Page 63 of Past Tents

“I just...” Unsure how to finish the sentence, I stopped with my mouth hanging open and stared at the way Clay’s hazel eyes warmed when he watched me squirm. He was definitely amused.

“What?” he asked, gently tucking a few wild tendrils of hair behind my ears. “What are you worried about?”

I couldn’t calm the butterflies in my stomach long enough to come to a conclusion on that. I just knew he made me nervous and excited and overwhelmed with feeling, and I didn’t know what to do with all of that.

“So you want to go on a date with me. A first date. The first of one hundred?” I couldn’t get the idea through my head. I’d prepared myself for an ending. And now...I was on new ground.

“You don’t get it. It was never about dating lots of women. It was only ever about distracting myself because I didn’t think I could be with you.”

Well, that did it. I grabbed his face in my hands and pressed my lips to his. It didn’t matter how many hours we’d spent doing this already. I was just getting started. He responded in kind, lifting me so I could wrap my legs around his waist.

Clay turned us and pressed me up against the door of his truck as I ground into him, finding the exact spot I needed to get the friction I craved. He kissed my cheek, running a row of tiny kisses along my jaw and nipping at it before pulling back to look at me.

“Do you get it now? The way I am with you is different than anything I’ve ever felt before. I don’t know what to do with it. And I tried to stop feeling it. I tried so hard to stop thinking about you. Wanting you. But I can’t fucking do it.

“Going on a date sounds far too polite for all the things I want to do with you. I want...” His eyes were wild and dark as he shoved a hand through his hair in an aggravated, frustrated gesture. “I want to fuck you until you can’t sit down and make you come until you don’t remember your name. Is that clear enough for you?”

I nodded. “It’s clear. Let’s go on a date.”

Clay wined and dined me at the Italian restaurant in Knoxville where they really did “know what to do with pasta,” before insisting we go dancing at Genie’s. “Are you sure?” I asked. More than once.

Going on a date at Genie’s was like announcing your relationship to the entire town, but apparently that was what Clay felt like doing.

“I’m damn proud to be with you and I don’t care who knows it,” he’d said when I suggested going someplace a little less popular.

Clay led me around the dance floor to an upbeat country song. “I haven’t been able to get the image out of my head of you leaving this place five minutes after I had you in my arms,” he said. “Tonight, when you leave, you’re leaving with me.”

My heart beat faster at his possessive tone. His large hand on my back made my insides warm and my heart flood. “So this is kind of a do-over date?”

He nodded. “If I’d have been able, I’d have danced every dance with you that night.”

“Pindich would have probably fired you. He was glaring at you the whole time we danced.”

“Yeah, he came up to me after you left and said some weird stuff about knowing why I was deeded the Bandit Lake house. Said he knew my grandmother back when he practiced law, made it like they were the best of friends. I asked what year he passed the bar, and that shut him up. I never understand what angle he’s working.”

“That’s why I try to avoid him.”

Clay brought me down for a dip and swept me back up and into his arms. His lips brushed over mine and I heard a few people around us hoot and holler. Something about being with Green Valley’s most eligible bachelor was giving people a lot to look at.

“People are gonna talk,” I teased. “Your reputation’s on the line.”

“Let ’em talk.”

“Oh, they’re gonna.” The stern voice next to me could only belong to my brother. “Is this your way of telling me you two are an item?”

We slowed our dancing and I took in my brother, who looked downright entertained by the sight of us. “Do you just lurk at Genie’s all the time?” I asked.

Jefferson shook his head and pointed at Clay. “This guy invited me to join him here. I thought we were having a drink. So I repeat: is this your way of telling me something?”

Clay’s rueful smile said that it was absolutely his way of showing my brother what he had no ability to put into words. “I’m crazy about your sister, and I wanted you to see it and understand it. If I just said something over the phone or whatever, you’d come over and belt me, so I wanted you to see up close and personal that it’s real.”

Clay smiled confidently, but his nerves showed in the way he swallowed hard.

Jefferson mock-glared for a second before breaking into a grin. “Joke’s on you, stress-nozzle. I saw the way you were looking at each other a week ago and could’ve told you your story myself. But now that you dragged me down here, you’d better buy me a drink.”

That was the end of the dancing for a while, as my brother crashed our date. But after he finished his beer, Clay sent him moving along and led me back to the dance floor. He wrapped me in his arms and we swayed to a slow song, and I couldn’t remember being happier.

Things were going well. Better than well. Maybe my mom had been wrong about romance, wrong about men. And wrong about me.

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