I pounded the carpet down the right aisle of the church, in between pews that seemed to frown at me in disgust. I didn’t understand pews. They weren’t comfortable, they weren’t comforting, and they certainly didn’t make coming to church inviting. In fact, sometimes I didn’t want to come to church specifically because of those pews.
I allowed myself one glance back at that place—that tub where most people find solace from their sins in a public display of their newfound second chances.
The place where people found hope.
The place where I’d lost myself in Tate.
I’d nearly lost my shirt as well.
At this point, I was pretty sure I’d won the race of raunchiness against West. Maybe I should be the one to sit in the front pew from now on.
One touch of her lips and I was gone—I’d forgotten who I was and who I was striving to be. The walls I’d so securely fashioned out of my own fear, she’d torn down while her fingers knotted in the hem of my shirt.
I’d expected a slap to crack along my face after I kissed her back. Even though she’d kissed me first, in some part of my mind she was still the preacher’s granddaughter and I was definitely the sinner.
Before getting to the door, I heard a noise from that now sinful baptismal behind me. As much as Tate liked hiding inside of the space, it sounded like she was drowning in it.
When I finally got there, she was splayed out in the bottom like a damned octopus. But as soon as she looked up and saw me, she tried to strike some poised pose. “Come back for more?”
“I thought you were dying in here.” I reached out a hand and she took it. Immediately, I was reminded of the affect her touch had on every cell in me.
“No,” she sneered. “Not yet, anyway.”
I pulled her up until she was flush with me on the top step. She faltered backwards, but my hands gripped her hips just in time to make sure she didn’t fall. Every place I touched her felt like it was made just for me.
We’d barely gotten to the aisle between the pews when the brattiest voice of all made a showing.
“How much do you love me, Bridger?”
At that point, I kind of loved Willa. The first reason was that she’d stopped me from potentially kissing Tate again. It was just too right, our bodies flush and her breathing still tattered from our earlier tryst. The second reason, she’d probably come looking for us before someone else could. And by someone else, I meant Preacher. I didn’t really feel like having the sinny-sin-sin sermon that day.
Actually, I probably needed it.
Because kissing Tate like that felt like sin.
I liked sin.
“I love you a lot right now. What’s up?”
“The three of us have been put together for deliveries.”
Willa had that look on her face. I knew that look. Glancing over to Tate, she was still making a pitiful attempt to straighten herself, though, I kind of liked her a post-kissing rumpled mess.
“We’ve been put together or you made sure we were put together?”
Willa popped a fist up on her hip. “Same—Diff.”
Couldn’t my siblings just speak English?
“Well, let’s go. There’re people waiting.” Tate had suddenly become all business beside me. She’d straightened her shoulders and tipped her chin forwards.
Damn it. She was even cute like that.
“Let’s go in my truck.”
“Cozy.” Willa remarked as we passed her by.
After taking strict inventory of the families which we were responsible for and Tate going over everything twice, the three of us set off. We had to deliver food to five families, one of them I knew were close cousins of Tate’s.
“Get in you two,” I called out the open passenger door. Both of the girls were standing there at an impasse.
“Get in Tate.”
“You’re his sister.”
“Exactly. We shared a bathroom as kids. Don’t make me touch thighs with him.” Willa dramatically shuddered.
“Fine.” Thirty minutes ago, Tate was on me like white on milk and now she didn’t even want to sit by me in the truck. Maybe the girl only got sexy in religious places. Snapshots of every church I knew flashed through my mind.
The entire way to the first home, a Mrs. Abrams, who I didn’t actually know, Tate wrung her hands in her lap. She twitched so much that I thought she might bust out of the cab at every single stop sign. I was thankful that my truck was an automatic because if I had to shift a truck and touch Tate’s thighs, Willa might’ve been left to walk.
Finally, at Mrs. Abrams house, Willa insisted on getting out alone.
“This lady is—I’d just rather go by myself.”
“Sure, sure.” I knew my sister. She was leaving Tate and me alone on purpose.
Willa gathered the smallest basket of food and forwent the front door in favor of the hidden side door like she was completely familiar with this house.
