Sidewalk Flower (9 page)

 
Satisfied with her new knowledge that
explained a lot about Jaxon, she found herself curious to know more about her
companion.
 
“What about your mother,
Lucky?”
 
Her name hadn’t come up but she
remembered his comment about her eyes.
 
What she remembered even more was the way Lucky’s bright smile had
darkened so quickly.

His eyes closed just long enough to let
her know it would not be a happy tale.
 
“She passed away when I was small.”

“I’m so sorry, Lucky.”
 
Her heart going out to him, she watched
peripherally, as he stretched his long fingers and then ran them down the
buttons of his shirt, fingering each one as he went.
 
Even in this moment of sympathy, she wished
she’d made a dress with buttons down the front so she could feel his fingertips
pushing gently into her skin, traveling over her chest and tummy as he worked
to unfasten her.
 
Maybe Lucky needed a
distraction just as much as she did.
 
No
matter if it was only for tonight, she found herself wanting to soothe this man
and be soothed by him in return.
 
If he’d
just let his moral guard down for more than a few minutes, she’d take those
fingers and show him exactly where and how to touch her.
 
The intimacy could do them both some
good.
   

 
She wondered how and when he had lost his mom
but knew better than to ask him about it now.
 
Losing her momma at a young age had been world-shattering and she didn’t
need to ask to know everything he was feeling.
 
In Lucky’s remorseful stare, she knew she’d made the right call.
 
“I’m really sorry for bringing it up.”

“No, it’s okay.
 
But, uh, what were we talking about?”
 
He ran a hand over his tightly fastened hair
and looped his thumb around the tail in back, tugging at it several times.

“So—Jaxon, he started Sin Pointe when he
was a teenager.
 
I guess that’s when he
must have left you all,” she offered, trying to re-start their
conversation.
 

“Yep.”
 
The indifference in his voice was plain,
easily readable.
 
He looked down to his
lap and his hands.
 
She could see he was
about ready to be done with the discussion.

“And did you guys keep in touch after he
left?”

“Not too much.
 
Every once in a while he’d give us a
call.
 
I had a lot going on then and
didn’t think about him too much once he was gone.”
 
Uncharacteristically, his brow arched and his
lips pursed.

Trista was immediately attuned to his
reaction.
 
She tried to poke at him with
a little humor to bring back his warmth and cheerfulness, his smile that glowed
in the moonlight. “So how in the world did you know about all of this
anyway?
 
You were so young.”
 

“Yeah, well, at the shop—three guys
working in close quarters all day—you hear things, stories of old.”

She was sure he was done but he turned to
her, even as he tried to inch back as far as he could against his passenger
side door, and asked, “So hey, with all this talk about Jaxon, I was kind of
wondering what exactly the relationship is between the two of you?
 
If I’m stepping over any lines, I need to
know now, Trista.”

She scratched at her forehead.
 
“We’re close, but not like what you’re
asking.
 
I’ve lived and worked with him
since I was sixteen.
 
I’ll be thirty-two
this year.”
 
She couldn’t believe she’d
known the man that long.
 
Not only known
him, but been through so much with him.
 
If Lucky wanted to know the whole truth, she was probably closer to him
than she would have been had they been lovers.
 
The absence of that type of physical relationship left all the more room
for the things they did share.
 
The heartache and the happiness.
 
The struggle and the relief.
 
The loyalty.
 
But Lucky probably worried about other
things.
 
And she could understand his
hesitancy.
 

“You lived with him?” he asked.
 

“Yes, and it is possible to live with a
man and not sleep with him.”

“I didn’t ask you that.”
 
He looked down.

“But didn’t you?”
 
She gave a small humph and was about to
explain in more detail when he asked her if they could find a place to
stop.
 
He said he needed to use the
restroom but he looked like he needed more than the few feet of space
separating them in the Jeep.
 
Five quiet
miles later, she threw on her blinker to exit the freeway.

The Quick ‘n’ Grab filling station was
the only option in no-man’s land, where Trista had decided to pull off.
 
She sat while Lucky silently pumped the gas.

Her head sweating along the hairline, she
leaned out her window, wanting to get this over with.
 
“Look, I know it’s hard to understand,
especially with Jaxon.
 
He’s a
very…carnal being and living in the room next to him was an education for
me.
 
But that’s all it was.
 
He took me under his wing at a very crucial
time in my life.
 
He got me a job with
the band.
 
We were roommates for a good
seven, eight years.
 
Then he met Vangie,
had a
baby,
and I moved out.”

“You sound bitter about that.
 
Did you have different hopes for things?”
 
Lucky stared at the pump as the numbers
ticked sluggishly.

“You mean hopes for me and Jaxon?”

“Yeah.”

“No, not like that.
  
I wanted Jaxon to be happy.
 
At first I thought he had found it.
 
But, well, it just hasn’t worked out that
way.”
 
She waited but Lucky didn’t
respond.

He jiggled and then hung up the
nozzle.
 
