I look down at the table leg I’m sculpting. It’s been a long time since I’ve worked with wood and I’m missing the workshop I used to have. Still, it’s not half bad and I think Ida Sue will like it. I bought some oak wood at the local sawmill and I’m using that. I’m hoping she’ll see the significance. I stare at the wood in my hand, but my vision mostly tunes it out as my thoughts turn toward Ida Sue. Instead, it’s her face I see.
I’m gone for that woman.
There’s no other way to put it. I wouldn’t have thought that was possible at my age, especially with my past.
But I am.
There’s not a single thing that I don’t like and admire about her. She’s strong, probably the strongest woman I’ve ever met in my life. She’s funny as hell when she comes out of her shell. She says and does the most off the wall things that it makes being around her… fun. Shit, I can’t remember the last time I had fun. I’m not sure I have since I was a kid, fishing with my old man. I never realized it was missing in my life before now. But being around Ida Sue, being around her kids… I definitely realize it now.
I’m moving things slow with Ida Sue. She’s been hurt a lot. I can see it, even if she hides it well. I’m fighting myself, because I want to just rush in and claim her as mine. I never thought I’d ever get married again. I want marriage with Ida Sue. I want her tied to me. I want to be cemented so deeply in her life that she’ll never be able to see a future without me in it.
It seems that old dreams don’t die, they just hibernate, because here I am at forty-four wanting a home and family again. Only this time the want is so much more… this time it just might be everything.
“Hey Jansen, what are you building?”
I turn to see Green standing at the door to the barn.
“It’s a little late to be down this way, ain’t it, son?”
“Probably, but I had too much on my mind. I needed to talk.”
Green is young and he wouldn’t understand. Chances are he’ll never understand because he won’t be my age without having a family or anyone to depend on him. But, the simple fact that he had crap on his mind and I’m the one he sought out to talk to, makes my chest grow tight. It might not have started out this way, but this family is mine. I feel it from the soles of my feet to the top of my head.
It took me a hell of a long time, but I finally found exactly where I belong.
“What’s on your mind?” I ask him, clearing my throat because there’s so much emotion running through me right now that I have to lock it down to contain it.
“Girls,” he says with a sigh.
I hide my smile. He sounds so damn forlorn. I hate to break it to him, but the mystery that is women doesn’t get any simpler with age.
“That’s a broad category, Green.”
“I asked Kayla to the homecoming dance.”
“She turn you down?”
“Yeah.”
My eyebrow cocks up at that news. I didn’t expect it.
“How come?”
“She said she wasn’t going to be a stand in for Cynthia.”
“Well now. Let me ask you this, son. Would she have been?”
Green frowns. He looks down at the ground like he’s sorting through everything in his mind.
“I don’t think so. I mean, Cynthia and I have a history. I like her…. And… Can I tell you a secret, Jansen?”
“You can tell me anything, Son. Anything.” Suddenly that emotion threatens again and I clear my throat.
“You won’t tell anyone?”
“Whatever we talk about will always be between us, Green. I promise you that. The only time I would ever break that confidence is if whatever it is might cause you harm and then I’d tell your Momma.”
His face stares straight at mine as if he’s gauging what I say to determine if I’m being truthful. I hold his gaze and wait.
“Everyone thinks that Cyn and I have already had sex, but we haven’t. I… well I haven’t done that with anyone.”
“Why do they think you have?”
“That’s the thing. They just assumed it. I didn’t tell them I didn’t. I was going to, but Cynthia wouldn’t let me. She said having the other cheerleaders thinking we were doing it, made them look up to her. So, I just played into it, instead. Now, everyone thinks we have.”
I frown. “And this Cynthia wants it that way?”
“I don’t know, girls are weird. Cynthia’s older than I am. I mean I’ll be sixteen this year. But, she’s seventeen, so, maybe girls just think you have to have sex to be in a relationship. I probably should I guess. All my friends have.”
“Boy, there’s one thing you need to know about life. It moves fast enough on its own. You don’t need to rush it along and never—and I mean never—do something you don’t want to do because everyone else has.”
“Well, Jansen, I mean it’s not like I don’t want to do it. I’m a guy and Cyn is hot. But…”
“But, what?”
“Sometimes I wonder if it’s me she likes or the fact that I’m the star of the baseball team.”
“Where does Kayla fit into all of this?”
“I thought it was me that she liked… but, it couldn’t have been if she turned me down… Could it?”
“I don’t know much about women, Green. They’re a mystery to me, even at my age. I’d venture to say most men feel that way. But, I do know Kayla. That girl has a whole passel of issues about not feeling good enough and that stems from how hard she has it at home. I could see her worrying about not being good enough.”
“But, she’s pretty and sweet. Any guy would love to have her on his arm.”
“You may see that, but I doubt Kayla does, son.”
“That’s sad.”
“It is, but it’s also a good reason for you not to ask Kayla out again, until you’re sure how you feel.”
“But…”
“Some girls are delicate. You can hurt them if you aren’t careful, Green. A man never wants to hurt a woman. You do that and you’re as low to the ground as a dog’s belly.”
“Some dogs are pretty tall,” he jokes.
“Green—”
“Yeah, I get it, Jansen. Thanks for the advice. Maybe I should sort through my head before I take Kayla out.”
“That might be a good idea,” I agree.
“Besides there’s always prom next year. Kayla would look hot in a prom dress.”
I just shake my head. There’s not much I can say to that.
“What are you making?”
“I’m making a kitchen table for your Momma for Valentine’s.”
“A kitchen table?”
“Yeah. You don’t think she’ll like it?”
“Jansen, maybe girls are a mystery to you because you don’t understand what they like,” he says.
“What do they like?” I ask, wondering if I should laugh, be offended or take notes.
“Not something like that,” he says sagely, putting his hand on my arm. “Girls like chocolates and flowers for Valentine’s Day. Trust me on this one, big guy. You get Mom a table for Valentine’s and she’s going to kick you to the curb.”
“Well, I don’t want that.”
“None of us do. We like you and you make Mom laugh. She hasn’t laughed in a long time.”
I let that information settle inside of me.
I like it.
“I guess I should probably get some flowers to go on top of the table,” I tell him, keeping my voice even and serious. I’ll never tell him I was already going to give her flowers and a ring. He thinks he’s helping me out and damn if I won’t always let him believe that.
“That’d be a good idea. She likes lilies,” he adds helpfully.
I grin. I guess he did help me out, after all.
“You want to help me on the table?” I ask, figuring he’d say no.
“Really? What do you want me to do?” he asks, surprising me, so I put him to work sanding the top I had forged together earlier.
It’s going to be a huge table and damn sturdy, too. Hopefully, when I’m done, White, Gray, Green and the twins all could wrestle on it and maybe even throw Cyan into the mix and it’d still stand.
I just hope Ida Sue likes it.