“She’s running from her husband. He beat on her all the time.” Tate whispered to me, knocking her knee against mine.
“Who?”
“The woman who lives here. She’s real skittish around people. Grammy comes up on Sunday afternoons to do a bible study with her since she still won’t come to church. She’s too scared to get a job or anything yet. She just left him a couple of months ago.”
“Men like that are scum.”
I thought I’d add that just so she knew. I didn’t think Tate thought I was a wife beater, but really I never knew, at any given time, what Tate Halloway was thinking.
“I’m not apologizing for earlier.”
I turned in the seat, accidentally revving up the truck. Willa showed her face around the corner along with a choice finger gesture that Stock would hear about later. She thought I was hurrying her up.
What did I do here? It was too late for trying to act like she didn’t affect me.
That ship had long ago sailed.
But I also wasn’t ready to put all my cards on the table.
Though for better or for worse, my chance of coming away from Tate unscathed were long gone.
Against my better judgment, I gave up—a little. “I don’t want you to apologize. There’s no reason to apologize.”
“I’m not some wanton hussy who defiles holy places all the time.” Her blush was in full force, and fast journeying from her face down her neck and the beginnings of it were blooming along that very enticing v-neckline. Some of her madcap red hair was resting on my shoulder. It looked like it was soothing me, patting the young fellow who didn’t know up from down with this girl.
“I never thought you were.”
“What did you think, Bridger? When I was a kid, we didn’t have a TV. We played a lot of board games. The only thing I learned from them was that I sucked at board games. I suck at all games. Hell, from what I remember, you suck at games too. One minute you’re pissy and the next you’re showing up to bring me to the hospital when I need you. Then, you ignore me for a week. Next thing I know you’re trying to wax philosophical with me over turkey of all things which leads to making out where my granddaddy stands in his white robe trying to lead people to heaven. So which one is it? What move are you going to make next because my luck sucks and you can’t pass go.”
By the time she finished her spiel, I was hefting deep breaths in and out, trying to keep up with her argument and decipher where exactly I should begin.
I did suck at games and I was kind of tired of playing. It would be so easy. Giving up and giving in to whatever Tate had in store for me would be so simple.
Simple is what got most men’s balls busted.
It got mine busted plenty of times.
By the time Willa got in the car, I’d not made any progress toward a clear answer. Instead of wringing her hands, Tate had crossed her arms as if the motion put a halt on our conversation, like a pause button.
I wasn’t anywhere near ready to press play.
“Next is the Halloway’s.”
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Tate’s cousins. She tensed at the very mention of their name. Her cousins on her father’s side of the family were from the wrong side of the tracks. Really, they lived on the other side of the railroad tracks—and metaphorically they weren’t the most upstanding of people. I knew that Tate didn’t especially like being connected to them, but they were family all the same.
“Hey,” I let one hand go of the steering wheel and weaved my hand into her tangle of angry arms. I grabbed her hand and squeezed. “It’s gonna be fine. A quick drop off and then we’re gone.” Her posture softened while she nodded, agreeing with me.
A few minutes later, my truck was taking a beating, bouncing left and right down the dilapidated used to be a gravel driveway which was now mostly dirt. Driving to these Halloway’s was like taking a field trip through a junk yard. Bathtubs, halves of cars, and old rusted signs not only littered the woods leading up to the house, but overpowered the trees. Some of them even had to bow against the weight of heavier objects. A broken down shack came into view first, the main house, then as we grew closer, the littler, more outhouse looking buildings came into view.
These Halloway’s were a mother and a father who had seven sons—seven. None of them had married and all of them still lived on the land, the older ones in the makeshift abodes.
It wasn’t just their living situation that defined them. It was their reputation. The older sons were troublemakers. They were banned from the town bar. The sheriffs knew who they were and had arrested them more times than they could count.
These Halloway’s were true trouble—the criminal kind.
Tate Halloway was the good kind of trouble.
But in the spirit of Christian kindness and sharing, there we were, hoping they didn’t bite the hand that fed them.
