Whiskey Lullaby(8)

Hannah pulled away from my hold, grabbing her empty glass so fast it nearly toppled over. “Uh-huh,” she said, biting on the straw before sucking in nothing but air. “He’s full of surprises.”

The drunk girl nearly went cross-eyed, and for a moment I thought she might fall face first onto the table. Instead, she just sighed and stumbled off.

“Alright, this…” Meg stood and knocked my arm away from Hannah’s shoulders.

“Meg,” Hannah sighed.

“You…” she grabbed my shoulders and, surprisingly, managed to drag me to my feet. “Gotta go.”

“Well, I’m playing tonight so…” I shrugged out of her hold. “Should I give Trev a call and tell him you need someone to occupy your time?”

“Cute.” Meg smirked. “There are plenty of women who look to be right up your alley waiting at the stage. Go pick out one of Sodom and Gomorrah’s whores to throw your lines at.” She shooed me off with her hand.

“Meg!” Hannah said, that time with a slight growl.

“Jesus,” I huffed. “You’re annoying, you know that?” I glared at Meg, and she flipped me the bird.

“It was nice to meet you, Noah,” Hannah said with a smile, and I swear, that was the prettiest smile I had ever seen.

“You too.” I winked, and Meg tossed her hands in the air.

I went back to the stage, grabbed my guitar, and strummed out the notes to the next cover song: “Take Your Time,” before I cleared my throat in the mic. “This one’s for the pretty girl. The one that’s evidently too good for me.”

A few girls in the crowd booed. And Hannah? She fought a smile while I sang that song to her because I wanted nothing more than to take that pretty girl’s time.





8





Hannah





Meg drunkenly hit at the car stereo, changing the station until “Blank Space” came on. “This is my theme song,” she slurred. It was true, she sucked at relationships. She rolled down her window and stuck her hand out, waving it through the air like some teenager while I barreled down the dark, two-lane highway.

The rush of the wind through the window drowned out most of the music, but it was fine. I was lost in thoughts of Noah, of how his gaze pinned me to the spot while he sang. How it sent this electric buzz crackling over my skin.

I tried to ignore him, I did, but I couldn’t. The way he held himself, so certain, but somehow still unsure, got to me. There was something in his soft, blue eyes and dimples that made his bad boy persona seem like a façade. Something about him that was enough to keep him on my mind.

“He’s cute,” I said, absentmindedly drumming my fingers along to the beat of the song.

“Ugh!” Meg dramatically tossed her head back against the seat. “Cute?”

“Yeah.” I put my blinker on to turn onto County Road Two. “Cute.”

“Okay, first of all, if you think the way that boy looks is just cute…” she sighed. “Look, players aren’t players because they’re cute. They’re players because they are ungodly. Let’s just be real for a second here, Hannah.”

“Meg, come on. He can’t be that bad.” He can’t be...

Meg shifted in the seat, leaning over the console. I took my eyes off the road for a split second to glance at her. Yep, she was giving me an evil eye. “No, Hannah Blake. No! Don’t even let that boy be a second thought.”

Too late.

“He has tattoos, and dimples,” she said as though that alone was enough to sentence him to hell. “And he knows he’s good looking. And my God, you know just from looking at him he screws everything—”

I tapped my hands on the steering wheel. “All I said was he’s cute…”

“And that’s how it all starts. That’s how you end up with a stray. Oh, look, it’s cute. Then you end up with it shitting and pissing all over the carpet with worms hanging out of its asshole.”

“Wow…” I glanced at her. “Worms. Really, Meg?”

“Hannah, he hangs out with Trevor Davis and he was screwing or”—her hands waved through the air like she was driving away a terrible smell—“doing something with Britney Swinson the first time I met him. A week or so later, it was Jody Banks.”

“Oh, so there was more than one weak moment with Trevor?” I lifted a brow, choosing to ignore the entire Britney and Jody comment.

“Jesus, yes. See, do you want to be in my shoes, drunk dialing some random hot guy just to get your rocks off?”

“Oh, I think there’s more to it than that, Meg.”

