I didn’t eat corn again for months.
Stanton pulls into a parking spot and motions to the door in front of us. “Diner. You can piss here.”
I get out of the car before he makes it around to open my door. “I’ll wait out here,” he tells me. “If I go in with you, we’ll get stuck in a dozen different conversations and it’ll be fucking ages before we get to my house.”
I rush through the door, a bell above my head chiming a welcome. And the eyes of every patron stare. At me.
There are a few middle-aged men in trucker caps, a few in cowboy hats, two little old ladies in floral dresses with thick glasses, and one young brown-haired woman—struggling with two toddlers bouncing in a booth.
I arch my hand in a wave. “Howdy, y’all.”
Most greet me with a nod, and I ask the short-haired brunette behind the counter where the restroom is. She directs me to the one unisex bathroom in the back.
Feeling the sweet relief of being five pounds lighter, I wash my hands, pull off a sheet from the paper towel roll to dry them, and toss it into the coverless garbage can. I exit the bathroom door and run smack into the person waiting to enter.
A tall guy with a beer belly, black T-shirt, and cowboy hat, smelling of stale cigarettes, with dark gunk under his fingernails. He grasps my arms, to keep me from bouncing back like a pinball after colliding with the gelatinous mass of his midsection. A lifetime of city living has me automatically uttering an insincere “Sorry.”
But as I go to step around him, he matches my move, blocking my way.
“Slow down there, honey. What’s your hurry?” he drawls, looking me up and down before his gaze gets too well acquainted with my chest.
“Hey—cowboy,” I snap. “Lose something? My eyes are up here.”
He licks his lips slowly. “Yeah, I know where your eyes are.”
But he doesn’t look at them.
“Nice. So much for southern hospitality.”
He tips his hat back, finally looking up. “You passin’ through? Need a ride? My backseat is mighty hospitable.”
“No . . . and ew.”
Using my shoulder, I force my way past the randy cowboy and walk back out onto the sidewalk. I find Stanton by the car, chatting with a diminutive older woman with poofy gray hair. Well . . . listening may be more accurate, as Stanton’s just nodding—seemingly unable to get a word in edgewise.
He looks relieved when I step up, but his face has a pink tinge that wasn’t there before and the tips of his ears are glowing red. “Miss Bea,” he introduces, “this is Sofia Santos.”
“Hello.”
“It’s so nice to meet you, Sofia. Aren’t you pretty!”
I smile. “Thank you.”
“And so tall. It must be nice to stand out in a crowd—I’ve never known that feelin’ myself.”
“Haven’t thought about it like that but, yes, I guess it is.”
Stanton clears his throat. “Well, we should get going.”
“Oh yes,” Miss Bea agrees. But then keeps talking. “Your momma is goin’ to be so happy to see you. I have to be on my way also, stoppin’ by the pharmacy to get Mr. Ellington the laxative. He’s constipatin’ somethin’ fierce. Hasn’t moved his bowels in four days, the poor dear. He’s grumpy as an ole bear.”
Stanton nods. “I bet.”
“It was nice meetin’ you, Sofia.”
“You too, Miss Bea—hope to see you again.”
She gets about three paces away, then turns back around, calling out, “And Stanton, don’t forget to tell your momma I’m bringin’ roast chicken to the card came on Wednesday.”
“Yes, ma’am, I’ll tell her.”
Once we’re both in the car, I ask, “What’s with your face? Are you . . . are you blushing?”
I didn’t know a guy who used his dirty mouth as well as Stanton was capable of blushing.
He nods his head, confessing, “Miss Bea was my schoolteacher, in ninth grade.”
“Okay.”
“One day, someone pulled the fire alarm and she went into the boy’s bathroom to make sure it was clear—looking under all the stall doors to be sure.”
I think I know where this is going. But I’m hilariously wrong.
“And I was in one of those stalls . . . jerkin’ off.”
My jaw drops. “No!”
He groans. “I haven’t been able to look at her since without turning red as a baboon’s ass.”
I cover my mouth, laughing. “That’s hysterical!”
He chuckles, scratching his eyebrow. “Glad I amuse you. My momma thought it was hysterical too—when Miss Bea called that afternoon to tell her all about it.”
And I laugh louder. “You’re kidding.”
“I wish I was.”
“Oh no!” I laugh, running my hand down the back of his head, rubbing his neck in sympathy. “You poor thing. You must be so scarred.”
He smirks my favorite smirk. “Welcome to Sunshine, Soph—the place where privacy comes to die.”
Stanton backs out and as we resume our journey to his parents’ farm, I see the skeevy cowboy strutting down the sidewalk. “Who’s that?”
Stanton’s eyes harden and his jaw clenches.
It’s pretty hot.
“Dallas Henry,” he growls before looking me over from head to toe. “Did he bother you?”
“He groped me with his eyes—nothing I couldn’t handle.”
With a curse he tells me, “He comes near you again, just tell him you’re with me. He won’t look at you again after that.”
“Friend of yours?”
Shrugging, he tells me, “I broke his jaw a couple years ago.”
“Why’d you do that?”
Stanton’s jade eyes look into mine. “He tried taken somethin’ that didn’t belong to him.”
• • •
When Stanton told me he grew up on a farm, I had a certain picture in my head. A big farmhouse, a red barn, trees. But that mental image pales in comparison to the real thing—to the sheer size and grandeur of the Shaw family ranch. The Porsche kicks up dirt as we cruise up the tree-lined driveway that’s so long, you can’t see the house from the road. The white house is large, with a pointed roof, a welcoming porch, green shutters, and huge windows. Ten red outbuildings are scattered out behind it, interspersed with large pens of brown wood fencing. Up the gentle slope from the house, farther than I can see, are pastures covered with a blanket of lush, emerald grass.
I stand next to the car, turning in a slow circle. “Stanton . . . it’s beautiful here.”
There’s a breathless pride in his voice when he answers. “Yeah, it is.”
“How many acres do your parents have?”
“Three thousand seven hundred and eighty-six.”
“Wow.” My brothers could barely remember to trim the potted hedges my mother grew on our balcony. “How do they take care of it all?”
“From sunup to sundown.”
Together we walk up the gravel path to the front door. Before we reach it, a young man comes around the side of the house, intercepting us. “Looks like someone remembers where we live after all.”
During our trip, Stanton talked about his family—we both did. This blond, handsome boy would be Marshall, one of the twins—eighteen years old and a high school senior. I smile as they hug and laugh and smack each other on the back.
When Stanton introduces us, his younger brother squints shyly, greeting me with a simple “Hey.”
The resemblance is shocking—the same bright green eyes, the same strong jaw and thick golden-blond hair. Marshall’s not as broad in the shoulders, his neck is thinner with youth, but if he wants to see what he’ll look like in ten years, he doesn’t have to look any further than the man beside him.
Stanton lifts his chin, asking, “Where’s my truck?”
Marshall rests his open hand on his own chest. “You mean my truck?” Then pointing near one of the barns to a black pickup with orange flames painted on th
e rear sides, “She’s right there.”
Stanton grimaces. “What the hell’d you do to it?”
We walk closer.
“Souped it up, bro. Custom paint, new speakers—gotta have the bass.” He demonstrates by reaching in and turning the key—nodding his head in time to the booming music that’s vibrating the ground beneath our feet.
“Tha’s Jay-Z,” he tells us, in case we’re too old to know.
Just then, a blue-and-white older pickup rumbles up to the front of the house, with several boys about Marshall’s age riding in back. He turns off the music. “I gotta go, I got practice.” He taps his brother’s arm. “We’ll catch up later.”
Stanton nods as I call, “Nice meeting you.”