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Chapter Four


Nick

She walked like she was in slow motion. I stared at her. I’m not gonna lie, my heart kinda stopped a little and I could feel my jaw hanging open, but I couldn’t remember how to close it. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It was like someone had duplicated Kristin, poured her into a pair of tight jeans and put a flannel shirt on her, tied at the waist just high enough her belly button showed but not so high as to look dirty, but actually retain the girl-next-door look. My mouth ran dry and my heart beat sped up once it recovered from it’s initial shock and awe.

Kevin was just inside the house. “Shit. Is she really coming over?”

“Uh huh,” I said.

It was like Ann Richardson had known I’d be sad when I arrived, after having spent several travelling hours dreaming about Lauren, so she’d hired this goddess of farming for me to recover with. I bit my lip. No man was immune to hair and legs and an ass like that. The only thing missing from her walk across the property was bow-chicka-wow-wow music.

“Hey,” she called once she got into hearing range of me.

“Hey,” I called back.

Kevin was leaning against the wall inside, his eyes closed. “I can’t believe she didn’t tell me,” he was muttering, “She knew this was gonna happen, I can’t believe she didn’t tell me.”

“Who didn’t tell you what?” I asked.

“My mother,” Kevin hissed.

“What?”

But the girl had reached the steps and climbed up them, her boots heavy on the wood. She crossed the porch, hand outstretched to me as she walked, “Hi, I’m Caroline,” she said, and her hand slipped into mine and I swear it was the softest hand there ever was, but with the firmest handshake I ever got from a girl. “Were you lookin’ to rent a cabin, Mister….?”

“Nick,” I stammered. I almost forgot my god damn name.

Caroline smiled. Her teeth were all straight and perfect and stuff except for this little chip on the front left tooth. Just this itty-bitty chip. “Well Mr. Nick, you’re in luck, we have a couple cabins still available, if you’ll come inside the office here I can give you a price range…” She dropped the words mid-sentence, though, as she took a step forward, saw the front door wide open and Kevin just inside, leaning against the wall. She came to a dead stop, eyes wide, staring at Kevin like she’d just seen a ghost.

“Hey,” Kevin said.

Caroline stared at him. “Hey,” she said.

“We, uh, we won’t be needing a cabin, but thank you,” he said.

“No problem,” she said.

The air was thick. I mean real thick. I mean you’d need a fuckin’ jack hammer to get through it, it was that thick. I stared between the two of them, feeling like I’d somehow intruded on something insanely private. And the longer this awkward moment of thick silence stretched on, the weirder I felt about standing there. I adverted my eyes and cleared my throat because I almost felt like I had to remind them I was there.

“I better get back to the horses,” Caroline said, pointing back to the field she’d just come from.

Kevin nodded. “And we’ve been travelling all night. Think we’re both ready for some shut-eye.”

“Okay. Cool. Sleep well.” Caroline was backing away down the porch awkwardly. She backed into the railing. “If you need anything. I’ll be… somewhere…” With that, she turned and scurried away across the grass. I’m not gonna lie, as awkward as that all had been, I couldn’t help but watch as she hurried away, the way the jeans hugged her ass…

I bit my lower lip firmly, then turned to look at Kevin, but he’d disappeared into the house almost as fast as Caroline had disappeared across the yard. I ducked through the door to follow after him. “Who in hell was that?” I asked when I found Kev a moment later just around the corner in a little living room area to the right of the doorway.

“That was Caroline,” he answered.

“Yeah, I gathered that when she said ’Hi, I’m Caroline’,” I said.

Kevin dropped his duffel bag on the carpet and rubbed his face.
I looked around the living room. It was a warm, country motif sort of room. Big comfy couches and chairs with those thick wool blankets like you see in the western movies with the Native American patterns on them and stuff. The walls were exposed wood, like the inside of a log cabin, with thick patches of tree bark still on parts of ‘em, especially up in the high raftered ceiling. A big brick fireplace covered one wall, and a shelf lined with family photos in thick frames underlined a huge portrait of the Richardson family, taken years ago, when Kevin was probably fourteen or so, judging by the looks of him in it.

