American Honey

He began to laugh, bringing me back to my latest catastrophe. “Nice to meet you, Erica, since it’s your name.”

I giggled and decided to move to the living room, where it was more comfortable. Once I sat down on the couch, and put the candle down on the coffee table, I watched him sit across from me. “So this sucks, huh?”

The clanking started to get louder. “Where can I find a hammer?”

“On the porch. Hang on, I’ll get you more nails.”

I ran into the dark kitchen with the flashlight, grabbing a whole handful of nails. When I returned I saw Reed removing his shirt, tossing it on the couch. I approached him, catching the glimmer of something hanging from his neck.

Dog tags.

Shawn Reed.

He went by his last name, like most soldiers did.

Reed walked toward the front door, and I ran behind him with the nails and the light. Once he’d found the hammer, I handed him the first nail and watched as he worked to secure the loose object. In no time at all he had it repaired. We both looked at each other as a gust of wind whipped water that was leaking off of the overflowing gutters toward us. In an instant we were both drenched again. We made a run for it, back inside of the dry house. Then we stood there on the large area rug in the foyer dripping. “Well, so much for being dry.”

“I can get us more towels. Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

I ran toward the back entrance and up the stairs. Once inside my room I began ripping off my clothes. My teeth had began to chatter, and I knew it wasn’t because of the temperature. In fact, the bedroom was so hot that I was sure I could almost bake a freaking cake. Once I had some dry clothes on, I hurried to gather more towels for Reed.

I found him on the couch, and as I approached I realized that he was sitting in only a pair of boxer briefs. His shorts were hanging on the fireplace screen to dry. I made sure not to hold the flashlight on his handsome body while I handed him more towels. “Sorry about your shorts.”

“Sorry I’m sitting here in my underwear. You can imagine that wet shorts aren’t very comfortable.”

“I bet. It’s fine anyway. We’re both adults, right?”

“The last time I checked,” he teased.

A loud boom startled me again. I jumped in my seat and put my hand to my heart.

Reed laughed. “Well it’s not everyday that I get stuck inside of a dark house with a pretty lady.” My stomach flipped when I noticed that he’d called me pretty. Since I’d just gotten up from a nap, and then been outside in the rain and wind, I could only imagine what my hair looked like, not to mention my makeup.

Usually I’d taken pride in my appearance. I never left the house without makeup, and styling my hair. Because it had gotten so long, I’d tossed it into a ponytail. After driving with the window down, I had to pick blonde strands off of my dark shirt before I went into the attorney’s office. I swore one day I’d be bald, but it was still as thick as it had ever been.

I turned my attention back to the guy who’d just been nice to me. “Thanks for the compliment, but you might change your mind if you saw me in the daylight.”

His laugh was deep this time, and I couldn’t help but notice that he found me amusing. “So, Erica, tell me, what do you do for a living?”

“I have an office job in Baltimore. What about you?”

“I was in the military until several months ago. Now I’m traveling around looking for new business opportunities. I spent my last tour doing recon in Afghanistan, so bright sandy beaches are where I’ve been hanging out since I got back.”

“It sounds nice.”

“It is now. I joined when I was eighteen. After fifteen years I was ready to give it up. There are things out there that once you’ve seen you can never un-see.”

I crossed my legs and got more comfortable across from him. “So do you have family somewhere?”

“I lost my mom when I was doing a tour in Iraq. Unfortunately I missed her funeral. My dad lost his shit, and he’s never really gotten over me not being there. I didn’t even hear about it until she’d been gone for three days. Even if I could have gotten home, it wouldn’t have been until after the service was over.”

“Sorry to hear that. It’s got to be hard when you’re so far away.” In the back of my mind I was still doing the math about how old he was. If my calculations were right, he was thirty three, and boy did he look good for being that age.

“It was ten years ago.”

“So you don’t have siblings?”

“I’ve got cousins. They all live in Florida, though. I spent some time there with them when I got back, but I’ve been away for so long that nothing seemed familiar to me. That’s when I decided to start traveling.”