Two Thousand Miles (17 page)

“Let’s go eat,” Garrett said, walking back to his truck. “You’re
lookin’ scary skinny.” I stopped and glared at him. “Have you eaten at all this week?” he asked.

“What the hell?” I barked. “Yes, I’ve eaten. I just haven’t felt good the past few days. Shit happens!” I added.

“Indeed,” Garrett agreed.

I rolled my eyes and breathed out hard. He was starting to wear on my nerves. “Maybe you should just take me back to your house.”

“Definitely not a prude,” he said, making his eyebrows dance like Charlie Chaplin’s.

“Jesus Christ! I’m not asking you to take me to bed.”
“I know, I was jokin’—but the day isn’t over yet,” he added.

“Are you ever serious?
Because this silly jock routine of yours is not attractive.” I got in the truck and slammed the door.

“Hey now!
Easy on my girl,” Garrett instructed, petting the truck’s dash.

“Sorry,” I muttered. I didn’t want to take out my aggravation on his truck.

“Me too,” he said, almost inaudibly, but I imagined that big, bad Garrett Broussard didn’t apologize for much.

“I’m still hungry,” he said a few minutes later. “You mind if we stop somewhere before I take you home?”

“I guess not,” I shrugged. Truth was, I was hungry, too. I hadn’t had much of an appetite since Mason dumped me.

It had begun to get dark outside, changing the sky. I didn’t want to look at it. I knew it would only make me more
homesick than I already was. I looked out the window, at the passing cars and the businesses and homes lining the streets. The air felt cooler than usual and I enjoyed the feel of it on my face. The humidity was down, so it didn’t feel like a hair dryer on high scorching my skin.

“Look,” Garrett pointed.
“The street fair. I forgot that started today. You feel like goin’? They have tons of food. Anything you could want.” I imagined that wasn’t true, but I could tell he really wanted to go and I had nothing else to do.

“Sure,” I said.

The first thing we did was get a slice of cheese pizza. Garrett rolled his up like a burrito and ate it in three bites. I took a few bites of mine, and was going to throw the rest out, but he stopped me. I handed it over, and he finished it.

“Since we’re here, you
wanna ride some stuff?” he asked. “That’s a yes,” he declared, when I didn’t answer. “I’ll get us a wristband.” I didn’t argue with him.

“What first?” Garrett asked, lit up like a kid at Christmas.

“Whatever you want.”

“Tilt-A-Whirl,” he said and grabbed my hand, pulling me toward the line to ride it.

When we got off, dizzy and laughing, a man approached Garrett with his hand extended.

“
S’up, Broussard?”

Garrett straightened up and shook the man’s hand. “Hello, sir,” he said.

“I’m
countin’ down the days til kickoff.”

“Me too, sir.”

“Good to see
ya,” the man said, patted G’s arm and walked away.

“Do you know that guy?” I asked, mostly because he’d been so proper with him.

“Nah, that sort of thing happens sometimes. People down here take their LSU athletics as seriously as a heart attack. We have the best fans. They’ll travel anywhere and even if we’re losin’, they’ll stay and cheer for us until the very last second. Bein’ gracious is important.”

I completely agreed with him.

After Garrett was recognized a few more times, I realized that being out with him was a big deal. He was a big deal.

“Let’s get something else to eat,” he said.

I laughed, “Do you want me to puke on you?”

“Nasty,” he accused.

I laughed harder.

“We’ll get a funnel cake. Nobody ever pukes funnel cake. It defies the laws of gravity or whatever,”
Garrett said.

“Funnel cake it is
then.”

“What kind do you want?” he asked.

“I’ll just have a bite of yours.”

“I thought you didn’t share.”

“I’m just trying to keep you from wasting your money. I can’t eat a whole funnel cake.” He looked satisfied with that answer and agreed to share with me.

Garrett’s funnel cake was greasy and heavy with powdered sugar. He broke off a piece and held it close to my mouth.
Now he was trying to feed me
. I looked at him like he was nuts.

“So you don’t get sugar on your hands,” he explained.

That was sweet of him.
“Thanks,” I said, before taking the bite from his fingers.

We washed the cake down with a cup of water
. Garrett used the last bit to rinse his sticky fingers.

“We have to ride the Ferris
Wheel before we go,” he said.

There was no one in line, so we got right on. When it started to move, I clutched the safety bar in front of us, feeling my stomach turn and my heart pound.

“I hate heights. I shouldn’t have let you talk me into getting on this thing.”

Garrett laughed. “Well, if you’re that easily swayed…”

“Ha
-ha,” I spit. All he’d said was let’s ride it, so I shouldn’t have been blaming him.

“You should have said something. We could have skipped it.”

“I’ll be okay. I just can’t look down.”

Garrett put his arm around me. “Look at me,” he said. He smiled and I felt a little easier as we circled around again.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” I smiled. He may have been douchey, but he wasn’t hard to look at. He leaned in closer, and I let him kiss me. It was a sweet, closed mouth kiss. Anything other than that would have turned me off of Garrett for good. I wasn’t ready to kiss him the way I’d kissed Mason yet. I wasn’t sure I ever would be. Or that I’d ever want to.

The ride came to a jerky stop and Garrett and I broke away from each other. He got up first and helped me off the seat and down the steps to where he was stopped again by another LSU fan. I took a few steps away from them. All of the football talk was wearing thin. I wasn’t a fan. I hadn’t even gone to my high school
games.

I looked up and saw Mason walking toward me. Seeing him made my heart hurt. My breath escaped me—so did my voice.

“So, you and Garrett, huh,” he spit.
There were a thousand things I could have said in response, but I went with what would make him responsible for me kissing Garrett.

