Page 21 of Love Is a War Song

The air conditioning was blasting in the store and goose bumps covered my arms and legs. Now I wished I hadn’t worn denim booty shorts, but the heat here was almost too much to bear.

I pushed the cart around with Lucas following along. These people liked their meat, so I followed the signs for the meat section. Chicken tenders were always easy to pop in the air fryer back home, so I went in search of some.

The prices were a lot cheaper than I’d seen at Gelson’s. I snatched an armful of packages of chicken tenders.

“Whoa, what are you doin’ there?”

“These are only six bucks apiece, I’m stocking up.” I placed them in the cart, but Lucas started putting them back immediately.

“We don’t need this much chicken and this cut is expensive. How much money did Lottie give you?”

“I haven’t counted it yet.”

“Maybe start there.”

I dug into my tiny shorts pocket and pulled out the wad. It was $110. He was right. I couldn’t get so many packs of these.

“This doesn’t seem like enough to feed everyone.”

“It’s plenty, you just have to shop smart. C’mon, I’ll show you how to stretch a dollar. Consider it Indian lesson number four.”

“Should we really be saying ‘Indian’?” I asked.

“I’m allowed to joke, but I wouldn’t let a white person call me Indian. Do you see the difference?” I followed him as I pushed the cart.

“Yes, but I just never grew up saying ‘Indian.’?”

“What did you say?”

“?‘Native American,’ if we were ever brought up. You’d be surprised by how little Native Americans come up in Los Angeles.”

“That doesn’t surprise me at all.” He looked at tubes of ground meat and focused on reading the packages. I let the conversation die so I could watch him. I shouldn’t be ogling, but this man was simply gorgeous. I was a little dazed as I continued to follow him around the store.

Bulk frozen chicken, ground beef, and vegetables on sale took up almost half our budget. Then we stocked up on flour, rice, and beans. After we got butter and milk, the money was gone. Why was dairy so expensive?

It was a lot of food. Frankly, I was used to spending this entire weekly budget on a single lunch for myself. It wasn’t always like that growing up, but since I started getting paid more, my mom and I treated ourselves to everything we were denied for years.

“We should check out now and head back,” I said as I placed the second gallon of milk into the cart.

“Lucas?” a woman’s voice sounded behind us.

I turned to see who it was. The woman looked a little younger than Lottie. She was wearing a black skirt suit with little slingback kitten heels. She looked like a congresswoman or something.

I looked back at Lucas, who was frozen and tense. His shoulders were near his ears and he looked panicked.

The woman’s heels clicked wildly as she approached us on hurried feet.

“Lucas, I’ve been calling you. Why haven’t you returned my calls?” She wrapped her arms around him, oblivious to his discomfort.

“Been busy,” he mumbled.

“Too busy to call your mama?”

His mother? Plot twist. I looked at her face and then Lucas’s. The resemblance was there. She had shoulder-length black hair, slanted eyebrows, and a pointed chin. I could see her in Lucas. But where his eyes were gray like smoke, hers were chocolate brown.

“You know it’s your dad’s birthday soon. I’m making his favorite roast and want to make sure you’ll be there.”

“I don’t know, Mom. I’m busy. Can I call you later?”

She brushed him off and focused on me. “Now, who is this? Luke, you never said you had a girlfriend. I’m Cat Iron Eyes, Lucas’s mother.

And you are?” She reached her hand out to me.

I had no choice but to take it. Lucas was subtly shaking his head no.

No what? Don’t take her hand? It was too late—the woman wouldn’t let go.

“I’m Avery.”

“She’s gorgeous, honey. Tell me, are you local?” To the point. How to answer that?

“Mom, can you cool it? We have to go.” Lucas started pushing the full cart to the checkout line.

“What? Can’t I ask? Is it wrong that a mother would want her only son to be with a local woman? We’re Muscogee, you know.”

“I’m Muscogee too, ma’am.” I paused. Clearly, she thought we were together. Maybe talking him up to his mom would help. “Lucas has been the best thing to ever happen to me.”

“Muscogee too! Who’s your family?”

“Mom, really, we have to go. I’ll go to dinner, but please just drop it.”

“I’m Lottie Fox’s granddaughter.” Lottie never mentioned if she would introduce me around to everyone. I hope I wasn’t supposed to be a big secret.

“Is that so?” Cat’s smile looked strained, almost fake. Like mentioning Lottie dropped a big bucket of water on her. “All right, honey, I have to head back to the office, but you have to bring your girlfriend. Your father is going to love her.”

