Hidden Deep (9 page)

“Lad…” I whispered, unsure of what I wanted to say. He held my upper arms and moved me away, putting a tiny bit of distance between us. His eyes flared with excitement as he looked at me.

“I’ve never done that before.” He continued to breathe abnormally fast. “Did I do it right?”

Are you kidding me?
He’d practically incinerated me with his kiss, and he asked if he’d done it right. As if I was some kind of authority on the subject. Lad looked into my eyes with such hopeful sincerity. He wasn’t kidding.

I tried to compose myself enough to give a coherent answer. “It definitely felt right.” He looked relieved. And happy. His words finally registered fully. “What do you mean, you’ve never done that before?” Surely he couldn’t have meant he’d never kissed
anyone
. Not with that face, that body.

“That was my first time… kissing,” he confirmed.

“You’ve never had a girlfriend?” I was starting to become irrationally hopeful I’d somehow met the only boy alive less experienced than myself, and he was gorgeous to boot. Miracles happened, right?

“There are girls among my people with whom I have… spent time… but I’ve never kissed a girl before. I never wanted to kiss any of them, and they wouldn’t have wanted me to.”
Yeah, right. Alien girls from the planet Blind and Stupid maybe.
I gave him a look that expressed my disbelief, and he responded by taking my hands in his. His grip was warm and intimate. His smile was just as warm.

“Whether you believe it or not, Ryann, that’s the truth. It was my first kiss.” A long pause. “I liked it.”

“I… liked it, too.” Straight from the understatement-of-the-year file.

Lad rewarded my reply with a breathtaking smile.

“Lad… if you’ve never… kissed anyone before, why did you start with me?”

“I couldn’t resist,” he whispered.

I felt crimson heat creep across my cheekbones, and my heart leapt. For the first time in my life, did someone really find me irresistible? Did Lad truly see something different and special in
me
?

“And one can only read about something so many times before wanting to experience it,” Lad continued. “Kissing’s actually even better than it sounds in books,” he said.

And there was the real story. I was like an air mattress with the plug pulled out. Deflating, but not surprised—I’d happened to be in the right place at the right time. Lad was curious and experimenting. Nothing personal. The kiss had meant much more to me than it had to him. Of course.

Icing on the cake, Ryann, remember?

Something inside of me started to close. He
wasn’t
safe. Yes, he pre-dated all the bad things that had happened in my life this past year, and
clearly
he was not like other guys, but Lad was more dangerous to me than a player like Nox could ever be.

Still, staring into the clear green of his eyes, I found myself powerfully drawn to him. His warmth and sweetness pulled me in—no one had ever made me feel like this. I didn’t want to think—just to be kissed like that again, no matter what his motivation was, no matter the risk.

I fought the urge, summoning every last reserve of inner strength and stepping back. “You know what? You’re right. I do have to get home. It’s almost dark.”

“I wish you
could
stay with me.” Lad pulled me close to him again, stepping his feet apart so I was sort of caged by his body, surrounded by him. And he sounded so sincere.
Maybe I’m
not
just an experiment to him?
My heart resumed its pounding.
Icing icing icing.
I needed to get out of there fast
.

I pulled away. “My mom and grandma will be worried.” It was truthful, if not the full truth about my urgent need to escape this too-tempting closeness. “And I have to make the sweet tea for supper.”

“Sweet tea?”

“Yeah, you know, the drink?” I forced a lightness I didn’t feel into my voice, trying to re-establish a sensible distance with him. “What—never kissed a girl and never tasted sweet tea? Where’ve you been, living under a rock?”

“No, under a tree.” He laughed at his own puzzling joke. “I would like to taste this sweet tea.”

“Oh. Okay… well, I guess I could bring you some sometime.”

“When?”

Tilting my head to the side, I evaluated him through squinted eyes. “I thought you weren’t going to see me. I thought it was
forbidden
,” I challenged.

He smiled back at me, moving closer once again. His voice lowered to a soft, graveled tone. “Yes, well, maybe I don’t care about that anymore. How about tomorrow? After school?”

A thrill went through me at his eagerness. At the same time, it frightened me that I was having such a hard time controlling my attraction to him. Tomorrow seemed too soon to be alone with him again.
Way too soon.

“Okay,” I said. “Tomorrow.”

We agreed to meet at the pool an hour before sunset. When Lad had walked me home, it took all my shaky willpower not to slow my pace at the clearing line and give him the chance to kiss me again. I uttered a quick goodbye and stepped into the open yard.
Don’t look back. Don’t look back.

I looked back. But Lad had disappeared into the woods.

Emmy gave me a ride downtown after school Monday so I could put in some job applications before going home to meet Lad.

When I slid into her car, she was practically wiggling with excitement. “So, I saw Nox before sixth period. He was asking about you.” Emmy’s raised-eyebrow delivery told me she considered this some kind of great news.

“So?”

“So… it’s
Nox.
I mean, you were there at his show the other night—you saw him—he is like,
way
hotter than I even realized.”

Of course
she’d be crazy for him. He fit her M.O. perfectly. “Why don’t
you
go out with him?” I said.

“I’d love to, believe me, but he’s not asking about
me
.” At my lack of enthusiastic response, she added, “You are unbelievable. What, is he too good-looking for you? Too sexy, too tall and gorgeous? I’m right, aren’t I? You know what your problem is?”

“I can’t wait to find out.”

“You’d rather waste your time on go-nowhere dates with guys like Gary Pratt, or what is that little guy’s name who looks like he’s still in ninth grade?”

“Peter.”

“Right. You’d rather waste your time going out with guys you have
zero interest in
than take a chance on a hot guy you might actually like.”

“I like Peter and Gary. They’re nice.”

