can stay in Rockwell until we’re ready to face our families.”
Oana considers my words before pink appears across her pale cheeks. “We’ll share a room.”
“We can get one with two beds. Once you’re ready, we’ll move to a room with one bed.”
Oana’s eyes widen before they feast on the sight of me. “I’m ready now.”
“We should take our time.”
“But we’re getting married.”
“Yes, but some of that is a formality to keep your family from forcing you to marry that creeper. We don’t need to rush anything else.”
“Don’t you want to share a bed?”
Oana’s wielding weird energy right now. She’s both scared and excited. Her words beg for me to touch her, even though I sense she’ll jump a foot off the ground if I make a move.
Unsure how to approach this stranger who owns my heart, I plan to keep talking sense and hope that fixes everything.
“I want to get to know you when I’m sober. This time when we talk, I’ll be able to remember everything. We never even got to date. That’s where people usually get to know each other. We only shared that one night, and a lot of it remains fuzzy.”
Circling me again, she frowns. “So, you might change your mind?”
“No, but I want you to trust me before you get naked.”