I’d never seen Kevin’s dad before, really, so seeing him up on the wall in the picture was surprising for a moment because I recognized him only by the fact that he looked like a heavier, salt and peppered version of Kevin. I could definitely see where Kevin got his eyebrows, at least.

“I just can’t believe she didn’t tell me that by caretaker she meant Caroline,” Kevin murmured. I looked over at him, he was staring at his mother’s face in the portrait, shaking his head.

“She seems capable enough,” I answered. If anything, she seemed overqualified. She could be a damn super model in those jeans. A centerfold in like cowgirls weekly or something.

“It’s not that, I’m sure she’s got it under control,” Kevin replied.

“Then what is it?” I asked.

“She and I used to go out, that’s all,” he answered, “Not a big deal.”

“You used to go out with her?” I asked. I glanced over my shoulder, like I expected her to be standing there or something, then turned back to Kev, “How? No way is she your age.”

Kevin nodded. “We went to high school together.”

Daaamn,” I said, “She fine for an older woman.”

Kevin raised his eyebrow. “Down boy.”

“What? She is.”

He grunted in disapproval at my approval.

I settled myself onto the couch, looking up at him as he stood there, still glowering at the photograph of his mother on the wall. “How long were y’all together for?”

“From eighth grade ‘til I moved to Orlando,” Kevin answered. “I dunno, like five or six years I guess.”

“I didn’t know you had another girl you were that serious about before you were with Kristin,” I said.

Kevin nodded, turning away from the portrait to face me. “Yeah,” he said simply. “Caroline.” He bent down and grabbed his duffel bag. “C’mon, let’s go upstairs. I’m exhausted.”

“Alright,” I agreed, although I’d have much rathered to stay where we were while he told me all the dirty details of his relationship with the flannel-and-jeans bombshell. I got up and grabbed the handle of my duffel, too, and Kevin led the way up these narrow, steep stairs.

“Careful on this one,” Kev said, “My dad built this place and it’s home and all but there’s a few imperfections. One of the steps is slightly taller than the others. Everybody trips on it.”

Despite the warning, I still almost tripped on it.

At the top, Kevin flicked on a hall light. The upstairs was shaped like a circle with an open center that looked down into the living room. I could see the fireplace and the couch and stuff below us. Around the loop were five doors. Kevin pointed to the furthest one, “Bathroom over there,” he said, “This one’s the master room, this was my parents’ room…” Then he led me to the left, where three of the doors were. “These were our rooms,” he said. “The furthest was Jerald’s, then Tim’s and mine’s this one here.” He paused at his door, “You can take either Jerald’s or Tim’s.”

I stepped around him and pushed the first one open. It was smallish, decorated in Navy blue and grey. A small desk sat in the corner and the shelving units were covered with dusty baseball trophies and science fair medals hung from tacks on the walls. There was a poster boasting the Army Strong slogan and another of Cyndi Lauper on the closet door. “Tim was a sucker for Cyndi,” Kevin said, seeing my eyes linger on the poster.

I wasn’t sure I could handle her staring at me, so I backed out and opened the third door. But I had a feeling the second I’d pushed it open that that one had been redecorated since Kevin had last been there. The bed was covered with a thick floral quilt and an old stuffed bear leaned against plush pillows. There were plants on the window sill and a big wood doll house on a squat table across the room. The desk was covered with scattered papers and a copy of a Jodi Picoult book lay open, the spine cracked, on a chair with a fluffy afghan blanket flung over the arm. It smelled like air freshener in there.

Kevin stared at the room for a long moment. His eyes lingered on the bear on the bed. “I guess you’re taking Tim’s room,” he said. “You can take the poster down.” He turned away from the girly room quickly and went back down the hall.

I followed, pulling the door to the room shut behind me, trying not to think about the fact that the flannel-and-jeans goddess would be a mere wall away from me. I put my duffel bag down on the bed in the middle room and looked around again. Despite the fact that nothing in the room was mine, it wasn’t uncomfortable. I moved the duffel bag to the floor and climbed onto the bed. The mattress was soft. I grabbed the pillows and folded one of them under my head, staring up at the ceiling, and I took a deep breath.

