“I wanted to be a bull rider.” I confess and she grins, but then bites her lip trying to hide it. “My mom told me this strange story about when she first met my dad. There was this neighbor of my grandads in Savannah, and he rode some barrel in his backyard like it was a bull.”
“A barrel?”
“Yeah, some kind of strange thing the man created to mimic a bull. It was attached to cables which made it extremely bouncy and unpredictable. I didn't believe her; thought she was making fun of me because I said I wanted to travel and ride bulls.” I shrug. “Turns out she wasn’t teasing me and there was that man, who’d go out in his yard and ride that damn contraption each day. He was decked out with a helmet and all. Granted I think the guy was a little bit insane, but hey he had a dream.”
Kyra laughs, a full-on belly laugh like she’d held it beyond her breaking point.
“Wow,” she fans her face, trying to hold back her tears of laughter. “So did you build your own bull then?”
“Nah,” I turn toward her and lean my hip against the counter. “Mike had a friend whose dad worked at Mercy.”
When she widens her eyes I chuckle.
“Let’s just say my dream of becoming a bull rider quickly vanished.”
“Aw, that’s sad.”
“Tell that to my broken tailbone,” I scoff.
“Oh my God!”
“I had to sit on a damn donut inflatable pillow during class for weeks, and kids are mean. Especially teenage boys, and you don’t want me to tell you what they were saying was the cause for me needing that pillow.”
Again she tries not to smile but she can’t hold off and her mouth shifts into a wide grin.
“Precisely,” I nod, and she bends at the waist laughing. Her shoulders shaking, her hand covering her mouth and it doesn’t even matter that she is laughing at my embarrassment. The sound of her laughter is beautiful.
This girl has been my object of attraction for years and she doesn’t even know it. I’ve watched from the sidelines as she’s been flirted with and asked out by other guys. The time I saw my buddy Keith kiss her is still something that makes my stomach twist into the most uncomfortable knot. It doesn’t matter that they were barely fifteen, that shit still hurts.
Once she stops laughing and rights herself she clears her throat and gets back to work. “Working here with Gran has actually been the greatest part of my days. My life before moving to Brooklet wasn’t always the greatest.”
“I'm sorry to hear that.”
“No reason for you to be sorry, it's my momma who should be apologizing. Can’t count on that though because I’ve only seen her once since I was twelve and she was drunk and high and sleeping on Gran’s porch.”
I don’t react, but fuck if her words don’t feel like something pierces through my chest.
“Wish I could say that was the one and only time I’d ever seen her in that condition, but I’d be lying. I was the adult in that dynamic and she was the wild child, sleeping with every man, closing down bars and getting arrested.”
“That’s crazy,” I couldn’t imagine a life like that even if I tried. My parents barely drink, unless you count the time my mom got with the group of ladies, and they’d polish off a few bottles of wine. But even then she was the same doting, loving mom she’s always been. Maybe more than, because she always did this weird petting our heads thing. She’d get all sentimental and shit and dad loved it, Mike and I, not so much. She’d tell us all we were her boys, her world and it may have been strange to us then, but now we laugh about it.
I couldn’t imagine living through the shit Kyra has gone through, or even a small fraction of it.
“Gran finally did whatever it took to get my mom to sign over all rights and she’s been my hero ever since.”
The kitchen grows quiet again, with just the sound of the mixer mingling with the clinking of spoons on the bowl and tapping of measuring cups on edges to knock out the remaining ingredients. I want to say so many things, I want to tell her that I remember her back then. and admire the woman she is now and how I’m so glad that she landed here in Brooklet, though I wish it was under different circumstances.
Kyra doesn’t seem to feel sorry for herself so I shouldn’t either, but damn if my entire body doesn’t ache for her, in more ways than one.
“So instead of bull riding you farm?” She finally asks and it pulls me from my thoughts.
“I started working summers with my dad at Gemma and Buds place. It was a summer job for a teenage boy, but it ended up being something I never left. I also work with Uncle Reed doing construction. I don’t know, I guess I love doing things with my hands.”
Glancing over I see her throat bob as she swallows hard and I could say a million things in this moment to draw attention to it, but I don’t. If I was with Gretchen or any of the other girls I would, but Kyra, it's different. There is and has always been this insane pull I feel whenever she is around. Fighting it has been hard, but I’m not so sure I want to fight it any longer.
CHAPTER
SEVEN
Kyra
“Today was nice,” Gran sits down on the couch at my side, and I know she’s only fishing for details. The problem is, I don’t have any. What she sees is what she gets.
“Yep,” I offer, focusing on the Lifetime movie. They are all the same, a naive girl gets herself in a mess with a guy that showed all the signs of instability, yet she refused to acknowledge them. She runs, he finds her right when she stumbles upon happiness and the entire thing gets flipped upside down. That is until the hero saves her and then it ends before you get a glimpse of her new life. You’re left staring at the television asking yourself is that really the ending.
But I need something to distract me from the million questions I have, and apparently Gran has them too.
“Garrett is a nice boy.” He is not a boy, but to Gran every younger man is referred to as a boy.
“He is,” I say, still trying not to react.
Garrett spent most of his morning at Sugarland. He did the smallest chores, which I’m not sure why he felt he had to stick around. Thing is, I enjoyed his company, probably more than I should have allowed myself to. Because now as I sit here pretending not to think about him, he’s clouding my every thought.
His dark hair, sexy dimples and his deep chuckle, and the fact that around him I get that same feeling of safety that I get with Gran. That feeling like no matter what is going on, I am protected.
That is a feeling I rarely get, but he offers, simply by being near.
Of course I don’t share that with anyone because I can’t accept it, accepting it means I believe I can have something great and great things do not fall in my lap.
Actually the only great thing in my life so far has been Gran.
“His dimples could bring a woman to her knees.” I smile before I can stop myself and she laughs. “And by that grin on your face I’d have to say you agree.”
“They are something,” and all I want to do is feather soft kisses over them and well, over all of him.
I glance over to find Gran gleaming at me with a knowing smile. “What?”