Just Let Go.... Kathleen O'Reilly

wouldn’t be great for him, but it had to be better than life with his father, Frank Hart. She knew Austen was capable of more than working on cars, and tonight, when the pre-graduation clock was ticking, she wanted to know about his post-graduation dreams.

      “What are you going to do after May?” she asked, keeping her tone casual.

      When he held her in his gaze, she saw something that was a lot more than a car mechanic. Ambition, determination, and she was glad his father hadn’t ruined everything for him. “I’m going to go to Austin and then build myself the world’s fastest Mustang.”

      His answer made her smile. “It’s the perfect spot for you.”

      But while she was smiling, he didn’t and slowly it dawned on her that he was leaving. Leaving for good and soon. Not that she shouldn’t be surprised, not that she shouldn’t be expecting it. Still, she wasn’t. “Oh.”

      He moved closer, reaching out and pushing the hair from her eyes. “Come with me. I’m serious. We can leave this dump and go someplace where there’s more excitement than Two-For-One Chicken Fried Steak Night.”

      Gillian felt a hard rock in her gut. The same sort when she got a B-plus on a test, or when she flubbed her jump during the State cheerleading competition. Exactly the same sort as when a boy told her (as she was sitting there, only moments before trying to be a temptress), that she wasn’t worth sticking around for. “Glad to know where I rate.”

      “This isn’t about you, Gilly,” he told her and she reminded herself that his world wasn’t hers. His nights at home weren’t about watching the Cowboys play on Sunday or baking pies for the charity sale. No, his nights weren’t nearly so nice.

      Everybody knew about the house way back in the empty fields behind town. The beaten-down shack with its peeling gray paint and empty beer cans cluttering up the yard. The oak in the front was more filled with bullet holes than life, and on most nights, angry voices bellowed through the knee-high grass. Angry words from the foul-mouthed, foul-tempered trash that lived there.

      At one time, there had been two boys who lived there, but then the eldest went away. Some said he was buried out back, some said he was incarcerated at the State Pen, but nobody knew for sure. And no one ever got a straight answer from either the boy or his father. Misery made Gillian’s heart ache for that brother left behind. Hell was supposed to come after death, not before. But he never complained, never talked about it, never showed that it mattered at all.

      “I’m sorry,” she told him, apologizing for more than her thoughtless words, wishing she could make his situation better.

      He touched her forehead, her cheek, cupped her chin in his hand until she had to meet the full-on intensity in his eyes. He had such beautiful eyes. Quicksilver eyes that changed on a dime. Brown and gold melting together, and on a rare occasion, such as this, he would look at you with the full potency of his heart, his soul. A mere woman couldn’t help but fall in love.

      “Come with me,” he said, touching his lips to hers.

      He didn’t wait for an answer, but kept kissing her, putting a lifetime of kissing into the effort, this boy who never tried too hard at anything, this boy who had failed more than most. Gillian felt a prick of tears at her eyes, because a kiss wasn’t supposed to last for an entire lifetime. A kiss was supposed to last until the next minute, the next hour, the next day when she saw him again. A kiss like this meant goodbye.

      Goodbye.

      There would be no making love, there would be no prom king and queen, there would be no more Austen in her life at all.

      The trusting heart was the easiest to break, the hardest to heal, and Gillian was surprised by the pain of it.

      “Stay with me,” she pleaded, but he lifted his head and she could see him disappearing before her eyes. The boy was no more. Here was the man. Slowly, he shook his head.

      She used her shirt to wipe at the tears on her face. Before tonight, she had been so sure of him, of her plans, her dreams. So cock-sure of herself. “I told Mindy you were going to be my date,” she confessed, because she told Mindy everything.

      “What the hell, Gillian?” His eyes were hot with anger and then something else. She followed his gaze to where her shirt hung open, and she realized that maybe her dreams weren’t shot to hell after all.

      There was a heaviness in the night air and she could feel the stickiness on her skin. The dark thoughts in her mind should have scared her, but they excited her instead. What did it matter now? He was the only one she wanted. She wanted him to be her first.

      Nervously she pushed back the hair from her face—as a woman would, not like a girl.

      “Please stay. At least until the prom—”

      “God, woman.” The words were anguished. Defeated. Sometimes Gillian knew she pressed too hard to get her way, but he wouldn’t regret this. She’d make sure of it.

      “Is that a yes?” she asked, excitement bubbling through her.

      “It’s a yes.”

      With that, she threw herself at him in a shameless fashion, because at least now, they had one more week. A whole seven days that would have to last a lifetime. She didn’t want to wait. Not any longer.

      Virginity was for fools who thought there would always be tomorrow.

      “I love you,” she whispered, and he drew back, a surprised expression on his face.

      “You don’t have to say that.”

      “I know, but I want to do this right.”

      He grew still. “Do what right?”

      She spread her hands wide, gesturing to the field, the night, the moon. “My first time.”

      “I thought you and Jeff…”

      She shook her head. “Roger?”

      Once more she shook her head.

      “Sonny?”

      For the last time, she shook her head no. She had thought he’d be pleased, but he didn’t look happy about the situation at all.

      The wicked light in his eyes dimmed to something more respectable, more honorable. His perfect mouth curled into a heart-stopping grin and she knew that her first time would be exactly as she’d wanted it to be.

      “Then we should do this right. Not in a field. Obviously you can’t have an up close and personal experience with chiggers in places that chiggers don’t belong.”

      Chiggers?

      At that, Gillian stared into the tall grass, seriously considering the ramifications of her virginity-losing decision. Pregnancy, she had considered often enough. Chiggers were something entirely different.

      Just the thought of it had her itching behind her knee. Discreetly she scratched.

      “We need a humongous bed,” he continued on, “because a physically demanding woman like you, well, a man needs room to work, you know? And privacy, no kids, no parents, someplace where nobody can interrupt. And you’ll need something better to drink than beer, maybe champagne. And you deserve a whole bucket of flowers. Roses.”

      Dreamily she smiled up at him because of all the boys she knew, he was the first one to understand the frilly secrets of Gillian’s heart.

      She’d never seen him like this, so full of ideas and the future, his eyes glittering with excitement. And it was the idea of loving her that brought this big change about. Love truly was a miraculous thing. It could move mountains, it could touch stars and just the thought of it could turn him into the lover she knew he could be.

      She brushed at the grass, realizing that his plan sounded a lot more fun than a quick roll in the chiggers. “You want to wait for prom night?”

      He nodded, reaching for her shirt and firmly buttoning it closed. “I do.”