Secrets Behind Those Eyes (2 page)

“Hey sexy. You need some help with
those paint cans?”

Dealing with this
obnoxious jerk may kill me before this week is over. “No. I still
don’t need
your
help with anything.”

“
I
was just trying to be nice. We finished up the landscaping outside
and Gus told me to come in and help you paint.”

“Fine,” I tell him. “Just grab a
roller and start on the other side of the room.”

“Sure.” He shrugs and walks over to
the other side and starts painting.

After an hour of blissful silence,
it’s time to wait for the paint to dry a little before we start the
second coat. He walks over and hands me a bottle of
water.

“Thanks.” I sit down on a
bucket.

“So what do you do normally? Like are
you in college or whatever?” he asks.

“I graduated high school a year early
so I could start SCAD this fall.”

“Which program are you
doing at SCAD? Wait, let me guess. Something in fashion or, with a
name like Scarlet, art history
.
”

“No. My mother works for the Telfair
Museum so art history has been crammed down my throat for most of
my life. I’m kinda scattered right now. I’m doing some sculpture,
some painting, sketching, and graphic design. “

“Wow, that’s kinda all over the
place.”

“I have an interest in all of them and
I’m good at all of them so I just really can’t decide. Sculpting
and painting are passions. The feeling of creating something is
awesome. But I’m also realistic enough to know that it isn’t going
to pay the bills. I already do some graphics stuff for my brother’s
band, so I figure why not look into doing some of it
professionally.”

“So you have a brother. Older or
Younger?” he asks.

“Older. I have two actually, but I
just met my oldest brother, Cade, a few weeks ago. My brother Gable
plays in a local band.”

“Did you just find out about this
other brother?”

“No, I knew about him for years. Well,
after the fact that my dad had two families came out
anyway.”

“Holy shit. That’s wild. I don’t have
any brothers or sisters. My mom died when I was young and my dad
never found anyone else.”

“I’m sorry,” I tell him. “That’s so
sad. My dad going away wasn’t so bad; he was a jackass most of the
time. But my momma, I don’t think I could live without her. As
crazy as she is.”

“So your mom works down at the
Telfair, huh? What’s her name? I used to have to go down there all
the time to deliver stuff for my dad.”

“Her name is Whisper
Johnson.”

“Yeah, I’ve met her; she’s really
nice. Seems really into art.” He waves his hands around.

“Her parents were like true to the
word hippies. So she’s all free love, art, don’t hate people. The
only thing she has done differently was try to be married once and
live in one place with us, rather than floating around like
gypsies.”

“Damn. So how are you not so much free
love then?”

“You’re an ass. As soon as I start
thinking you’re a normal person… I should’ve just ignored
you.”

“I’m just saying you put
off all kinds of frosty vibes. No wonder you and the ex-had hard
times.”

“Shut up; you don’t know a fucking
thing about my ex. Mind your own damn business and leave me the
hell alone.” I storm back to the other side of the room and start
the second coat.

We go back to our silence.
I can’t wait to get off
work today. It’s Friday
and my best friend Annabelle is taking me out for my birthday
finally. My birthday was actually a month ago, but I wanted to go
to meet Cade and then all the shit with Dustin happened, so I never
got the chance to go until now.

We are finally finishing
up for the day. At five o’clock sharp, Annabelle pulls
up in her new Camaro. She’s a blue blood but you wouldn’t
think it. She steps out of the car, pulling off the ultimate
Southern Belle sex appeal. She’s in a pair of cut off shorts and a
bandanna tank top. “Hey girl, you ready to go get our barhopping
on?”

“Yeah, just a minute; let me go make
sure that I closed up all the paint and stuff.”

She follows me into the house. “Wow,
this is really neat. I can’t believe you helped do
this.”

“She didn’t do this painting all on
her own, you know,” Ryder says.

Annabelle rolls her eyes. “So, is this
Sir Douchebag you told me about?”

“Yep,” I say, popping the
p.

“Sir Douchebag, huh? Does that make
you Queen Frosty?”

I ignore him, but Annabelle just
can’t. “Hey, didn’t I go to high school with you? When you weren’t
doing some stupid shit to get suspended?”

“Probably. School isn’t really my
thing. Never has been.” He says with a slight grin.

“Abbott Cotton Company. No wonder you
don’t have to like school,” Annabelle scoffs.

“Hey, I’m ready to go,” I interject.
“I need to go by my place and grab my clothes.”

“Great! I’m ready to get our
barhopping on.” We walk out, not even bothering to give Ryder a
goodbye.

Two hours later, I’m showered, shaved,
and buffed. My hair and makeup are done, and I have a killer sexy
outfit. Annabelle and I walk out of her place dressed to kill. I
have on my new Miss Me jeans I’m so proud of because I busted my
ass and saved to buy them, a hot pink, sparkly, strapless top, and
some killer hot pink cowgirl boots Annabelle got me for my
birthday.

Once we get in her car, she laughs.
“Okay, so this is the second part of your birthday gift.” She pulls
out a bottle of Parrot Bay. “Now we’ll swing by Sonic and grab a
couple of slushes to add this to so we can pre-game.”

“Are you going to be able to drive us
all the way to Swampy Tonk and back? Or like usual, am I driving
home?”

“No, I got it covered tonight. Since
we’ll be so close to Richmond Hill, we’ll crash in a hotel room
down there.”

“Okay, sounds cool.”

Forty-five minutes later,
I have downed my route 44 blue coconut slush along with half the
Parrot Bay. Annabelle has downed her slush with the
other
half. We’re feeling tipsy walking into the bar. We chose the Swampy
Tonk because they don’t really check the IDs of pretty girls. Since
she’s the only person besides my mom and Gable that know the truth
about my break-up, she’s buying my shots tonight. Our plan is to
get buzzed good here and then head to some of the other small bars.
No one really knows us down here and there are always hot soldiers
here from the base. They are always willing to buy pretty girls
drinks.