“Nice. You need to put on your big-girl panties and take some risks, Ryann, or you’re going to
nice
yourself into spending your life with the world’s most boring guy. I’ve never seen anyone less excited than you are after you go on dates with these guys. That’s not what you really want.”

“What I
want
… is a job,” I said, switching the subject. “You took all of them. I only need one.”

“You know I’d give you one of mine if I could,” she said, laughing. Emmy was the girl of a hundred and one jobs. In addition to babysitting, she also helped out at her family’s business, a flower and gift shop called Rooney’s Garden. She sewed purses, which she sold on Etsy, and worked waitressing shifts at a diner in town called The Skillet.

“Actually, you should go by The Skillet—I could put in a good word for you with my boss,” she said.

“I’ve already called there. They said they weren’t hiring.” I would’ve loved to work at The Skillet. It seemed like a fun job, and Emmy made good money in tips. I’d even take something in the kitchen. Of course that would mean learning to cook. The only thing I could really make well was sweet tea. Pure liquid calories and worth every one of ’em.

In the South, sweet tea was more than a beverage—it was an art form. There was so much more to it than tea bags, water, and sugar. There were heated arguments over which was the superior brewing method. Everyone agreed the tea had to be sweetened while it was still hot. Some people insisted the brand of tea bag was crucial. Others said the key was boiling a sugar syrup to add to it, while some argued the only way to make proper sweet tea was to pour the still-steaming brew directly over a pile of pure cane sugar in the bottom of a glass pitcher.

I had my own secret recipe, which naturally, I was keeping secret. But it was no spoiler to say properly-made sweet tea was diet homicide. Artificial sweetener was just sacrilege. Actually, it was the one thing that made me feel lucky to be built like a string bean. I never counted calories, and I never drank tea without sugar. My tea was always in demand at our church picnics and family reunions. Last summer I’d even had a sweet tea booth at the Squash Blossom Festival in the town square park. I’d sold completely out in two hours and had to go home and brew some more.

Emmy dropped me off on Main Street, where I stopped into shop after shop, asking about job openings. After getting many sorry-but-no’s, I started walking back toward Channings—Mom had told me I could take her car home when I was done. She had to stay at work late for her first visitation and said Grandma would pick her up tonight after her Bunko game at the church.

On my way to the funeral home, I passed The Skillet.
Breakfast All Day
was painted on the glass door, and underneath,
Real Pit Barbeque
. Maybe it was worth one more try? I reached for the door handle, but a large hand came from behind me and beat me to it.

“Allow me.”

I looked back over my shoulder. It was Nox, towering over me again and smiling like he knew something no one else did.

“Getting an after-school snack? Some real pit barbeque, perhaps?”

It took me a moment to respond. It was sort of a shock to see him again in the light of day, acting so normal, after the strange experience in the club Friday night. But there was nothing scary about him now—no sex-merizing hypnotic rays shooting out of his eyes as he waited for my answer.

“Um… no. A job. Hopefully.”

His smile widened. “Well, in that case, come on. The owner’s a friend of mine. I’ll introduce you if you don’t know her already.”

He opened the door for me, and the tinkling of a bell accompanied us inside. Several pairs of eyes, most of them encased in wrinkles, glanced up in curiosity. Some of them I recognized from church or just around town. The Skillet was a small place with red leather booths along one wall and pedestal tables sprinkled around the center of the room, and in back, a counter lined with barstools. About half the seats in the place were filled.

It wasn’t what I’d call cute, but it looked clean, and each table was covered with a neat red and white checked vinyl tablecloth. The walls displayed framed black and white photos of Deep River's landmarks through the years.

“Hey there, Nox. Come on in, honey.” The greeting came from a friendly-faced middle-aged woman in a generous pair of mom jeans and a large green t-shirt that read
I brake for grits
. “Who’s this lovely lady you’ve brought us?”

“This is Ryann Carroll.”

I’d eaten at The Skillet many times but had never met the owner. I heard she’d moved back to town recently from Oregon when her mother had gotten sick and was no longer able to run the place.

“Ryann, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Dory. I know your Grandma Neena. She and my mom were good friends. Your momma was a few years behind me in school, too. ” She had a pen stuck behind her ear, partially concealed by her choppy salt and pepper haircut. She grabbed a couple of paper menus and walked toward a booth, inquiring loudly about Nox’s band, and obviously intending to seat us together.

I hated to interrupt her steady stream of chatter and seem rude, but I definitely didn’t want to end up sitting down for a cozy one-on-one meal with Nox. I opened my mouth to say so, but he stopped me with a shiver-inducing whisper in my ear.

“Just sit down. It’ll make her happy. We’ll order something then see about getting you that job. Trust me.”

I answered his wicked grin with an irritated glare but did as he suggested.

Dory put down the menus in front of us. “Don’t look now, but there’s a dangerous man headed your way,” she said with a laugh and walked away.

An elderly man shuffled toward our booth. “I don’t want to bother you young people, but I overheard Dory’s big mouth.”

“I can hear
you
, Dan,” Dory yelled from behind the counter.

The old man chuckled before continuing. “So you’re Neena Spears’ granddaughter. You look just like her.”

“Yes sir. We’re living with her now in the log house.”

“My name is Daniel French. I remember Neena when she was a young thing like you, right after she married your Grandpa Ben.”

Several of The Skillet's other senior patrons were listening now and began chiming in. Old people loved nothing better than to talk about whom they used to know and how all of them were related. Six degrees of separation was around long before Will Smith or Kevin Bacon.

“She was a fine-looking girl, Neena,” said a thin old man with a Skoal cap and a sagging anchor tattoo on his arm. He must have been a Navy man back when that tattoo was new. “She weren’t your ordinary girl. Looked like a princess from Europe or somewheres. Real quiet, but she sure was nice to look at,” he reminisced.