“You don’t have to go in. Both of you stay in the truck.”
I’d heard rumors about these people that couldn’t be repeated in front of ladies. Most of them made even the brutish of men quiver. So, I didn’t hesitate in demanding they keep their distance.
Tate scoffed and shoved on my shoulder. “Okay, we are doing something good here. Have some faith, Bridger.”
I searched the grounds, looking for signs of mayhem before I relented, keeping the door only slightly ajar so they couldn’t get out until I was ready. Not seeing any, I got out and waved to the girls to follow me. Each of us grabbed a huge basket, after all, it would take mountains of food to feed a couple and their seven children. Not children—more like spawn.
I knocked on the door, making sure it wasn’t too loud or offensive. The last thing I needed was a shotgun in my face.
“Oh, lookey here. It’s the nice Christian folks coming to bring us heathens the Thanksgiving spirit.”
The woman had a woolen looking dress on with an apron that had seen more dirt than clean.
“Happy Thanksgiving!” Tate had mustered some cheer between the truck and the door. It didn’t matter where we were, that girl seemed to have a well of spirit that she pulled from whenever necessary. I wondered what fueled it.
“My, my, my…” A man in overalls, only one side buttoned because his dome-shaped belly wouldn’t let him button the other one, came to the screen door and shoved it open, causing the three of us to step back. “Ain’t you girls purty.”
What was he, the spokesperson for hillbilly pride? He even said purty more hillbilly than Stockton.
“Here’s your food. Happy Thanksgiving.” Willa shoved her basket at the woman. She took it and disappeared into the house with a wayward glance in her son’s direction.
When your momma thinks you’re no good, then you truly are no good.
Tate put her basket on a chair by the door and I followed suit.
“Now wait just a minute. Ain’t you Tate Halloway? I’d rekkonize a cousin anywhere.”
He was full of shit. Tate didn’t look anything like them in stature, complexion or anything else. She was quite the opposite. His balding head showed sprouts of brown next to her red.
And not to be rude, but the mom of the bunch wasn’t a catch—never had been.
“I am Tate Halloway.” She said in complete disgust.
“You sure have grown up.” As he spewed the sentence, a dribble of tobacco juice escaped his mouth and came out the side of his mouth. He didn’t say it very cousinly either. Those words were just as vile as his swishing his first and second toe back and forth as he stood there, probably trying to itch some kind of coal miner’s athlete’s foot.
“Well, it’s been ten years. So yes, I grew. Goodbye.”
“Now wait here just a minute.” He stepped outside and made some kind of holler noise, the kind my dad used to use when he was calling us all in for supper.
Then I realized it, he was calling in for the rest of the family.
“We need to go now.”
Without permission, I turned both girls, of which I was now equally scared for, and pushed them to the truck. I wasn’t generally in favor of shoving women, but it was either that or watch them become a weird version of sister wives right there on the front porch of the seven dwarves—or the seven giants.
“Go, Bridger, go,” Willa yelled at me and as I bob-tailed around so that I was in a position to leave, I saw why. At least three men were now on the porch—all with shotguns.
Without a care for my truck or my poor suspension, I high-tailed it out of there. It wasn’t until we’d gotten a good ways down the road that Tate finally let out her breath. Her arms were crossed over her chest again and I knew she was pissed about me and the way I’d acted.
She could be mad all she wanted—I wouldn’t let anything happen to my girls.
Nothing.
I realized the protection mode then. I wanted to protect Tate like I did my mother and my sister and Cami. Sometime in all this, I’d lumped her in with the rest of the females in my life.
The instinct to keep my family secure had voluntarily umbrella-ed itself over Tate.
It changed everything.
I’d never felt that way about Jesse. She’d made it clear in the beginning that she was a free spirit. She decided when we went out, how we went out and for how long. I’d thought it all normal. She was my first girlfriend and on that front I’d failed to listen to my more basic instincts screaming at me that something was off.
When I shut up and shut off my brain, nothing like that drummed up for Tate.
The only thing I knew with Tate was that I didn’t want anything bad to happen to her and I had a newfound love of church.