Page 121 of Story of My Life
Homecoming. I shuddered involuntarily. Isla was fifteen and terrifyingly beautiful. Without a dad around anymore, I didn’t know how Laura hadn’t sent her to school with a bodyguard to chase off the disgusting hormonal teenage boys. I’d been one. It was a miracle I hadn’t been run off by shotgun-wielding fathers every time I’d left the house.
“I just don’t get it. If he didn’t like me, why did he act like he did? And if he does like me, why would he ask someone else to homecoming? I’d rather he be honest than blowing hot and cold.”
I stared at the sunset ahead and thought of Hazel.
Since my “discussion” with my brothers on Monday, I’d done my best to ignore Hazel. Which proved to be a lot harder than I thought, considering I couldn’t stop thinking about her. Kissing her. Talking to her. Watching her frown at the screen of her computer as she wrote.
“Guys are stupid sometimes. Most of the times,” I corrected. “You shouldn’t date any of them until they’re in their thirties.”
“That’s what Uncle Gage and Uncle Levi say. Hey, can we stop for a birch beer?” Isla asked.
It was our thing. For celebrations or cheering up, we’d grab two bottles of birch beer from the convenience store and drink them on the way home.
“Sure, kid.” Instinctively, I patted my pockets for my wallet as I steered us in the direction of Wawa. “Shit.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t have my wallet.” I must have left it at Hazel’s when I’d paid for the hoagie lunch delivery. I had a vague recollection of tossing it in my tool caddy, which I’d left there.
“That’s okay. This one’s on me,” she said.
“No way a niece of mine is picking up the tab,” I said, snatching my emergency $20 off the sun visor.
“Such a gentleman,” she teased.
I didn’t feel like a gentleman. I felt like a piece-of-shit high school sophomore who was too stupid and selfish to know how to treat women right.
After I droppedoff Isla and Melvin—with an extra birch beer in case tomorrow wasn’t any better—I headed back toward Main Street. I drove past Hazel’s, noting that her lights were on. I doubted she was working, given the only inspiration I’d delivered this week was that of a hot-cold man baby.
The wallet could easily wait until morning. It wasn’t like I was going to go on some kind of online shopping spree from my apartment couch.
Besides, me parking in front of her house after eight o’clock at night would only spark rumors that neither of us needed to deal with.
The smart thing was to go home and stay home.
I went home and parked in the lot behind the general store. Drumming my fingers on the wheel, my gaze slid to Hazel’s book on my dash.
“Fuck it.”
I grabbed my keys and climbed out. But instead of heading up the back stairs to my second-floor apartment, I pulled on a Bishop Brothers hat—as if that would disguise me—and headed toward Hazel’s. Just out for a casual evening walk. Nothing suspicious about that, was there? Lots of people walked.
Rather than cutting through the gate and her front yard, I skulked up the shadowy driveway, then fought my way through overgrown landscaping to her walkway.
The porch light was on, and so were several fixtures on the first floor. The woman had no window treatments. Which washow I got a front-row view of her dragging a stepladder across the hall in those short shorts I hadn’t stopped thinking about since Monday.
Irritation had me knocking harder than necessary.
Startled, Hazel dropped the ladder with a clang. She dropped to a crouch and did a frantic search of the immediate vicinity, presumably for a weapon.
“It’s me. Open up,” I said gruffly.
I didn’t know whether to be amused or annoyed that she took another ten seconds to continue searching for an appropriate weapon before giving up and opening the door.
“What do you want?” she asked, crossing her arms. She had on a cropped long-sleeve shirt. Her hair was piled on top of her head in some knot thing, and she was wearing her glasses.
Cozy Hazel was one of my favorites. Not that I had favorites. Or that I paid attention to what she wore. Or that I gave her more than a passing thought.
“Hello?” she said, waving a hand in front of my face.