It was so quiet, I marvelled. There were no sounds of traffic, no roaring ocean, no children yelling as they played, or paparazzi calling for a photo op. Just peace and quiet.

It took like three seconds to fall asleep.




I had a dream, and I woke up and rolled over to tell Lauren about it, but she wasn’t there. I’d moved the pillow in my sleep so I was holding it in my arms like it was her. I let it go and it flopped off the bed and onto the floor. I lay there, a strange feeling coming over me, the bed feeling empty and kinda cold, and before long I’d completely forgotten what happened in the dream altogether and I was just left with this feeling like there was something I wanted to tell Lauren.

I pulled my phone out of my jeans pocket and stared at it. I could text her or call her, I thought, but then again if I did she’d want to know what she’d done wrong to make me run away. It wasn’t her fault, though, and I didn’t know how to tell her that. I didn’t know how to tell her that I wanted to be with her, but I didn’t know how to be a husband, and it scared the hell out of me to think of it. I didn’t know how to tell her that it hurt when I woke up and found she wasn’t there. I should’ve been waking up next to her today for the first time of all the rest of the times in my life, and instead I was in Kentucky, over a thousand miles away, in an empty bed. Somewhere else, she was waking up in an empty bed, too.

Putting the phone down on the nightstand, I crawled to sit on the edge of the bed. I’d fallen asleep with all my clothes still on, including my sneakers. It was almost noon according to the clock on my phone’s lock screen, but that made sense since we’d got here after six in the morning. The window of the room obviously faced southwest because I could see the sun glaring harshly on the trees outside the window, but none of the beams were coming in the room. It was nice and cool and darkish in there. I looked up at Cyndi Lauper. “Hey,” I said to the poster. She stared benignly back at me from the Time After Time poster.

I looked down at my lap as a great big rumble erupted from my stomach. “Well shit,” I muttered. And I realized the only thing I’d eaten in the last two days was three cookies at Ann’s house. I’d been too nervous at the church in California to eat anything. The last thing I’d had before that had been a plate of barbeque chicken wings at the bachelor party.

I pushed myself up off the bed and grabbed my phone. “You’re coming down later, Lauper,” I said, pointing at the poster, and I pulled open the door, sticking my head into the hallway. Nothing had changed out there. The light was still on. I peeked over the railing into the living room, and it seemed deserted. I looked to the left and the right, all the doors were closed to all the bedrooms. I wondered if Kevin was asleep or not, and I paused by his bedroom door and listened, trying to hear if he was like on the phone or something, but there wasn’t any noise at all.

I decided to head downstairs and see if I could figure out where things were myself. After all, Kev’s casa es mi casa, I thought. I almost tripped on that trick step again, and I cursed under my breath as I clung to the banister the rest of the way down the stairs.

In the foyer, I turned right since I knew the living room was to the left, and I wandered into a dining room with what appeared to be home made furniture and a big in-wall cabinet with fancy china on display and a bunch of knick-knacky things on all the shelves. More family pictures hung on the walls, framed graduation and school photos of all three boys, and a couple pictures from proms. I paused and stared at Kevin’s. He was wearing a cheesy 80’s suit and next to him, sure enough, was the flannel-and-jeans goddess, her hair teased to high heaven in true 80’s fashion, wearing a fluffy pink nightmare of a dress, a big flower on her wrist, Doc Martin boots on her feet, and two different earrings in her ears. “Jesus, she was like frickin’ Madonna,” I muttered. I still couldn’t believe she was old enough to be Kevin’s age.

I wandered on from there and was relieved to see I’d gone the right way as I stepped into a huge kitchen, whose windows faced the east. Sunlight poured through them, leaving funny shadow patterns on the floor. The counters were spotless. On one sat a bowl of fruit. I walked over and picked up an apple and rubbed it on my shirt as I glanced around. Pots and pans hung from big hooks on the walls and a stove with old gas burners stood in the corner.

I took a bite of the apple.

