Not Brayden’s mom.
Her.
Long, dark curls cascade down her back, and she must have just washed it because there’s a little damp spot on her shirt. She’s wearing a t-shirt with some sports team on it, and a pair of cutoff shorts with casual sandals. She says something to the bartender and looks back down at her phone on the bar.
It would be inappropriate for me to go talk to this woman, right? It’s already weird enough that I have a kid who is distinctly not mine with me, and I think it would be a new layer of weird if I went to hit on a hot woman while with said kid.
Agorgeouswoman.
Plus, with my luck in love, her big beefy boyfriend is one of my students, or he’s about to join her and beat the piss out of me for even looking at her.
She locks eyes with me, and all thoughts of a beefy boyfriend fly right out the window. Big brown doe eyes and a change in her posture have me ready to follow my animal instincts. She’s even more beautiful than I first thought, her curious gaze stirring me up. I can’t pretend to play it cool, and I don’t want to. A grin spreads across my face. She blushes, then her attention snaps back to the bar as the bartender brings her food.
Right then, Brayden plops back into his seat. “Hey Coach, what do you do if you like a girl?”
I blink hard to come out of my daze, suck in a breath, and hold it.
“Well, bud, you don’t hit her with a pitch.”
FIVE
DARCY
I havethe distinct feeling of being watched.
That unmistakable tingle of someone’s eyes on me.
I’m prey.
I’m also ravenous and exhausted. Bill and Maggie left today, and I’m running the show on my own for a couple of days before the workers come out on Friday. Thus, I’m bellying up to the local ex-Applebee’s-turned-sports-bar on the outskirts of Paint, where all national chains go to die. I deserve a beer and some chicken tendies after my long day in the sun. I even got the horses out on my own, and they behaved quite well.
Given I’m just wearing a t-shirt, cutoffs, and sandals, I doubt anyone’s looking at me for any reason other than to say hello.
Being watched this close to home is always a risk. Is it someone I know, or does my family resemblance carry enough that they think I’m one of my cousins?
I grew up closer to Charleston, the biggest city in the area, because both of my parents worked at the chemical plant. Ironic that they’re now nomadic hippies and used to work for a top polluter, but I digress. In Paint, I’m about thirty minutes from where I grew up.
The change between suburb and rural in this part of West Virginia is sudden. Keep going on any main road an extra ten minutes and bam, you’re in the country proper. That’s how the farm is. You’re in the small town of Paint and within a couple blocks and one turn, you’re on the most treacherous gravel road imaginable.
Having been far from home so long, it’s unlikely I know anyone here unless they worked the peach farm with me growing up, or maybe they’re an old babysitter.
I face a dilemma: ignore the staring or look at the starer head-on.
My life currently walks a bizarre line between boring and exhilarating, so I choose to look. I sweep my freshly washed curls behind my ears, shift in my seat, and survey the restaurant. I mostly find people minding their business until I lock eyes with the starer.
It’s a guy, and he’s actually attractive. Like, really attractive. Not just gas-station-at-2 a.m.-good-enough attractive. He probably has a hot name and everything. Jack or Nick or Noah or some other four-letter name that somehow conveys both confidence and humility.
He’s the picture of sun-kissed: hair the color of light brown sugar, glowing skin with just the right amount of charming sun damage, and when I get a decent peek at his eyes, a hazel or caramel color to match.
I don’t know this guy. I would remember this guy. I give him the universal “hi” sign, raising my eyebrows with a nod.
That good-looking doofus has the gall to smile at me. Not smirk. A full-on smile. Did someone turn on the sun in this ex-Applebee’s? A blush creeps up my neck and chest despite my desperate need to not be blushing.
What are the chances that this guy is
1. available,
2. interested, and