“Oh, don’t you even.” She jabbed a finger in my shoulder. “I am not into Trevor. He’s full of shit.”

“Okay.” I slowed down to turn, thinking about how badly she was in denial. I knew she was. She knew she was.

She settled back against the seat. “I’m saving you heartache, possibly some incurable disease.”

“I didn’t say I wanted to date him.” I pulled into the gravel drive.

“That boy doesn’t date girls. He sleeps with them—dirty sleeps with them.”

“Okay. I get it.”

I put the car in park and opened my door. The interior light buzzed on and Meg shielded her eyes. “God, that’s so bright.”

“You know you’re not driving, right?”

“Yeah, yeah.” She threw her door open and stumbled out, hiccuping as I rounded the car.

“You’re going to throw up, aren’t you?”

“No, I only had like five drinks.” She hiccuped again.

I nodded. She was going to puke everywhere. She always did when she hiccuped.

I placed my arm around her shoulder and helped her up the porch steps and inside. The entire time up to my room, Meg kept complaining about how bad Noah and Trevor were. I just agreed, all the while, in the back of my head I was thinking about how pretty Noah Greyson’s voice was and wondering if he sang to the girls he slept with.





9





Noah





The sun wasn’t even up all the way. The damn crickets were still chirping in the field, and there was not enough coffee in the world to keep me awake after only two hours of sleep. As I stepped out of my truck, I hoped that application I’d put in at Sherwin Williams came through, because that up with the rooster bullshit was for the birds.

The metal door to John’s workshop swung open and he strutted out with a gait a little reminiscent of John Wayne. He even had a cowboy hat on, which I expected him to tip at any second. “Good mornin’, Noah,” he said.

“Mornin’.”

The bang from the screen door of the house caught John’s attention, his gaze straying over my shoulder. “Aren’t you just bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.” He smiled. “Noah, this is my son, Bo. Bo, Noah.”

A teenage boy begrudgingly stomped passed us through the grass, grunting something that sounded like a “hey” before he disappeared inside the workshop.

“He’s not a morning person.”

“I get it.”

“You’ll both be thankful we got an early start come noon when that sun’s beating down on you like the devil beats his wife.”

I forced a smile, not certain whether I was supposed to laugh or not. I was never too sure how to act around a preacher. Bo stepped out of the shop with an edger slung over his shoulder, and he headed straight toward the sprawling field in front of their house.

“Welp”—John hitched his Wrangler’s around his waist—“best be getting to it. I’m going to spread out some hay in the back field. How about you get on the John Deer and mow the land?” He pointed to a green tractor parked underneath one of the oak trees.

The whir of the weed eater cranked up, silencing the crickets

“Alright,” I said, and then he walked off. That was it. Mow the land. Simple enough.

_





Not so simple enough. Hours later, that sun and the humidity was about to kill me. If you’ve never had the pleasure of mowing through Alabama grass that’s four feet high, you don’t understand the insane number of mosquitos that come out to feast on fresh blood. Sweat trickled over my brow, down my neck and back. I turned the tractor around. At least the grass clippings shooting up from the blade disturbed the swarm of gnats buzzing in front of my face.

There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the sun was sizzling on my skin. When I got to the gravel drive, I cut the engine, grabbed the crumpled bottle of water from my back pocket, and gulped half of it down in one swig. Damn Alabama summers are brutal.

“Hey, Noah!” Bo called, holding up the edger. “Wanna trade?” His face was red, his shirt soaked through with sweat. I didn’t really want to, but I felt bad for him. He was just a scrawny kid.

“Sure.”

He crossed the field and handed the edger to me. “Thanks, man.”

By the time I passed through to the old pasture with the weed eater, Bo was already making his way back toward me.

My arms were blazing red from the overdose of sun, and the one thing I refused to have was a damn farmer’s tan. I dropped the edger to the ground and peeled my sweat-soaked shirt off, tucking it into the back of my jeans.

Plawck. Plawck. Plawck. Something wet and hot splattered my chest. I didn’t have to look down to know what it was. The overwhelming stench of manure wafted up, making my stomach twist. Shit was all over me...