“Frick,” I said, pulling it away from my mouth quickly. It was fake. My teeth had left big dents in the painted coating, little creases revealing the styrofoam beneath. It tasted like soap. I scraped my tongue on my teeth and put the plastic apple back on the pile in the bowl. “Why the fuck does fake fruit exist,” I complained.

“Sorry,” came a voice from behind me, “I should make a sign for that. Please don’t eat the fake fruit.”

I turned around and there was Caroline. She had a sheen of sweat on her face and the top of her chest. The flannel shirt was tied around her waist now and she stood there in the tight jeans and an olive green tank top, her bra straps showing at the shoulders. Her hair was messier than it’d been the first time I’d seen her. She swept the back of her hand over her forehead, and stepped around me, pulling a glass from the cupboard and opening the fridge to pour a drink into the glass. “You want some sweet tea?” she asked. I nodded. I probably would’ve nodded even if she asked if I wanted arsenic, though, to be honest. She took another glass down and poured a second serving of the tea, then held one out to me. “Here you go, I brewed it yesterday.”

“Thanks,” I said. I held the cup stupidly, staring at her as she replaced the gallon jug back into the fridge.

“Lemon?” she asked. She held up a little bowl of lemon slices.

“Are they real?” I joked. I felt so cool ‘cos I’d thought of something funny to say to the pretty girl. It was like I’d been reverted back to age 14 the minute she’d walked into the room. I felt so stupid.

She laughed. Her laugh was kinda musical. I liked it. “I promise, the apples are the only fake fruit in here.” She dropped a lemon slice into my cup. No tongs or forks or anything. Just her fingers. It seemed somehow almost sexual though I didn’t know why. Probably anything would’ve at that point. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She dropped a lemon in her own glass, then put the bowl back in the fridge and turned to face me as she took a sip of the tea. Tea sipping had never seemed so sexy.

Bow-chicka-bow-bow.

God damn it.

The last time I’d felt like this I really had been about thirteen or fourteen and Brian had invited us all over to the apartment him, Howie and Kev shared for Kevin’s birthday and I’d been sitting on the couch when there was a knock on the door and Howie opened it to reveal Kristin. It was the first time I’d met her, and I’d only vaguely noticed pictures or anything before but the second she walked in the room it’d been like I’d heard a Barry White ohhh yeaaah voice over and my eyes had widened and my heart quickened and my mouth had gone dry and my pants got tight… I’d never told Kevin but my first wet dream had involved Kristin shaking her hair out of a bun in slow motion.

Yes, Kristin had been my first huge, mind-numbing, tent-popping, jaw-dropping, make-Nick-act-like-a-stupid-14-year-old-with-no-brain-in-his-head-just-the-one-in-his-pants, crush.

She’d always kind of remained my secretly harbored crush, too. In fact, a couple years before, Lauren and I made Lists - you know, the list of people who, given the chance, we were allowed to sleep with and not get in trouble for cheating? - and I’d actually put Kristin on mine. Granted, her name was sandwiched between Hugh Jackman as Wolverine and Sigourney Weaver. Lauren had stared at the list, and rather than comment that I’d put two guys on there (Johnny Depp was the second one ‘cos c’mon, everyone wants to bone that guy), she’d looked up and raised an eyebrow, “You can’t put one of your friend’s wives on the list,” she’d said.

“Why not?” I’d asked.

“Because, it’s not fair, you actually know that person,” Lauren answered.

“So? It’s not like it’d ever happen. It’s Kevin and Kristin,” I’d argued, “I’m more likely to get Maggie from the Walking Dead.” I reached over and tapped her name on the list.

“Because it’s creepy. This is like if I put - I dunno, Brian on my list,” Lauren said.

“Ew, you wouldn’t fuck Brian, would you?” I asked, flabbergasted at the suggestion.

“No,” Lauren said, “That’s not the point. The point is it’s creepy. You can’t put your friend’s wife on the list!”

Now, I thought, I could put Caroline on the list and be less creepy. She was just as hot as Kristin without the being Kevin’s wife creepy factor that had Lauren all worked up. She was having the same effect on me that Kristin had had on 14 year old me.