His shirt sleeves were still
hiked up to his elbows and she decided then and there he had the sexiest
forearms she’d ever seen.
 
He tucked the
receipt into his pants pocket and came around to re-enter the Jeep but then
asked if he could drive.
 
“Sure.”
 
They switched places.
 
She’d let it be for now.

“You ready, darlin’?”
 
When he looked at her, she could see the
blood shot of his eyes and the heaviness of his lids.
 
He must be desperate to be in control with
his offer to drive.
 
Something she
completely understood and appreciated.
 
The whole darlin’ thing?
 
Not so much.
 
But it did make her
toes curl a little each time he said it.

“You call me that and I feel like I’m in
another world, one where I’m to be the proper lady and you the unquestionable
gentleman.
 
Not really in league with how
I’ve acted so far around you.”

“There’s still a little proper country
girl in you.
 
A little
inhibition, holding you by the toes.
 
You haven’t let it all go by the wayside.”

“How can you see that?”

“I’ve been lookin’.”
 
He in fact looked over at her just when a
large semi blurred past them, causing him to swerve.
 
“Shit!
 
Sorry, pardon my language.”

“Lucky, there are a few things you should
know about me.
 
One, I’ve been on the
road for months at a time with a bunch of horny guys.
 
I’ve heard their stories about getting all
sorts of favors performed backstage.
 
I’ve had to live in very close quarters with them which means I‘ve even
seen ‘em naked.
 
So please don’t feel the
need to apologize for your language.
 
You
can’t offend me.
 
It’s not
possible.”
 
She folded her arms across
her chest, glad they weren’t harnessed to the steering wheel anymore.
 

 
“Well, if it’s all the same, do you think you
could just humor me and accept my lame apologies?”

“You’re not lame.
 
You’re awful sweet, though, and I’m sure I’ve
already offended you plenty.”
 
Her tongue
working so hard and fast against his that first night flickered like a burning
sash around her thoughts.
 
He had allowed
her to release that fierceness after only having known her a few hours.
 
He could claim the title all he wanted but
underneath the southern gentleman, there had to be a man who wanted her.
 
That hope knocked the air out of her.
   

“Shocked, yes.
 
Offended,
not hardly
.
 
Remember, I am a guy and I wouldn’t pretend
to be anything else.”

“Good.”
 
She grew quiet, knowing that in five more hours, they could be sharing a
hotel room.
 
And she would be preparing
to deal with something much more base and demanding than the light space their
talk currently occupied.
 

Had she been on this trip with Jaxon, as
originally planned, things would have been very similar to what they were
now.
 
Jaxon would most likely be riding
passenger as he hated driving long distances.
 
He’d use the time to tease her, tell her of his latest escapades both
musically and sexually, just to see how she’d react.
 
He’d needle her until she reached over and
punched him in the shoulder.
 
But he’d be
doing it all as a distraction because he knew why they were headed to
Oklahoma.
 

Once at the hotel, he’d get them a room
with one bed because he liked the king-size mattresses and when it came time to
sleep, he’d hold her as he often had done in the past, before Vangie and even
afterwards when it was just the two of them and when she couldn’t sleep.
 
He’d sing her a soft lullaby and chase her
demons away so she could rest.
 
That’s
what Jaxon, her best friend, would have done for her.

Had she made this trip alone, she would
have driven herself the ten hours from Gramma’s to Duketown, probably going
over all the reasons she had compiled as to why this was finally what she had
to do.
 

There would be mental cursing at the
selfishness on Vangie’s part, forcing her to face it alone, but she would
handle it and make due.
 
She’d get
herself a single occupant room, opting for the smallest mattress possible. Even
at that, she’d end up on the tiny, two-person sofa that many rooms had.
 
She wouldn’t want to feel the extra
space—reminding her she had come alone—without a friend, without support.
 
She’d lay in the dark and debate if she could
take the steps through the town that had harbored the stylus of her pain all
these years.
 

And now, here she was with this new
arrangement.
 
The one Jaxon had offered
her, feeling more and more like a backup plan of his than anything else.
 
A way to ease his guilt
about sending her off on her own.
 
A substitute for a promise he had made and not kept.
 
This was her dark alley, her sleazy private
room upstairs from the club below.
 
Like
the places she had rescued Jaxon from, this was somewhere she didn’t know if
she could stand alone.
 

A week ago, she had only had to wrap her
mind around the fact that Jaxon wouldn’t be there, holding her hand, standing
in her corner.
 
Now, the day before the
storm was to hit, she found herself in the company of a good person, but a
stranger nonetheless.
 
Her mind was so
preoccupied with how to deal with that that she didn’t hear Lucky’s question,
hadn’t even known he was speaking to her until he squeezed her hand.

“I’m sorry, did you say something?” she
asked.

The twisting of his mouth signaled his
reluctance.
 

She had missed something.
 

The black and red of his shirt matched
his mood now, no longer contrasting the cool quality with which he sat and
spoke.
 
His eyes tunneled in on hers and
then quickly returned to the road.