Page 12 of Something Like Sugar (Pine Forest Something #2)

DUSTIN

I feel like a lovestruck teenager, sliding my phone into my pocket. I replay what I witnessed earlier, hiding behind my favorite tree in her yard.

How she touched herself in red, opening her blinds for me. She knew exactly what she was doing.

Does she know it’s me?

Or for her watcher?

I did watch, even after all I said in the studio.

Because I’m fucked in the head.

And this is among one thousand other reasons why I shouldn’t entertain things with the woman I obsess over, no matter how she looks in red.

Or black.

Skintight dancewear in my fantasies, sprawled across my bed, peeled from her body, piece by sparkling piece.

Fuck.

I’m letting it get too far.

The bell chimes, and I bring my focus back to my job, as a familiar face stares back at me.

“What can I getchya, Abe?” The old man who owns the feed store orders a chocolate shake with whipped cream and malt, once a week. It never changes, but I always ask him anyway.

Abel’s eyes crinkle at the corners as he browses the menu above my head. I’m never sure whether he’s attempting to read the thing or if he’s just putting on a show. Either way, I let it play out and sigh in relief at the familiarity.

At least something makes sense today.

I ready myself for his usual order, left pointer finger on the button for shakes and right-hand hovering over the cups.

I’ve done it so many times it’s muscle memory, and I sink easily into the comfort of predictable moments like this one.

It’s the first time my heart’s stopped pounding since she kissed me.

“What’s got your coon dog’s howling, son?”

“What? I’m fine.”

“Nope.” He leans in closer and squints, nodding his head like that’s that. “You’re in love.”

“How could you possibly know that in two seconds?”

“Ya’ just got that look.” He shrugs. “I don’t make the rules.”

“Okay, let’s just say that were true—”

“It is.”

“Whatever.” I squint. “So…are you saying I have no choice but to go with it? Destiny? God’s will?”

“I didn’t say that. You did. But if that’s what you need to tell yourself to make it work, then say it however ya like.”

I thread my fingers through my hair and tug. Nobody in this damn town can ever come flat out and say what they mean.

Fuck, I sound like Dad.

Who expects me to meet him in the city in less than a week. To a gala, of all things, with the ‘ Business Elite.’

Shana would have taught me to dance at the damn thing, but that was before she kissed me. Before we said what we said. Now I’m not sure I can be in the same room with her without imagining her lips popping open.

The roundness of a perfect o as she came over her own fingers in that red velour, moans spilling from her open window and landing on my cock.

It hasn’t stopped feeling her there since.

Doesn’t make it right. And it certainly doesn’t qualify me as worthy of her. Glorified creeper is what I am. I shake my head at Abel in protest.

“I get what you’re saying, but—”

“What you’re saying,” Abel corrects.

I throw my hands up. He knows what I did.

“This isn’t a movie. This woman. Jesus, Abe. She’s untouchable. God, fate, whatever you want to call it, they wouldn’t choose me for her.”

I wouldn’t choose me for her.

“She deserves better than—”

“Than the man who helped renovate the town bar, free’a charge so it wouldn’t close down?”

“What? Abe, that was forever ago. And everyone was helping out.”

“How ‘bout the brother who drove to the city twice a week, makin’ sure his sister never had to face therapy alone?”

“I know what you’re doing, and I get it, but this isn’t the same—”

“Someone better’n the young man who saw three girls in desperate need up in those woods and saved their lives, Son?”

I move to speak, but he stops me, shaky hand up as he leans against my counter.

“I don’t give a shit what happened to those boys you saved them girls from.

They weren’t the first, and they wouldn’t have been the last to try what they did.

The whole town was better for it, you hear?

” He follows my gaze, even as I try to look away.

“Do you hear me? Do you think she will find someone better than the man who ended that misery? That stopped her—”

“Yes, Abel!” I slam my hands against the counter, thankful as hell for the lack of patrons, but he doesn’t flinch, just sets his jaw and tightens his grip on his cane and the counter between us.

And fuck, I’m so angry , but it’s not at Abel, it’s at myself.

I hate that I’m even here at this crossroad. Dad is fucking right.

“She can find hundreds of someones better than me. I may have saved people, yeah, but I fucked people up, too. Do you know what that feels like?” I drop to a whisper, pain and remorse prodding upward from my veins, poking out of me like blades. “To know your honor comes from another’s suffering?”

Abel closes his eyes and breathes. Slow. A memory crossing over him as he tugs a veteran cap from his back pocket and sets it atop his head.

“I do. And I know what it’s like to spend the rest of your life pushing everyone you love away because of it. Now let me ask you a question. Do you know what happens when you let the love of your life pass you by? Because I do.”

