Page 81 of Miss Me Not

I shrugged my shoulders. Anything girl-related was foreign to me.

"Right. Well, anyway, he's been after her to get out of the house and hang out with her friends for months now, but she keeps putting him off, claiming she's not ready to leave the twins yet."

"Great, now I feel bad for keeping her out so long yesterday," I said, feeling like a complete ass.

"Nah, that’s my point. She not only jumped at the opportunity to go out with you, but it was her idea. She did a complete one-eighty from every other time an outing without the twins was suggested. My dad was as happy as a kid in a McDonald's Play Place that she stayed out all day with you and came home with her nails and hair done. You're like his new hero now."

"Really, it wasn’t me," I said, uncomfortable with taking the credit. "All of it was your mom's idea."

"Well, you must've done something right. She was practically glowing when she got home. So learn to take a compliment," he said, reaching over to lace his fingers through mine.

I mulled his words over in my head. Compliment. Is that what compliments sounded and felt like? I always figured compliments were supposed to make you flush with pride and were a coveted treat to be enjoyed and pimped. Maybe like everything else, I was a failure at receiving them. I wasn't flushed with pride. Instead, my stomach had an uncomfortable pinch, like it was being tugged on by an invisible string. Only one other person had ever really complimented me, but I didn't allow myself to think about his compliments. At the time, they hadn't filled me with pride or the pinching sensation I was experiencing now, they had made me feel powerful, but I was wrong. He had proved me wrong.

"Are you still nervous?" Dean asked thirty minutes later, breaking up the silence that had filled the car.

I shrugged my shoulders, not really sure how I felt. "I've pretty much resigned myself that there's no turning back now," I said truthfully.

"Mads, I'm not going to let anyone say or do anything that will upset you. I promise. I feel like a complete asshole dragging you here, knowing how uncomfortable you are. I just had this crazy plan to show you what a real Thanksgiving feels and looks like. I don't want you to be miserable though."

"Hello, have we met? Misery is my best friend. We hang out all the time. You know, painting each other's nails and fixing each other's hair," I joked. "Don't worry about me, Sport-o. It's not your fault I'm socially stunted."

His jaw tightened at my words, but he let the subject drop.

"Where does your Papaw live again?" I asked, feigning interest. It was time to throw him a bone. Even if the day sucked as much as it was destined to, I would rather walk down the halls at school buck naked than ruin his day. I could pretend, fool him or hoodwink him, whatever you wanted to call it. After all, I was the master of disguise.

"His house is on the outskirts of Flagler County. The property his house sits on has been in our family for generations. My Uncle John and Aunt Cindy have a house on the property, and so do my Uncle Mark and Aunt Linda. There are a few houses that are sitting empty right now that the rest of us use when we are staying overnight. My parents and the twins headed down last night so the girls would fall asleep in the car."

"Really?” I asked with genuine interest this time. "Your papaw's property must be pretty big."

"It's huge. I think it's something like forty or fifty acres. We all drive golf carts to get around while we're there," he said, once again smiling at me.

His smile strengthened my resolve. I could do this for him. I would chalk it up as my ultimate test in acting like a human.

The next hour passed with Dean regaling me with stories of summers he spent at his papaw and nana's house. I couldn't help chuckling with him as he talked about his first and only lemonade stand.

"I guess in my ten-year-old brain I never considered the fact that if I set the stand up smack dab in the middle of the property, my only customers would be my cousins, who all claimed they didn't have to pay for it since they were family. Needless to say, the stand lost its luster awfully quickly, with me sitting in the hot sun, serving my cousins, while they ran around acting like ninjas, and I was stuck working," he said chuckling.

"So, your first business endeavor was a bust. I'd leave that off your college applications," I teased.

"Oh, it wasn't a bust. I set up shop again later that evening when everyone showed up for one of Papaw's barbecues. I sold more than a hundred glasses that night," he said smugly.

"I bet your cousins were singing a different tune after that."

"Yeah, they were pretty jealous, but I turned out to be their hero when I bought the new Spider-Man game we were all dying to play," Dean said, turning off the main road.

It didn't surprise me that he shared his earnings with his cousins. That's the kind of person he was. Just an all-around good guy. I destroyed lives while he built them up. Together, we were literally a cosmic joke.

"My papaw's property started back there as soon as I turned off the main road," Dean said conversationally, driving slowly over the ruts in the unpaved road.

I took in our surroundings as he navigated his small vehicle over the uneven road. I was enthralled with the large trees and bushes that encroached on the road from both sides. The road forked off several times as we approached a couple of large houses.

"That's where my Uncle John and Aunt Cindy live," Dean said, stopping in the middle of the dirt lane and pointing to one of the houses. "And across the way there is my parents’ house. We use it when we come down here for vacations," he added, pointing toward a two-story wooden house painted a buttery yellow off to my left. "It was built back in nineteen twenty and still has the original hardwood floors. My dad and I renovated it this last summer, updating the electrical wiring and plumbing. We changed out the appliances, but tried to keep the house as authentic as we could," he boasted passionately.

"Sounds like you really enjoyed it," I said.

"I better. That's what I plan on majoring in next year," he said laughing. "My dream is to be able to restore houses back to their former glory. Next summer, I'm tackling one of the other houses on the property all by myself. I'm going to live there while I work on it before I head off to college in the fall."

"Sounds like you have it all mapped out," I said enviously. My long-term goals were zilch. For so long, long-term goals weren't even in the cards. I really hadn't given much thought to where I would go when I graduated. Past comments by Donna pretty much made it clear that she expected me to move out after graduation, leaving me without a whole lot of time to decide what I wanted do with my life. I knew I should start making plans and thinking ahead, but the task up until now seemed so daunting, and quite frankly, pointless. Listening to Dean's long-term plans made me feel like I'd been doused in cold water. It was time for me to man up and start making my own plans.

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