“I’ll happily join you all for dinner. I’ll even bake Mr. Iron Eyes a cake.”

“What?” Lucas bit out.

“Marvelous, see you in a couple weeks then, honey.” Cat kissed Lucas on the cheek before she clickety-clacked in those heels away to the wine section.

“Why would you say that?” Lucas rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms.

“I was trying to help. You seem distressed. What’s the big deal?”

“The big deal is she thinks you’re my girlfriend.”

“So?”

“So! You aren’t my girlfriend.”

I rolled my eyes, piling the groceries onto the conveyor belt. “Who cares. Who is she going to tell?”

“The entire town.”

“Congratulations, you got yourself a fake celebrity girlfriend. Relax, it’s just a dinner. I wonder what kind of recipes there are in that cookbook. Does your dad like chocolate? Also, your last name is Iron Eyes? Why does that sound familiar? Is that a common last name?”

“What? No. It doesn’t matter.”

“You’re right, I’ll see what ingredients we have the most of and go from there.”

“No, I mean it doesn’t matter because you aren’t going.”

“Of course I am. Your mother invited me specifically.” I patted his cheek and added, “Darling.” Then I scooted past him to start bagging the groceries.

Not only would Lucas learn to love my music, but I was going to make sure that every single person around him loved me too.

Lucas huffed and shoved food into paper bags. He was sulking. I made him very, very mad.

···

Lucas helped me unload the groceries from the truck and put them away in the kitchen.

It was all done in complete silence. He didn’t look at me or give me more than a grunt when I tried to ask him any questions.

He was seething. Maybe I’d overstepped by accepting that dinner invitation.

Oops. But it wasn’t like he really tried to correct her assumption that we were together.

It was extremely awkward, and I didn’t want to be rude to the woman by declining her thoughtful invitation.

She very clearly had been trying to get ahold of Lucas for a while.

Was it also a bonus that I could endear them to me as the ultimate payback to Lucas?

Yes, but more important, I didn’t want to be impolite.

Once the last bag of dried beans was placed in the pantry, Lucas left the house. I stood in the empty kitchen, knowing I’d have to start cooking dinner, but I didn’t want to yet.

My legs had minds of their own and I ran out the door and down the porch.

“Lucas! Wait!” He hadn’t made it that far.

He turned around. “What?”

“I still need the computer and camera.”

“Can it wait?”

“No.” Yes, but I wanted to fix this. He was too quiet.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath in through his nostrils and held it there for a few seconds before he slowly exhaled and looked me in the eye. “Come on then.”

The sun was high, and I had sweat pooling in areas I didn’t think were scientifically possible, but I silently trudged along behind him, waiting for the opportunity to apologize.

He led me past the horses in the paddocks—I swear those fuckers were laughing at me.

We went around the barn and the land opened up to three single-wide trailers.

They weren’t terribly old and looked like the kind I had used on countless sets.

I didn’t know the guys slept in trailers.

For some reason I assumed—and I recognize it was fucked up—that they slept in the barn with the horses.

In my defense, Lucas did come out of nowhere the other night. This setup made much more sense.

Lucas walked to the farthest one, to my left, or west as Lucas had taught me before. He pulled open the door and stood there. From the outside, it looked like he was mustering up his courage to invite me in.

With his hand he motioned me inside first and I tried to run up the stairs to get in and out as quickly as possible. It was clear I was intruding on his space and he was having major issues with it.

My filthy Golden Goose sneaker, the one missing the lace, came off my foot and caught on the step that was just a little too high, and I couldn’t clear it.

I started falling forward, but Lucas’s toned arm snaked around my waist and stopped me from falling on my face.

We stood there, in the doorway of his trailer, his arm holding me pressed against his side, while he was slightly hunched over.

“Steady now,” he said. His voice rumbled in my ear and his proximity was doing things to me.

Terrible, sinful, dirty things. Things that I should not be feeling for a man who disdained my very existence.

When I got back to Los Angeles I was going to need so much therapy to unpack these deep-rooted issues of wanting everyone’s approval, because this could not be healthy.

I hate your music. Oh, let me bone him into loving it and me. I can change him, Your Honor. My head wasn’t screwed on straight.

He let go of me and I carefully stepped up into his domain, clearing my throat and warning my inner validation-seeking hussy that she needed to calm the fuck down. I needed to get the camera and computer and go.