I clench the countertop, my fingertips white and crinkled with the weight of the question I dare not ask.

Abel pulls a crinkled paper out of his pocket. He doesn’t show it to me, but I know it well. We all do. It’s one he’s held onto for as long as I can remember. Since I was a little boy chasing ducklings through his Farm N’ Feed aisles in spring.

He presses it straight to his heart, his eyes locked on mine, glistening.

“What happens,” he says, knuckles tightening around the parchment, “is you spend the rest of your life loving them just as fiercely as you do at this very moment. And they never love you back.” He folds the paper back up, slipping it into his trousers, just below the suspenders.

Like he’s done my whole life.

He’s loved her this whole time, whoever she is.

“What am I supposed to do, Abe? I… I told her we can’t be together.

For years, I’ve told her she’s meant for someone other than me, and now she’s finally taken my word for it.

She has a date tonight for fuck’s sake. She’s probably there now.

And you know what?” I shake my head, ashamed that I’m even considering she should love me, sending her plants and asking for dances meant for another.

“She’s better off that way. I hear what you’re saying, but this isn’t about what’s best for me. It’s about her, you know?”

“I can’t make that decision for you, Son. All I can do is tell it like it is. Shana’s a special one. Won’t be long before she finds someone to love her back. Will it be you?”

“Damnit, Abe, it’s not like I can barge into her date and…wait. How did you know it was Shana?”

The old loon smiles, saying nothing and everything at the same damn time.

The door chimes as a family walk in, and my eyes move toward the sound, relief consuming me. I need to focus on something other than Shana, so I crack my knuckles and throw some straws into my apron in preparation for the weekend rush.

At least we’ll be busy all night, and I can ignore the thoughts of her with anyone else.

Someone who isn’t me.

And they never love you back.

The woman with two little ones on either hip clears her throat, the smaller baby flopping to the side and swatting the ice cream display as she bounces. My mouth curves up, wondering what Shana would look like with our little ones.

Our little ones?

Fuck.

All I can think of is Shana.

Her eyes

That kiss.

Of the man who will steal her body tonight.

“Better yet, my fling can do me!”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, I’ll be right with you.” My throat constricts me with regret.

“I got her!” Abby comes from the kitchen, noting my discomfort.

“I thought Emily was on tonight.”

“I am!” Emily pokes her head around.

Great. I’ve over-scheduled servers for this shift, likely because of my inability to concentrate on anything other than how Shana’s lips tasted on my tongue. I’m not only paying three of us to be here for a fraction of the revenue, but we won’t be as busy as I hoped.

I turn my attention back to the old man, still judging the menu like it might take shape and fly off if he looks long enough. “Do you want your usual chocolate, Abe?”

“You know what?” He smiles. “Feels like a root-beer float kind of night, don’t you think?” He winks, handing me a crumpled five-dollar bill, and hobbles to the very booth she kissed me in less than six hours ago.

“I hear Cowboy’s Paradise is nice tonight,” he calls out as he walks away, “if you happen to be overstaffed.”

He waves at the girls behind me, who giggle and curtsey, a running joke he’s got with the ladies of the town that they’re all royalty to him. I turn, unable to suppress my grin when I see the joy he brings them. The whole town really. To these people that feel like my people.

I wonder what made him push away the love of his life? And if he’s so sure I shouldn’t do the same, why did he?

I clean the edges of his cup with a fresh cloth, spinning it in complete rotation like I’ve done every day since I started here, then I plop a cherry on top and turn back to face him.

But his booth is empty.

And I’m left here, overwhelmed, overstaffed, with Shana Holiday’s favorite drink melting in my hand.

Well played, Abe.

I try to come up with any single reason why I shouldn’t, but the woman with the baby smiles down as tiny fingers she created wrap around her own.

Her husband watches her feed the toddler a sundae, pretending each spoonful is a starfighter and must be eaten before it destroys the ice cream shop.

He smiles at the woman he clearly loves, being unapologetically her, and I lose all will power.

I do what I’ve wanted to do for longer than I can recall, and I dig up lost time.

Watcher : Tell me about your first kiss.

A nano second goes by before she replies, and in seven short words, Shana Holiday owns me completely.

I finally understand.

I’ve been the idiot who saw none of it, all this time. And whether it’s smart to act on it or not, this feeling in my chest means something.

I am hers and she is forever, unmistakably, mine.

“Em, lock up tonight, I’m taking off.”

I don’t even wait for a reply before I tug off my apron and slip into my office. One glance at my phone and my heart feels exactly how it always has with her.

Fated.

DancerBaby69: It was my only kiss. Until today.