Page 28 of Something Like Sugar (Pine Forest Something #2)
DUSTIN
M y little virgin is tormented by thought.
And it’s eerie how similar they are to my own.
Am I good enough?
Have I done well enough?
Will the sky crack apart like a weathered deck stain and flake off in sections until there’s nothing left but colorless, splintered age and nothing to stand on because I made the wrong choices?
I’m not a therapist. Wouldn’t claim to be one, either. Half the time they’re as a crazy as the rest of us. Like mine, suggesting that if I’d stop noticing the woman I love, I’d be happy.
She was wrong about that, at least.
Because when I peek in the open studio window and see Shana teaching toddlers to spin on one foot, I am happy.
They tumble to the floor in a fit of giggles and sparkly tutus, and for a split second, I let myself imagine our own tiny dancers twirling at my feet.
I could teach them carpentry. Natural grace and craftsmanship, they’ll be unstoppable.
But I shake it away just as fast, my father’s voice echoing in my ears.
You can’t fix crazy.
My eyes shift to the leaky-closet door.
But I can fix that.
FOURTEEN YEARS AGO
“Shana Holiday, Son? That’s who you’re asking to the dance?” My cheek stings from Dad’s slap, his voice a sharp whip against my defenses “She’s your sister’s age for fucks-sake.”
“Only t-two years.”
“After what you did last summer, rearranging faces with your fists at the quarry, immobilizing three of your peers! Do you really think Randall wants his daughter to hold those hands? She’s a good girl.”
“I know she is. I-I really like her, Dad. I-I—”
“Y-Y-You.” He twists the knife he wields even deeper into my heart before he yanks it out and guts me.
“You do not like her. You see, when you decided to break the law on your quest to be a fuckin’ hero, you forfeited your rights to make decisions.
I am your decision maker now. And you will not be going to some stupid fucking dance. ”
“Dad, I said I’d be there for her!”
“Not after the stain you caused on our family name. For what? Heroism? I will not have you cast out of the upper crust like my father. You almost killed the mayor’s son, for fucks sake, Dustin!”
“They were hurting them! Screaming for help! They were touching them, Dad! What if it had been Dev?!”
I tear my face from his chest and force my gaze to his eyes. “What would you have done? Would it have mattered who his f-father was if it was your own flesh and b-b-blood lying there?”
I’m not sure it would.
“What would you have done?!” I slam my fist against the wall beside his head.
He doesn’t flinch, just eyes my fist with an arched brow and tosses the leadership conference packet to my feet.
“Not put someone in a coma.”
PRESENT DAY
“Is that a screwdriver in your pocket or are you just happy to see me, Dustin Campbell?” Maisy Trotweather, mother of one of my niece’s friends, bats her orange eyelashes, fanning herself dramatically, which suits her entire personality, unfortunately.
She’s about ten years my senior and knows everything.
Or so she’d have you think.
“Ehem.” She clears her throat, her voice raising an octave. “I noticed you and Shana looking cozy. Are you two a thing?”
I turn with a surprised look, and she smirks.
“It’s a bit obvious, hon.” She plops down in the rolling chair behind the counter like that’s the end of our conversation and flips through a dance wear catalogue.
I wait for more, but I gather she’s dismissed me when she circles a third leotard without once looking back up.
“What do you mean obvious ?”
She cheshires, slamming her catalogue closed, the papers rustling beneath her fingers.
“I mean , I can see you glaring less than a hundred feet away beneath the streetlamp every night, frothing whip cream out your dang ears. And if I can see it,” she points to the glasses on the bridge of her nose, “the whole block can, honey bunny.”
I really thought I was stealthier than that. Shit, has Devyn seen?
She studies me, tapping a pen against the desk. “I think it’s good for Shana. She acts like she doesn’t need anyone, but she does. She doesn’t talk to anyone about her father. I doubt she even tells her friends. But if she has you, then I know she’ll be all right.”
“Why do you care?”
“I’m a mom,” she deadpans, as if I’m the crazy one.
