I stare as she moves to the screen door and watch as she pushes it open and steps through without one more look my way.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” I mutter, running a hand through my hair. “I’m in fucking love.”
12
Isabelle
I can’t getout of Nash’s house fast enough, and it’s not because he frightened me. No, it’s because I frightened myself. I mean… Iwantedto stay. I wanted to do whatever it was he was offering to do to me, but luckily, I had the wherewithal to push that man away so I could get some breathing room. Once I had that, I got myself together and ran. I ran like the yellow-bellied Izzy Harmon I am.
Sitting in my car, I haven’t moved from the spot in front of his house because I wanted to say goodbye to Andi. That and I’m afraid if I drive now, I’ll end up in one of the ditches on either side of Nash’s driveway thanks to my shaking hands. “That arrogant man,” I mutter to myself. He sure thinks highly of himself. No doubt he’s already bedded a number of ladies from Honeywell, but he hasn’t dated any of them in public, and if what he said is true, he only does it with a woman once. That’s it.
I get it. He doesn’t want to get attached. More likely, though, he doesn’t want the lady to get attached to him. I scoff and then laugh. What the heck am I’m saying? I’ve barely touched the man and I’m attached. But he’s obviously still in love with Ivy. If he weren’t, he’d have met someone already.
I see movement from my right; it’s Andi stepping out from the barn. Pushing my door open, I step out and wave to her. “Good job today, Andi. I’ll see you at school tomorrow, okay?”
“Okay.” she says with a smile. “Bye, Izzy.”
“Bye.” I sit back down and pull the door shut. Looking ahead, he’s there, leaning in the doorway looking so dang handsome. He lifts his hand to wave; then I watch as he winks at me. It makes me instantly irate. I turn the key in the ignition angrily and nothing happens. “Great,” I grumble. “This is not happening.”
I hold my breath and release it slowly. Placing my foot on the break, I turn the key more gently this time and it works. My little car hums to life. “Thank you,” I say to the ceiling. I don’t want to spend one more minute in the company of Nash Watson. At least not until I’ve had time to think.
* * *
After school on Friday,I decide to skip kickboxing instead making my way to Rose’s classroom. I need to talk to someone. Since I can’t very well tell my mother about Nash’s proposition, I choose my one and only friend here at school. Pulling out a small chair from one of the kids’ tables, I sit across from her. “Rose, if I tell you something, do you promise not to tell?”
My coworker makes a groaning sound. “Why? Why do you do that? Now I know it’s going to be good and I won’t be able to talk to anyone about it.”
“You can talk to me about it,” I say brightly. “But if you don’t think you can handle it, it’s fine. I’ll keep it to myself.”
She rolls her eyes. “It’s about Nash Watson, isn’t it?”
I say nothing. I don’t even give her an expression to the affirmative. But still she knows.
“Goddamn it, woman.” Rose huffs. “Fine. But then you’re buying me a beer. Joel’s out of town tonight, and I hate going home to an empty house.”
“Sounds good.” Starting at the beginning, I tell her about Andi’s reading improvement, about spending time at Nash’s place, and about my trying to “tidy up,” but I don’t tell her his house was as bad as it was. Then I tell her about his proposition. That’s the part that makes her gasp.
“You did it, right? You fucked that man’s brains out, right?” Holding her hands up like she’s praying, she adds, “Please, for the love of all that’s sacred, tell me all the dirty things he did to you.”
It makes me giggle. I know I’m blushing like crazy, but hearing her go on like that is funny.
“Of course not.”
“What!” She stands up from the child-size chair in Rose’s classroom and covers her mouth. “No, Izzy! No! You needed to do that for me. For the rest of us. For the team.” She stares at me, then yells, “Girl power!”
Like that reasoning makes any sense. It doesn’t. So I blurt, “I’m a virgin, Rose.”
“Huh?” She falls back down onto her seat so fast, I’m afraid she hurt herself. “No. Fucking. Way.”
“Way.”
Her head falls forward and makes a loud thumping sound when her forehead makes contact with the table. Mumbling into the faux wood, she says, “I need a damn beer.” Looking up, she adds, “Let’s head over to Three Sisters and you can explain to me why the sexiest bitch this side of the Mississippi still has her hymen.”
Ick. Hymen.I guess it was nice she called me sexy.
Ten minutes later, we step through the doors of Honeywell’s one and only bar, Three Sisters Place. It’s been in business since the 1950s, and from the décor, it looks like it. I think the last time they updated it was the 70s. There’re still remnants of some pretty dizzying wallpaper in the back near the pool table. There are three booths that line the wall on the side with bench seats on either side of the tables. Those seats used to be orange but are now covered in patches of various colors of duct tape. No matter how ugly the place is, it’s still a favorite of many of the locals. It’s the place to go when there’s nothing else going on, and in Honeywell, that’s most of the time.
Since it’s not quite 4:30 p.m., the place is only moderately busy. One of the booths is empty, so I lead Rose over to that one and slide in.