“You are getting on that mechanical
bull tonight, Scarlet,” she says.

“Hell, no, I’m not.”

She giggles. “We’ll see.”

Chapter 2

Ryder

Just when I thought I was going to be
having a boring Friday night…

I figured I’d be sitting at home or
hitting up some local bar, but my buddy Judd just got stationed
down at Ft. Stewart and he got a pass for the night. We’re going to
hit up some little bars down in Richmond Hill. It’ll be good to
have a few beers with him. I think he’s going to be deployed soon
and he’s like a brother to me. Good thing we both had some great
fake IDs made two years ago.

When we pull my Jeep
Wrangler into the parking lot of the Swampy Tonk, I can tell
tonight is going is going to be interesting. I look two spots over
and see the bright red Camaro that picked up Scarlet today.
Hmm, so this is where they started their night
off.

We walk into to the bar and I see her
across the room, dancing with her friend. “Judd, I may need you to
keep that little raven haired beauty on the dance floor busy
tonight.”

“Damn, bro, I don’t think that’ll be a
problem for me.”

A nice slow song pipes up just in time
for Judd to make his way over to Scarlet’s friend and ask her to
dance. Scarlet make her way to the bar and so do I.

“Can I buy you a drink?”

While turning her head, she smiles.
“Sure.” Until she sees that it’s me offering. “Ugh, damn, just my
luck. No, I’ll get my own drink, thanks.”

“I just want to buy you a drink to say
sorry.”

“Fine.”

I motion for the bartender to give her
another and I get a beer for myself. “Didn’t think I would run into
anyone I knew down here.”

“We came here to get away from the
locals and celebrate my birthday.” She has a cute little slur going
on.

“So it’s your birthday?” I
ask.

“No, it was a few weeks ago, but I’ve
been kinda busy.”

“Wow, well, I’ll buy you another drink
for your birthday then.”

“No thanks. We also came down here for
the cute military guys. See? My friend’s already found
one.”

I laugh. “That’s my best friend, Judd.
He’s who I came here with tonight.”

“Great,” she says.

“Just be careful who gets you drinks,
okay? You can’t be too safe these days.”

She throws her hand over
her shoulder as she walks off.
Damn, her
ass is hot as fuck in those jeans.
I sit
at the bar for a little while and watch her get hit on by every guy
in the place except for Judd; he’s so wrapped up with her friend.
Shit, I may be sleeping in the car tonight.
Hell, I get him to help me and he’s the one who’s probably
going to get laid.
A little while later, I
notice that Scarlet is well on her way to being drunk. That’s when
she climbs on the bull. Fuck that is a girl tell-all. If you’re
drunk enough to want to make an ass out of yourself on a mechanical
bull, it’s time for you to go home.

My phone vibrates. It’s a text from
Judd.

Hey, man, I’m leaving with
Annabelle for a little bit. Thanks for the hookup BTW.

Fuck you, man. Did you
play the whole “I’m being deployed and I may never see you again
card?”

Nope, she just thinks I’m
sexy. Good luck yourself. Meet you back at the hotel; they are
staying at the same place. So if you’ll just alert me when you’re
on your way back, that would be great. Oh and Annabelle said can
you make sure Scarlet makes it back. I told her I didn’t think
you’d have a problem. But she did say if you put your hands on her
or let anything happen to her, she’ll cut off your
balls.

Great. I now get to go
convince a drunk girl that possibly hates me that I’m her ride back
to the hotel and
Oh yeah we need to hang
out for a little while because our friends are hooking
up.

I watch her fall on the air mat under
the bull. Now is a good a time as any. I walk over.

“Hey Scarlet let me help you up and
get you back to your room.”

She shoves me. “No. I don’t like
you.”

“Too bad, I’m your ride
since our
friends
ran out of here to go hook up.”

“Shit, I told that bitch I’d have to
be the DD.”

“No, I’m the DD; she wanted me to make
sure that you made it back. Judd and I are staying at the same
place so it works.”

“Okay, I guess.” She slumps her
shoulders.

We start making our way through the
now thick cloud of people. As we get to the door, she tenses up.
Then she shakes her head. “As if tonight couldn’t get more fucked
up.”

I look at her, confused.
“What?”

“My ex and his
best friend
.”

I recognize these two assholes. I went
to school with them. Maybe she had the right to fuck up either one
of their cars.

Dustin stops looking me up and down.
Then he looks over to Scarlet. “Scar, baby, what are you doing here
with him?”

“I’m not here with him; he’s giving me
a ride. Plus who I’m here with is just as much none of your fucking
business as it is mine that you are with him.” She says, pointing
to Brandon.

Dustin touches her arm. “Come on,
let’s go outside and talk.”

“Hey, you need to take your hand off
her,” I say.

“Yes, take your hand off of
me.”

Brandon reaches for Dustin. “Man,
don’t waste your damn time with her; she always was trash. We just
know it for sure now.”

That’s when the punch
happened. Brandon stumbles, holding his jaw. “Scarlet, you are one
fucking crazy bitch. You know, maybe I should talk to the judge
about your obvious anger issues. With your probation
I’m sure he’d like to get you
some help.”

I’m about to knock him on
his ass when she steps up, jutting her perfect chest forward. “Yeah
and maybe I should talk to everyone I know about your
issues
. Wonder how Mommy
and Daddy would feel about that? Don’t fucking push me, Brandon.
I’ll ruin you.”

He grabs her arm. I step toward him.
“Take your fucking hand off of her or I’ll break it.”