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CHAPTER 10
Cash
As I turned the key to the back door of Southern Comfort, I tried to tune out the words that had been playing on repeat in my head.
“I love you.”
“I want you to be my first.”
“I don’t want to lose my virginity to anyone but you.”
It had been two weeks since I’d spoken to Cheyenne and it was making me a little bit crazy. The only good that had come from the time was that it had caused me to figure some things out. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, and for me, that was definitely true it had just also given me clarity.
I was in love with Cheyenne.
There was no question in my mind that my feelings for her were real, and they weren’t going away. I had no clue if she felt the same, but I planned on finding out. Normally, that would’ve been an easy thing to do because I saw her every day, but since the wedding, she’d been keeping her distance.
I still knew basically her every move. It was a small town, and I got daily updates on what she’d been up to. Since I’d sent tongues wagging by picking her up and carrying her out of the wedding, people had been on alert looking for signs that something was going on between us. They liked to fill me in on her comings and goings and watch to see my reaction.
Even knowing that there was an ulterior motive hadn’t stopped me from listening every time her name was mentioned at the bar. From what I’d heard, she’d been going to Farm Strong every morning. She’d also been teaching her art classes at the senior center and I’d seen her at the Boys and Girls Club. Other than that, she’d been keeping a pretty low profile just spending her nights at home working on her dissertation.
As much as I’d been tempted to, I hadn’t shown up at her house and confessed my feelings to her. I was doing my damnedest to take my cues from her. She obviously wanted space, so I’d been trying to give her that. I had driven by each night after I closed the bar, seeing her car in the driveway gave me a sense of peace that she was home safe and sound.
The one night her car wasn’t parked in the driveway, I hadn’t slept much. The next day I found out that she’d spent the night at Isabella and Jimmy’s because she was dog sitting their hound dog Sherlock and he and her rescue cats didn’t get along. Well, he got along fine with them, but Marshmallow was a diva and didn’t want a dog in her space. The relief that I felt when I found out where she’d been was great, but it didn’t make up for my sheet twisting sleepless night.
“I love you.”
“I want you to be my first.”
“I don’t want to lose my virginity to anyone but you.”
No matter what I did, I just couldn’t stop those words from running through my mind.
I kept telling myself that she didn’t mean it. She was drunk. I’d heard people say all sorts of things when they were drunk. People liked to say that alcohol was like a truth serum but I knew that wasn’t the case. Drunk people lied all the time.
Just last night I’d heard several tall tales.
Jeremy Smith denied giving another woman his phone number after his wife found a text. He’d screamed, “I don’t know who she is!”
I’d seen him give the brunette in question his digits the weekend before.
Clyde told me that he had been drafted by the Yankees. “They made me a sweet offer but I served my country instead.”
Truth was, he’d tried to enlist in the Army but had been turned away because of being flatfooted. And at five-foot-three I seriously doubted that he was ever offered a pin-stripe jersey.
And Mimi Lambert shaved a good fifteen years off her age when she told me that she had a big birthday coming up. “I’m going to be the big three-oh.”
I think she forgot that I knew she’d been in high school when I was in Kindergarten.
So, Cheyenne telling me that she loved me and was a virgin could have easily been just another case of drunken history rewrites.
Or maybe it wasn’t.
The back door creaked, and I looked up expecting to see Billy walk in. He got back from his honeymoon last night and I knew that he would be by first thing this morning.
But Billy wasn’t who walked through the door. It was Ray comin’ in from his morning walk. Ray lived above the bar and was basically a jack of all trades. He’d been working at Southern Comfort since Billy and I were in diapers, long before Billy and his siblings had inherited the bar from their old man, a fact he had no problem reminding us of, if he ever thought we were gettin’ too big for our britches.
“Mornin’, son. You’re up early.”
