Sidewalk Flower (5 page)

“Okay.”
 
He hesitated, and shifted on the steps.
 
“Ready to go inside?”

“No, you should go in though.
 
I need to be alone.”
 
A tingle traveled around her wounded hand and
she made the mistake of squeezing it into a fist.
   

Lucky dipped his head then and ran his
hand up along the back of his neck, rubbing it in his obvious confusion.
 
“Trista.
I’m kind of
at a loss here.
 
You’re obviously in
pain.
 
Just come inside and let me help
you.”

She tried to warn him, hoping he’d
listen.
 
“Lucky, you’re a nice guy.
 
Okay, I get it.
 
You want to help, but I didn’t ask for that
and you have no idea what you’d be signing up for anyway.
 
Assholes can barely handle my world; a good
guy like you doesn’t stand a chance.
 
Jaxon had no right doing this.”

“Hmmm.”
 
He scratched at his sideburn.
 
“You don’t know what I can and can’t
handle.”
 
He looked down but she had
caught his every word.
 

The point came when she should have shut
up.
 
But she’d given him the option of
letting her
be
and he’d stayed.

“What exactly does your girlfriend think
about you taking this trip with me?”
 
Not
the best comeback, she realized.

He shook his head as if realizing he was
stuck with a crazy person but then slid down onto his butt and patted the space
beside him for her to sit.
 
“I don’t have
a girlfriend.
 
You are assuming wrong,
again.”
 

Trista waited for him to recant and come
straight with her. “Lucky, you don’t have to lie.
 
I heard her today over the phone.
 
It’s okay.
 
I don’t judge.”
 
If she did, she’d
have had zero friends back in Cali.
 
Jaxon hadn’t named his band Sin Pointe for fun.
 

“Wait a second; you kissed me like that
when you thought I had a girlfriend?”
 
He
crinkled his brow with the honest question.

She paused to chew at the inside of her
cheek and consider what he’d just stopped short of calling her.
 
On the bright side, she hadn’t worried about
the rest of the trip in so many minutes.

“Trista, I didn’t mean it like that.
 
I just don’t understand where you’re willing
to draw the line.”

That’s right, because they didn’t know
each other.
 
How could she be mad?
 
He had merely pointed out a truth that had
become apparent about her after only a few short hours.
 
She really had been living amongst those who
kept few rules for far too long.
   

“Lucky, sometimes one moment is all the
time two people have together.”
 
She
crossed her hands at the wrists and rubbed them back and forth.
 

“Is that why you kissed me?”

She couldn’t answer him.
 
That had been about control of the
situation.
 
At first.
 

“Didn’t you wonder what my girlfriend
might think about that?”
 
His eyebrows
lifted and he started to reach out for her hand but stopped short.

She should have.
 
But hadn’t.

He twisted and leaned over and without
touching anything else, barely brushed his lips against hers as he spoke.
 
“What if we don’t tell her?”
 
The stubbled patch of whiskers just beneath
the center of his bottom lip scraped against her chin.

The appeal of the scrape and a stammer
for how to answer kept her quiet for a second.
 
“That would be very wrong, as you pointed out just now.”
 
She breathed.
 
“I would feel very bad.”

He pulled in his bottom lip again, and
then stood, pulling her up with him.
 
He’d seen her reasoning. She wished her bleeding heart would keep its
mouth shut so that she could have someone good, girlfriend or not.
 

“She wouldn’t have to know,” he said
softly as he touched the neckline of her dress while they stood inches from the
back door.
  
His fingers traced the
sweetheart scoop that had taken her a week to get just right.
 

It was hard to decipher right from wrong
when all she wanted was to take that well-mannered hand that had politely
skimmed along the stitching of her collar and suction it to the skin and bones
above her heart.

“She would lose you, Lucky.”

Smiling softly, he pulled back.
 
“You must have heard my neighbor’s daughter
earlier.
 
She’s seventeen going on thirty
and has been flirting with me since she was about twelve.
 
I don’t have the heart to break hers and my
dad lacks the tact not to keep her out of the shop without bringing her to
tears.
 
That’s all it is.
 
I’m not that kind of guy, darlin’.”
 

Trista remembered being that age and in
awe of an older man who had paid her attention, one who wasn’t a monster.
 
Jaxon had acted with dignity, never
humiliating her while she had been caught up in the midst of new feelings of lust
and easily triggered hormones.
 
Jaxon had
nursed her through her crush until she realized the bond they shared was deeper
and thicker than the curiosity she had fascinated on him for a while.
 
He’d never taken advantage when he easily
could have.
 
And it sounded as if Lucky
shared more than just a few common genes with his cousin.
 

Lucky patted the shoulder of her
dress.
 
“It’s almost midnight.
 
I bet your grandma will have breakfast ready
early.
 
It’s probably a good idea for us
to turn in.”
 

The look Lucky gave her then was one
thousand percent that of a man who was dipping into his reserves.

“You’re right.
 
Look, I apologize for being such a mess
tonight.
 
But can I ask you one last
thing?”
 
She squinted and searched his
face, ready to be let down.

