Whiskey & Ribbons by Leesa Cross-Smith

Author:Leesa Cross-Smith [Cross-Smith, Leesa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781938235399
Publisher: Hub City Press
Published: 2018-03-06T00:00:00+00:00

Dalton

CASSIDY STARTED COMING IN THE BIKE SHOP A LOT. A LOT. I’d gotten used to her smell. Vanilla, but not too powdery or sweet. Like, fresh vanilla. A thin vanilla bean slipped into a thick glass jar. She was pursuing me and didn’t make a secret of it. It was alluring, being chased. She, the lioness. Me, a leaping gazelle. I considered letting her sink her sharp teeth into the weak of my neck, letting her carry me home, slack and bleeding. However, I was still mildly involved with Frances. There were bits of us all over one another and we couldn’t rinse it off. Oil and feathers. I’d just gotten off the phone with her when Cassidy walked in. I’d half-heartedly invited Frances over later. She was considering moving to Austin to be closer to her sister. It was likely that soon she’d be gone. She’d come over, we’d watch Netflix, get a pizza, tangle and untangle ourselves like we did so often. She’d been seeing at least one other guy I knew of. He sounded all right. I was mildly jealous and kept expecting to feel it more. Like waiting for a late bus, checking my watch, squinting down the road.

Cassidy would find one reason or another to stop in. Bike parts, new wheels. Once she stopped in for a new bike lock because she said hers had gotten stolen but she conveniently found it the next week, came back and told me so. This time she came in and said she was looking for an entirely new bike. Was ready to make a change.

“I’ve had this one for a couple years. My ex-boyfriend moved to Costa Rica, left it in my garage. It was never mine to begin with,” she said.

She was on the other side of the counter. I’d just pulled my hair back, tucked the strays behind my ears. I was craving a cigarette. Cassidy’s vanilla smell made me ache for the dead heat of summer but it was early spring. By the dead heat of summer, Evangeline would have her baby and Eamon would be a father. I’d be an uncle. I was almost embarrassed about how stoked it made me. It wasn’t my kid so why should I be so excited? But yet, there it was. A new room of the family unit roofed over us. I didn’t have to step into it. I was already there. We all were. And that we included me alongside everyone else. Not as adopted brother, but as uncle. Uncle Dalton waiting for a new baby Royce. A tiny Royal baby. I had thoughts of my own non-relationship with my biological father and whether I should finally go ahead and call him. I shook my head to clear it. Asked Cassidy if she had a cigarette.

“Not that you seem like a smoker. You don’t smell like smoke. You smell like . . . vanilla,” I said. I’d gone too far to turn back now. Now she knew I knew what she smelled like.

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