Southern Player (Charleston Heat 2)

Still. It takes some effort to get a grip on my nervous excitement. It’s like Luke set off an earthquake inside me yesterday. And the aftershocks keep coming. Heaving up emotions and conflicts and needs. My internal landscape is completely different after each one, leaving me to parse through the rubble. To make sense of whatever it is that I’m feeling. Wanting. Whatever it is I need to do not to fall into old habits or patterns.

Luke quite literally left me shaken.

Can I really share my fantasies with him? All of them? Will he think they’re sexy and fun, or will he judge me for them the way Nick did?

The city gives way to suburbs, which give way to unspoiled low country. Traffic thins until I’m the only one on the curvy country road, bordered on one side by thick forest, marsh on the other.

I roll down my windows. The breeze is warm but not hot.

The air smells like sea and soil.

I slow as my GPS tells me I’m approaching Luke’s farm. I come to a gorgeous wrought iron gate that hangs between two weathered brick pillars. It’s open.

I see nothing but forest and marsh beyond it.

Glancing down at my phone to make sure this is right—looks like it—I turn onto the drive.

My Jetta bounces over the uneven gravel as I slowly make my way through the property. At first it’s just marshland, stretching out on either side of the driveway.

The drive takes me directly into a line of tall pines and oaks. The sound of crickets, of rushing water and the sigh of leaves moving in a breeze, fills the air.

The trees thin, and abruptly I’m in the middle of a field. Neatly planted rows of something leafy—leeks? corn? cabbage? I wish I knew—stretch as far as the eye can see.

I slow to a barely-roll-almost-stop, tires crunching on the gravel.

My chest fills to the point of pain as I take in the tidy rows of growing green things. Each one lovingly and carefully tended to.

Luke did this.

He grows things. Nurtures them.

It’s fucking glorious.

Glorious, and somehow frightening. Why can’t Luke be less? I almost feel insulted by all this extra.

The extra way he wants me.

The extra impressiveness of his hard-on.

The extra care he’s clearly poured into this place.

Everything would be so much easier—keeping this casual, no strings attached—if he were just less.

At last I round a bend, and the cutest little farmhouse you ever did see comes into view. It’s not big, and it’s certainly not fancy.

It’s just…perfect.

Beautifully restored. White siding, black shutters, a tin roof and two chimneys. A wide, welcoming front porch, complete with rocking chairs.

A flat stretch of green lawn in front of it. Enormous oaks, gnarled branches draped in moss, on either side.

The whole thing is backlit by the sunset. Light catching on the moss and the dormers on the roof. A window, its spotless glass wavy with age, glints.

The fullness in my chest swells. Makes me smile big and hard.

Maybe that’s why I don’t see the two women by the front steps until they’re scurrying toward me, waving.

“Grace!” the first woman, a blonde, calls out. “Gracie Jackson, I knew that was you! Oh, we’re so happy you’re here.”

“So happy,” the other woman, also a blonde, says as I pull to a stop beside Luke’s hulking pickup on a patch of gravel beside the house.

I can’t help but smile when Georgia, Luke’s mom, opens my door before I even put it in park. Her wife, Gwen, holds it open as Georgia pulls me out of the car and into a hug.

I love these ladies. According to Eli, Georgia and Luke’s daddy got divorced back in the nineties. About eight or so years ago, Georgia started dating Gwen. They’ve been together ever since—they’re both landscape architects—and got married a few years back when gay marriage was legalized. They call themselves the “G spot”, although that’s a little much for Luke. He just calls them his mamas.

I call them heroes for raising such a stand-up man.

Luke’s daddy is still around, although Luke is much closer to his mamas.

“Hi, Georgia,” I say. “How are you ladies?”

She steps back, still holding me by the shoulders.

“We’re not supposed to be here,” she whispers conspiratorially. “But when Luke said you were stoppin’ by, we couldn’t resist lingerin’ for a bit.”

“We’re out here helpin’ Luke with his watermelons,” Gwen explains, holding up her forearms. They’re covered in dirt. “He’s got some big ones.”

Oh, heaven above. I forgot how funny—how inappropriate—his mamas are.

“Told us we had to skedaddle ’cause y’all were gonna visit.” Georgia’s eyes are gleaming. “You’re the first girl he’s invited out here.”

My body flushes with a pleasure I absolutely, positively do not want to feel.

“Really?” I manage. “That’s—”

“Wonderful, I know,” Gwen says. “So what’re y’all gonna drink?”

“Some beers?” Georgia adds. “Each other?”