His brows raised a notch like he was
preparing for another round.
 
“Okay, but
I have to warn you—.”

She cut him off.
 
“No warnings necessary.
 
I just wanted to know if you’re a musician.”

Caught off guard, he frowned.
 
“No, I’m not.
 
Why?”

“You have the fingers for it, long and
tapered.”
 

“Um, well I work…I work with my hands but
not at music.”
 
Lucky stuttered at first
like he hadn’t wanted to admit that.
 

“That’s good.
 
I just wanted to make sure.”
 
She didn’t turn around to see his response as
they finally re-entered the quiet house.
 

“Trista, you take care of that wound.”

When she turned to face him, he offered
her his hand.
 

She gripped it with her good one and they
shook like well-mannered, decent people.
 
“Nice to meet you, Lucky.”

What in the world was she getting him in
to?
 
Good guys had no business in her
world, but he had handled this bout with her.
 

Chapter
Three

 
It was time to get up.
 
Gramma
obviously wasn’t worried about waking her as she lay curled up on the
couch.
 
The old breadbox door snapped
shut and Trista knew she’d better be up in the next few seconds.
 
Gramma had never been one to dote.
 
Instead, she had been the example of strength
in Trista’s life, a person who rose with the intentions of filling the day with
meaningful work and who only put herself to bed at night by God’s good graces,
as she had frequently lectured.
 

Trista had seen the rewards of such
labor.
 
At sixteen, she had left Gramma
and Tennessee to be the youngest freshman student in attendance at Southern Cal.
 
But a solid work ethic did not confirm a
belief that there was a greater power up above, something or someone who cared
for her.
 
That had been difficult if not
impossible to accept, no matter how hard Gramma had tried to convince her.

The sound of Gramma’s oven door banging
closed without apology knocked Trista completely awake and off the couch.
 
Not more than a few seconds later, aromatic
smells of cheeses, paprika-seasoned potatoes and sweet honey ham fanned out to
the living room, making nice with Trista’s startled senses.
  

“Good morning, Gramma.
 
Do you need some help?”
 
She yawned and pulled the crocheted lilac
quilt up to her nose as she inhaled and then exhaled with a groan.
 
She hadn’t needed it for warmth.
   

“Up late were you, Trista Jeane?”
   

 
“No, not very.”
 
Trista folded the handmade blanket and laid it over the edge of the
sofa.
 
She didn’t want Gramma
worrying.
 
Forcing a spring into her step,
she walked over to the kitchen and looked in the refrigerator then pulled out a
saran wrapped tray.
 
It was filled with
fresh cut strawberries, orange slices and melon balls they’d made up the day
before.
 
“I’ll put this on the table.”

“Thank you.
 
Your friend hasn’t come out yet.
 
You’d better go wake him up and let him know
that breakfast is ready.
 
But get dressed
first, dear,” Gramma admonished.

“Yes, ma’am.”
 
Trista scooted her feet along the rugs and
entered Gramma’s room where her things had been relocated on account of their
new guest.
 
She brushed her teeth, washed
her face and after removing her white nightgown, slipped a dress on over her
head.
 
Gramma would approve of everything
except for the mess she called hair.
 
No
matter how hard she tried, the best and only way to keep it out of her face was
to pull it back into a bun…that resembled a nest.
 
She had her mother to thank for the unruly
tresses.
 
Her father’s hair had been
straight, brown and manageable, just like Gramma’s. She’d seen the pictures.
 
She added a few bobby pins to the pieces that
didn’t want to conform and returned to the main part of the home.

“I’ll go wake Lucky up now.”

“Good idea.
 
The casserole won’t keep warm for very
long.”
 
Gramma inhaled deeply over the
succulent dish.

Trista regretted having to wake Lucky and
still felt badly about the nut job performance she’d put in last night, but
they were under Gramma’s roof so that meant following her rules and time
schedule.
 
She knocked quietly.
 
Whispering his name wasn’t necessary as he
opened the door to face her.
 

“Hi, um Lucky, were you up already?”
 
She peered in as the sun filtered through the
mini-blinds that had been rigged permanently open.
 
“Sorry about the light, but Gramma likes to
rise with the sun.
 
She says it adds
purpose to the day.”

He yawned.
 
“That’s okay.
 
She’s right, you know.”
 
A sleepy
smile that made his cheeks rise greeted her in response.
 
“I’m used to getting up at the crack of dawn
with my folks.”

“Oh, good.
 
Well, breakfast is ready.”
 
She opened her eyes wider to press the
importance of a timely appearance by him at the table.
 
“And you should put on a shirt.”
 
She gently poked his chest, which was tanned
and toned and lightly sprinkled with dark blond hairs.
 
If she had a religion, her thoughts right now
would definitely be against it.
 
She
would not bite her lip because then he might know she was imagining being that
girl lying underneath him, pushing his fallen hair out of his face while he
rocked his hips against hers.
 
She
squeezed her inner thighs tightly, trying to control the tingling sensation at
her core.
Whoa, girl!
 
Quickly, she stepped out of the doorway to
give him back his space, but a hungry look flashed across his face at her
touch.
 
She backed away.