“Okay,” she said with a smile while getting out of the car. As we walked across the parking lot, I felt her hand brush mine and didn’t waste a second grabbing a hold of it. I watched her eyes fall down to where our hands interlocked. There was a moment of hesitation and I worried she was going to pull her hand free. She didn’t.
“So…what are we buying?” she said as we walked hand in hand into the grocery store.
“Something pre-made,” I suggested. “I can’t cook for shit.”
“Well, I can,” she said proudly. “I could make you dinner.” Her hand slipped from mine so she could get a shopping cart. Her dinner offer quickly made up for not being able to touch her at the moment.
“Okay, chef. What’s on the menu?”
“Um...” She pursed her lips in the cutest way as she thought. “Baked chicken? Spaghetti? What’s your favorite food?”
“Anything that isn’t from a box is good by me.” I’d eat whatever she fixed. With a smile. Twice if I had to. Even if she burned it.
She suggested we head over to the meat counter and decide what looked the freshest. As she pushed the cart ahead of me I placed my hands on her shoulders and gave her a quick squeeze. This whole being able to touch her thing without feeling like I was pushing her out of her comfort zone was nice. It felt so natural. It felt like we might just be a couple. A couple doing normal couple things, whatever those were. I had to admit, I liked it.
I was slowly starting to understand the draw people had to relationships. She was going to cook for me. She wanted to talk about actual, meaningful things. She called me out on my bullshit when need be. Maybe Reid was on to something when he decided to lock it down with Nora. This whole girlfriend thing might actually be worth it in the long haul. And so far all we’d done is kiss and hold hands. People’s heads would spin if they actually thought Brett Sallinger was considering settling down. Hell, my head was spinning.
After Georgia pointed out two steaks that she wanted, the butcher wrapped them in white paper and handed them over the counter.
“So what about dessert?” I said playfully into her ear. Her giggle as she leaned into me had my blood pumping. If things kept going the way they were, more than a kiss was inevitable. I’d never wanted to show a woman how badly I wanted her. “I’ve got a couple of ideas.”
“Is that so?” She laughed again as I let my lips brush against her neck. I couldn’t help myself, I inhaled deeply. Jesus, she smelled good. A sweetness that was undefinable. Maybe lilies? And here I’d thought bike exhaust was my favorite scent. Not anymore. The two of us were in the middle of a small town supermarket, completely oblivious to the world. It was fan-fucking-tastic. “What did you have in—”
“Georgia?” A woman’s voice called out sharply, bursting the bubble we’d put ourselves in. I felt Georgia’s body tense against mine and as quick as she was in my arms she was shrugging out of them leaving me alone with shopping cart. I had no idea who this woman was, but she just cock blocked me. Hard. Just as I was making progress…
“Iris,” Georgia said, the tension in her voice was a clear as the tension in her shoulders. “How are you?”
The woman was in her late forties, I guessed. She appeared a bit worn down. Tired even.
“It’s good to see you,” Iris said. I didn’t miss the way she let her eyes fall on me or the stiff look of disapproval on her face. Judging from Georgia’s reaction, she hadn’t missed it either.
“Iris, this is Brett Sallinger.” Georgia looked back at me and I could see the panic lacing her eyes. “Brett, this is Iris Shaw.” Was she actually afraid of introducing me to this woman? “He’s a friend of Reid Travers. You remember Reid don’t you?” I was a friend a Reid’s, but it stung a little that she had introduced me as only that.
“I do,” she replied. “I think Jamie rode dirt bikes with him a few times before he moved away.” That’s when realization struck.
Iris Shaw.
Georgia’s demeanor was suddenly understandable. This was Jamie’s mother standing in front of us. The woman who was slated to be her mother-in-law. The shameful look on Georgia’s face made me want to comfort her. Not that we were doing anything wrong.
“He did,” Georgia confirmed. “They knew each other.”
“I won’t keep you,” Mrs. Shaw offered up. “I just wanted to say hello. Don’t forget about Sunday. I hope you’ll be there. We apparently have a lot to catch up on.” Mrs. Shaw continued to push her cart passed us and gave me one more look of disapproval.
“I’ll be there.” Georgia let out a heavy sigh as soon as Mrs. Shaw was in another aisle.
“Well that was... awkward.”
“Yeah,” she said softly. “Can we go?”
I nodded. I understood how having Jamie’s mother see her with another guy would be uncomfortable, but it had been three years. Three years seems like a long enough time for someone to grieve. To me, anyway.
Maybe the public display of affection between us had caught her off guard, but that woman had no right to make Georgia feel guilty. Which is exactly what she’d done. I could tell by the way Georgia refused to look at me until we were out of the confines of the market and back in the safety of her vehicle.
“Are you all right?” I asked as we drove back to the cabin.
“I will be,” she said with a nod. “I think.”
“You can tell me about him, you know?” It might not have been the best time to bring Jamie up into the conversation, but was there ever really a good time? “I’m not going to get mad or weird. It’s not exactly a typical situation so if you needed to talk…I’m here. Just sayin.”
“You want to hear about him?” She looked over at me.
“I want to get to know you and it seems like he’s a pretty big part of who you are.”
“He is…or he was,” she said slowly. “I don’t even know where to start. I guess at the beginning.” Her hands encircled the steering wheel. “We grew up together. I don’t really remember a time in my life where he wasn’t there. First as my friend and then as my boyfriend.” She swallowed. “And then as my fiancé.”
Hearing her story continue—a story of childhood sweethearts turned lovers was a lot to take in. I thought I got the drift of the story from what I’d heard from Hoyt, but their connection was more than I’d ever anticipated.
“He was my best friend first and foremost. I’m kind of still trying to figure out how to live without him, you know?” She bit down on her bottom lip, stopping it from quivering. “When something happens, good or bad, I want to call him. I want to know what he’d say…even though I knew him well enough that I can imagine. That’s probably sounds nuts. I don’t know how to explain it, Brett. It’s just…hard.”
“Yeah.” I didn’t know, but I was trying to understand it. I was trying to put myself in her shoes, but how could I? “I guess I’ve never really had that kind of a connection with a member of the opposite sex, but I have lost friends before and I know it’s shocking at our age.”
“As soon as he signed up for the military I had an uneasy feeling about it, but I never thought that I’d actually lose him, you know? I should have paid more attention to my gut.” Her hands were white knuckling the steering wheel and when tears began to streak down her face. The ache I had to pull her close and tell her that everything would be okay was overwhelming.
This girl had been to hell and back. Being so young and losing someone so close to her. I guess I’d been lucky. My great grandma died when I was thirteen, but that was the most I’d dealt with death up close like that. I knew one guy who died in a motocross accident, but I wasn’t really close to him. I just knew him by association. “I’m sorry that you had to go through that. Truly, I am. You deserve to be happy and not to have to carry this pain around forever.”