“And?”
Maisy studies me. “Not everyone has a false motive, Dustin Campbell. I care because she needs someone. She needs you.”
I don’t know what to say. I’m no savior.
Shana doesn’t need a savior. She should believe in herself .
Hell, I believe in her more than me. I’ve done nothing noble here.
Nothing but stalking my sister’s best friend for a decade and then playing kink-master, withholding sex from her like a fucking fetish, getting her all worked up over my father’s bullshit when she should be worrying about her own father’s imminent death.
“You have it wrong,” I tell Maisy. “Shana doesn’t need me. I need her.”
“Well, then,” Maisy arches a knowing brow, “commit to it. Someone like Shana deserves to be more than a secret beneath a lamp.” She winks.
Maybe she does know everything.
“Besides, I like you better than that other fella that came around. The lawyer with broken arm.”
She lets that hang there until my jaw flexes.
“When?”
I slap my hand on Maisy’s catalogue when she refuses to look back up after dropping such a high caliber bomb, and I swear I see her smirk.
“He came asking about her during the competition team practice last night, but she was busy.” She winks. “I suspect she’ll remain pretty busy if you play your cards properly, huh, Mr. Campbell?”
“Please never call me that.” I choke on my father’s name, just as Shana appears, waving to parents and children as the kinder dancers skip away. She bounces between Maisy and me. “Is everything okay?”
“Seems like it will be.” Maisy winks before seeing herself out. Her opinions still linger in the air though, and what she said irritates me. That ass wipe from Flinger tried to see her? After the things he said?
I fixate on the idea that Shana is going through losing her father, and there she was telling mine off the other day for me because I’m not even brave enough to speak up.
I can pick up my fists, but when it comes to speaking actual words, explaining how I feel, I can’t take a swing.
And with one phone call, Shana Holiday knocked him out cold.
“I need you, Shay.” I drop my head, unable to meet her eyes as I confess.
“I need you in so many ways, and that’s not fair, because you should be relying on someone right now, not the other way around.
You’re the strongest person I know, and somehow, even though you think you’re this camouflaged rock in the dirt, you shine your brightest under pressure. ”
“Dustin, do me a favor.” She holds up a hand. “Stop glorifying me and I’ll stop glorifying you.”
“What?”
“We have too much past.” She sighs, dropping to the floor like a child and sitting in a butterfly stretch. It makes me laugh, because it’s so fuckin’ Shana it’s not even funny, so I join her in the same stretch.
Poorly, I might add, because my legs don’t do that.
“You fought my demons when we were kids, and I glorified you for centuries.”
“Decades,” I correct. “Well, actually just one decade to be exact, but—” Her pursed lips silence me. “Sorry, go on.”
“Just like your sister, I swear. Anyway, for centuries ,” she clips, “I thought of you like a celebrity. You saved my life.”
I suck in a sharp breath because it wrecks me, replaying those days in my mind. The summer before my freshman year with the first three girls I found victim to the Remington crew. And my senior year, when he tried it again with Shay.
“I’d have killed him if they didn’t pull me off.
You think I’m a hero, but I-I lost control.
” I didn’t even see his face anymore, just a target with a death wish, a dark soul I could spare God the chore of wiping clean.
I would have delivered him to the devil with my own hands, and gladly, if they hadn’t stopped me. “Y-You know that, right?”
“Yeah.” She licks her lips, silence and beating hearts filling the space around us. “I know.”
My body eases its tension the moment she wraps her arms around me, resting her head on my chest. “And the boy who did those things? The one who saved me?” She buries her nose in my shirt and inhales, sinking into a comfortability neither of us seemed to know we needed, before lifting her eyes to mine.
“I love that boy. For exactly what he did. Exactly how he is.”
We don’t play our games or roles tonight. But she comes to me when her business closes and mine locks up. Not to kiss or talk or dance. No, she strips us down, first her clothes, then my own, and we lie there, bodies flush.
She’s the big spoon, tonight.
I only hope I’m enough to fill it.