Page 12 of A Love So Hard

“Trying to beat my father to the newspaper before he runs off with it.”

His brows kicked up higher on his forehead in surprise. “That eager to read the news?”

I smiled at him then. “No, I’m just that eager to get a look at the classified ads.”

“What for?”

“I need a job now that I’m back,” I admitted before turning my head slightly and throwing a glance over my shoulder at the house my parents lived in. “I can’t live here forever. My mother will drive me crazy.”

Double-D laughed at that. “Of that, I have no doubt,” he agreed which made me wonder how he could possibly know.

“I saw you yesterday,” I blurted out.

“Did you now?” He had moved another couple steps closer, and it was obvious I hadn’t been the only one to fill out more in our time apart. Double-D was now even broader in the shoulder, though his waist still tapered down into a trim V-shape that dipped into slender hips that sat atop powerful thighs. I nodded my head. “Why didn’t you say hello?”

“I would have, but I saw my dad walk up and start talking to you instead. What were you talking about?”

“Did you ask him?” I shook my head, no. “Why not?”

I sighed then. “I’m not sure he’d tell me the truth even if I did. I figured if I didn’t bother asking he couldn’t lie to me.” I noticed Double-D glancing over my shoulder and I turned in time to see the front door being edged back to a closed position. My stomach clenched. I didn’t want my father mad at me, but it had been the truth.

“Do you mind if a sit a while?”

“I don’t mind.”

He took a seat next to me so that our knees almost touched as we faced each other, each with our back against one of the mini white pillars that my mom insisted had to be there to hold up the front porch even if they were just decorative and only a shadow of the image she was going for. My mother thought she deserved an old plantation home straight out of Gone With the Wind. She had definitely grown up in the wrong era, or married the wrong man, if that’s what she had been hoping for. My dad did well for himself as a mechanic running his own business, but at the end of the day that’s what he was – a mechanic – and mechanics didn’t own plantations. Slowly, I raked my eyes up from where I had been staring at our knees and the small space left between his denim clad ones and mine that were covered in flannel pajama bottoms still.

“You look a lot better than the last time I saw you before you disappeared,” he finally broke the silence only to leave me momentarily speechless.

“You mean just before you tore off in the opposite direction on your bike?” Yeah, it was a bit snippier than I would have liked, but it certainly didn’t earn me the response I thought I’d get from him. Instead of getting angry or frustrated Double-D grinned.

“Were you hoping I would follow your dad when he took you home so I could find out why you were crying?”

I said nothing, because that was exactly what my nearly 17-year-old self had been hoping for. He just grinned even bigger then before he spoke again. “I did end up back here that night. I watched you pack your dad’s truck and leave the next morning too,” he admitted.

“I know.” I fidgeted with my fingers briefly before looking back up at him.

“I didn’t know why you were going, but I figured your parents were sending you away because of me. I didn’t want to make it worse for you.”

I was flabbergasted. “They didn’t send me away,” I told him.

“What?”

“I was given the choice to go help my grandma. I turned them down twice before, because I hadn’t wanted to uproot my life that close to graduating high school. At least not until,” I stopped myself then. He probably still didn’t know what had actually happened to send me away since he thought my parents had made me go.

“Until what?” Those two words seemed to hold the weight of the world as he spoke them in a low growl. I couldn’t help my reaction. I glanced in the direction of Johnny’s parents house before I could stop myself. “What did Stiff do that day I saw you crying, sweetheart?”

“Stiff?” I asked, not thinking about the fact that Johnny would have a road name by now.

He tipped his head in the direction of Johnny’s bike that was still in his parents’ driveway. I huffed out a long breath and then looked him in the eye as I told him what had driven me away. He hopped up on his feet within seconds of me beginning to tell him what Johnny had said that day to set me off. “Double-D!” I whisper-hissed at him as he started heading to the other house. “Please!” The word came out as more of a moan, which stopped him in his tracks. He turned to see the worried look on my face and then came back to me. His hands wrapped around either side of my face possessively as he directed me to look him in the eye.

“Lucy, what he told you were lies. No other woman had touched me since that day you were at the clubhouse dropping off his bike.”

“But,” I started to say.

“No. I mean it. No other woman got their hands on me after that day.”

“I saw girls at that party,” I started, but he pushed a finger to my lip, sinking it into the pillow-like softness before he spoke again. “Bitches have attempted to paw at me, sweetheart. They have learned that I am off limits though.”

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