“You let me go, remember?” I glared back at him.

“Less than a week ago,” he argued.

“Six days tomorrow, I’m aware.”

“You move fast.”

“
You
let
me
go,” I repeated.

“And two minutes later you were in bed with Garrett.” Mason half grinned, “But you
were
dying to give it up that night, weren’t you?”

Wow,” I said, stunned
, feeling like I’d just been punched in the chest. My fists closed into tight balls, my eyes burned as they filled with tears.

“Kat,” Mason breathed, regret in his voice.

“Fuck you, Mason!” I spewed and seethed back to Garrett. I put my arm around his waist and snuggled my face against his chest, his shirt soaking up my quiet tears.

That night, Garrett surprisingly didn’t try anything, like sneaking into bed with me. He slept on the pullout in Bit and Shelby’s room like a baby while I was awake most of the night in his room. I couldn’t stop thinking about Mason. About what he was
doing. And who he was doing it with.

Kissing Garrett turned out to be even less of a
deal than I’d thought. I dragged myself out of bed mid-morning to discover that he was gone. Bit said he’d gotten a call from some skank he’d been seeing in Baton Rouge and had gone home to be with her. Not that it was a big loss to me, or anything, but I was kind of over boys and their bullshit. So, I stayed in bed for the next two days to prove it.

Garrett’s bedroom door loudly broke open. “Kitty Cat, wake up,” Shelby sang.  I cracked an eye open to see her pirouetting through the room, her blunt cut bob slapping her in the face as she spun. Although she had excellent form worth commendations and I was curious if she’d had formal lessons, I closed my eye. It was too damn early for her to be so damn perky.

“Come on, Kitty Cat.” Shelby bounced on the end of the bed, jarring me. She pulled at Garrett’s comforter. “Kitty Cat,” she whispered. “We’re
goin’ on a weekend road trip. You need to get up so I can dress you.”

Dress me
? That did it, I was officially awake.

“What?” I asked.

“NOLA, baby!” She jumped off the bed and clapped her hands together.

“NOLA?” I
questioned, my voice hoarse.

“Really?” she deadpanned, her shoulders slumping forward.

I sat up and shrugged. I didn’t know what NOLA was.

“New Orleans, Louisiana.”

“Oh.” My sleepy brain had figured it out. N for New, O for Orleans, and LA for the state abbreviation. “Why do you have to dress me?” I asked, scratching my head.

“Because it’s July.
And July in New Orleans is hotter than two squirrels screwin’ in a wool sock.” I laughed, spitting a little, mostly from shock. I’d never heard anyone say something like that before.

“C’mon, Kitty Cat, it’s time for you get out of this funk and have some fun.”

When I didn’t move, Shelby bounced on the end of Garrett’s bed again, jarring me even harder that time.

“Okay, fine,” I moaned. “Just stop jumping. You’re damaging my brain.”

Shelby dragged me out of bed to her and Bit’s room and began digging through an overflowing laundry basket in the corner of the room.

“This is good…this is better…oh,
gotta have these,” Shelby mumbled as she foraged. “Perfect!” she yelped and tossed a couple things at me. A whiff of fabric softener smacked me in the face. At least the clothes were clean, although wrinkled to death.

I held up a pair of faded blue jean cut offs with frayed edges hanging down in different lengths and a lacy white tank top.

“Those okay?” she asked, eyebrows perched high.

“Sure.” I didn’t really care anyway.

“Good. Now go get your things together. The boys will be here any minute.”

“The boys?”
I questioned, my mouth agape. Shelby laughed at my expression.

“Momma doesn’t let us girls travel without the boys. She says it’s not safe for young girls to travel alone—not even in a group.”

It made me want to stay behind. I didn’t want to spend the weekend with three couples.

“Stop
stallin’,” Shelby ordered. “Go pack.”

I went back to Garrett’s room and grabbed the necessities, which included Mason’s
T-shirts to sleep in. Then I put on the shorts Shelby had given me and was surprisingly happy with the way they looked on me. I put on the tank top, tied my hair up in a sloppy rubber band bun, and smiled because I thought I looked a lot like Bitty had the first time I met her.

“You ready?” Shelby called. 

“Yep, coming,” I said, getting my bag zipped up. I felt ridiculous carrying a Prada bag and it wasn’t because of the way I was dressed. It was dumb to be dragging around something that cost eight-hundred dollars when a twenty-dollar duffel bag would have worked just as well.

When I came outside, Shelby laughed.

“Wow. You look like one of us,” Bit said.

“That’s because she is one of us,” Shelby said, throwing her arm around me. That made me smile, but it quickly disappeared when Mason pulled up.

“
Whoo! Let’s roll,” Shelby sang.

“
He’s going
?” I barked.

“Yes, he’s
goin’,” she said, like I was an idiot.

“Then I’m not,” I protested.

“Yes you are. It only takes an hour to get there. You’ll survive,” Shelby said, pushing me toward his truck. Cody and Logan hopped out and put our bags in the truck bed with theirs.

“
Where’s Russ and Crystal?” I asked. “Russ is working this weekend. Crystal won’t go without him.”

So
, I was going to be with two couples and Mason for an entire weekend. Not my idea of a good time. I stood outside the truck and stared at it, not wanting to get in.

“C’mon, Kat,” Shelby bellowed.

I stood still.

“If you don’t get in on your own, I’ll have the boys put you in kidnapper style,” she called.

I blew out a hard, noisy breath and got in the back seat behind Mason so I wouldn’t have to look at him. I thought it was a good idea until I smelled his cologne. I wasn’t sure which was worse, having to look at him or having to smell him.

It was only an hour, I reminded myself.