“Nick?” Caroline, I realized, was leaning forward a little, a concerned look on her face. “You okay?”

I realized I’d been just standing there, awkwardly holding my glass and staring at her boobs for the last several minutes while my mind went over all that. I snapped out of my reverie, quickly averting my eyes away from her chest. “Yeah. Yes. Sorry. Yes, I’m good,” I stammered. And I quickly took a huge gulp of sweet tea to compensate for the weirdness. But the thing was the tea was sweeter than I’d expected - I was used to Lauren using way less sugar in things, and also she used Stevia which was like fake sugar, and this was like a lot of real sugar in the tea - and I felt like it was stuck to the inside of my throat and I promptly choked on it.

“Oh my God, are you okay?” Caroline asked, looking like she wasn’t sure if she needed to perform the heimlich maneuver. She put down her glass on the counter in a panic, like she was preparing to save my life from certain death by sweet tea.

“Uuuhh huh,” I choked out the words and I slammed my fist against my chest, trying to stop choking. I could feel a little air bubble stuck in my throat, one of those damn ones you just can’t shake, and I couldn’t stop hacking. Jesus. I was so suave. How the fuck was there thousands of girls all around the world with pictures of me up on their walls? I wondered. I could feel my face reddening more and more from pure embarrassment.

“You sure?” Caroline asked, looking unconvinced.

“Yeah,” I wheezed.

She frowned, but she accepted it, thank God, and she leaned back and picked her tea up again and went back to sipping it. I decided I was going to politely not sip mine again, as I didn’t want a repeat of what all had just gone down. Although, I thought, I wouldn’t mind a little CPR action from her, and I pictured faking a complete blockage of the throat and laying on the floor as she performed mouth-to-mouth.

I bet those lips tasted like vanilla and honey.

“I was just about to make some lunch, are you hungry?” Caroline asked.

I nodded stupidly.

Again, I probably would’ve nodded to arsenic.

Which, kinda, the sweet tea had had the same effect as arsenic. But I’d take it all over again, I thought.

“So what brings you to Kentucky?” Caroline asked as she put her glass back down on the counter and she started collecting ingredients from the cupboards and fridge. She glanced at me as she piled them up on the center island counter.

“Kevin drove,” I said. I blinked at my stupidity the moment the words were fully out of my mouth.

Caroline laughed. At least she thought it was funny, I thought. “I meant more, you know, why you came than what physically brought you to Kentucky,” she clarified.

My cheeks felt hot.

The word physically had sounded so… hot…

I was staring again, I realized, and I opened my jaw like I was gonna say something, but nothing came out. Say words, Carter, I told myself, Any words.

“Girl trouble,” I said.

“Girl trouble?” Caroline repeated.

I’d seen in a chick magazine Lauren had left laying around on the tour bus once that repeating things guys say make our brains think the girl’s like extra, extra interested in us because they paid attention enough to be able to say back words we’d said. Like we could all be emotionally fulfilled by a parrot according to that article. I remember thinking the article had been full of shit, then I noticed that day that Lauren does a lot of repeating of things I say, and I remember arguing with her whether she did that to give my subconscious an ego boost or not and she’d said, “This is why you shouldn’t read girly magazines, Nick!” and that had led into like a two hour discussion about what else she’d learned from magazines that she did to me (there was a lot of great sex stuff she’d learned in there - thank you Cosmopolitan!). But the parroting thing had still bugged me. Was I really so shallow subconsciously that something as simple as repeating my words back to me was an ego boost?

Caroline repeating them confirmed that yes, yes I was that shallow.

I nodded, dry mouthed.

“What kind of girl trouble?” she asked. Caroline frowned. She was mixing a can of chicken with some other ingredients for chicken salad.

“Well, I was gonna get married, but ---”

And suddenly Kevin came up behind me, slapping me good on the back with his splayed palm, almost knockin’ the wind out of me, stopping me mid-sentence. “Morning!” Kevin practically shouted. “Or should I say afternoon?” He chuckled, and his hand ran up my back to my shoulder, which he squeezed tight.