When Cicadas Cry Page 10

  “Oh, and did I mention my dad is a former Marine?”

  “What?” He almost shouts the word.

  “Kidding,” I say.

  “Damn, girl,” he mumbles, lowering his head. “You’re tryin’ to kill me; I know it.”

  I just laugh and get out of the car. And when I meet him on the passenger’s side, I grab his hand.

  Immediately, he looks down at our hands. “Do you think we should hold hands?” he asks.

  “Rem!”

  “Well, I don’t know! I’m still not convinced your dad’s not somethin’ mean and big, and I’m not really sure if I should be more afraid of him or your sister.”

  I try to choke down my amusement, as I kiss him on the cheek. “It’s my mom you should be afraid of,” I whisper into his ear.

  He gives me this terrified look, and it’s absolutely priceless—definitely worth scaring the hell out of him for no reason.

  We get inside, and I set my purse down onto the floor next to a bunch of shoes. And almost instantly, the sweet scent of cinnamon fills my nose. I must be home. My parents’ house has been infused with the smell of cinnamon ever since my sister mentioned to my mom one day that the scent can help improve brain function. That was almost three years ago. Now, I can’t smell cinnamon without thinking of home.

  “Mom,” I say. “We’re here.”

  “Ashley!” My sister comes running into the hall and throws her arms around me and then, without so much as a hesitation or an introduction, for that matter, she throws her arms around Rem, too.

  “You have a good aura,” she says, pulling away from Rem. “I can feel it.”

  Rem just smiles and nods. I can tell he doesn’t know what to say...or do.

  “That’s a good thing,” my sister says.

  “Okay,” he says, nodding, but still not completely convinced—I can tell.

  “Lana,” I say, smiling, “this is Rem.”

  “Remmm...?” she hums, drawing out the last letter of his name. “Is that short for something?”

  “Remington,” Rem replies.

  “Good,” she says. “Can I call you Remington then?”

  Rem glances at me and then smiles at Lana. “Sure, if you’d like.”

  Lana bobs her head once. “I think I would like.” And with that, she dances away—like literally twirls into the next room—while Rem leans over and whispers in my ear: “Did she say I smell good?”

  “Yeah,” I say, smiling, “something like that.”

  “Sweetheart, dinner is almost ready.” My mom suddenly appears in the hallway and kisses me on the cheek before she turns to Rem. “And you must be the boy we’ve heard so much about.”

  Rem looks at me and gives me a pleased grin before he looks back at my mom. “Hi, Miss Westcott.” He holds out his hand. My mom shakes it.

  My dad says that you can tell a lot about a person by his or her handshake. Thus, new people always get handshakes in our house.

  “Mom, this is Rem,” I say.

  “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Rem.”

  Rem just nods and smiles. He looks shy, but also somehow, confident, at the same time. I think that’s what I like about him so much. He’s always two things at once. For example, he can’t just be sweet. He’s got to be sweet and sexy. Like when he tells me I’m beautiful, it’s always in a whisper or a raspy tone with a hungry look in his eyes. Or like, even when he’s upset, he wears this face that somehow says: I won’t give up on you.

  “Why don’t you guys come into the dining room.” My mother’s voice rings through my ears, breaking up my thoughts.

  I smile at Rem. “They love you,” I whisper into his ear. I notice his shoulders seem to relax a little right before I take his hand and lead him into the next room. My dad is in there, setting a bowl of cooked carrots onto the table.

  “Dad,” I say, “this is Rem.”

  “Hello,” my dad says, brushing his hands together, before holding one out to Rem.

  Rem takes his hand and shakes it.

  “It’s nice to meet you, son,” Dad says.

  Rem smiles kindly. And I don’t miss the inconspicuous nod my dad gives me, either. He’s done the same thing all my life. Every person he shakes hands with, he either nods or doesn’t. It’s his way of letting me know who’s “okay” and who’s “not okay.” A nod means: this person can be trusted. No nod: I don’t ever want you alone in the same room with this person. I know the drill, and I breathe a sigh of relief when I get the nod, even if it is just a formality for me. I already trust Remington Jude, and I don’t think there’s anything in this world that can convince me otherwise.

  We all sit down shortly after that. I take a seat; Rem takes the seat next to me. My sister sits across from us, and my parents sit at either ends of the table.

  While we eat, my parents quiz Rem on everything from where he lives to what TV programming he watches. My dad’s got this thing with TV shows, too. If you watch sports or the History channel, you’re okay in his book. If you say you watch anything else, he automatically puts you on a list with all the other people he’s not so sure about yet. Rem said he watches a lot of sports, so I guess he passed that test.

  “Remington?” my sister says, once there’s a pause in the conversation. She speaks in her usual soft and thoughtful tone.

  Rem looks up from his plate in mid-chew.

  “What direction does your house face?”

  “Sorry?” he says to her.

  “Do you live in a house?” she asks.

  “Uh, yeah,” Rem stutters.

  “What direction does it face?” she asks again.

  My mom rolls her eyes and smiles. My dad acts as if he doesn’t hear the question. I think he believes that if he doesn’t “hear” it, it wasn’t actually said. Neither of my parents has fully bought into her lifestyle, yet.

  “Oh, uh, east, I believe,” Rem says.

  “Good.” Lana nods and then goes back to chewing on her raw carrot.

  “Good,” Rem simply repeats, with a smile.

  We make it through the dinner without any casualties. And afterward, Lana heads up to her room. My dad retires with my mom to the living room. And I lead Rem out to the back porch.

  “You made it,” I say.

  “I made it,” he echoes.

  I sit down on a padded bench, and he joins me.

  “You think they liked me?”

  I find his stare. It’s getting dark all around us now, but I can still see that beautiful sea in his eyes. “I think they loved you,” I say.

  “Your sister’s cool.”

  I nod. “She’s a lot like my grandmother—the one that taught us about the bamboo plants.”

  “Yeah,” he says, as if he’s remembering. “I can see that. And I bet your sister has one of those love plants, too.”

  I laugh. “She does. But hers isn’t so much a love plant. It has ten stalks and means completion.”

  “Aah,” he says, tilting his head back slightly. “That sounds fitting. But that has to be one hell of a big plant.”

  “It is,” I agree. “It takes up, like, her whole desk upstairs.”

  He chuckles a little at that. “Come here,” he says then, pulling me closer.

  I fall into his chest. He’s warm, and he smells like his cologne. I love his smell.

  “So, this is where you grew up?” he asks.

  “Yeah,” I say. “There’s a park not too far from here where I spent a lot of my summers. In fact, I got my first broken arm when I fell off the monkey bars there.”

  “Your first?”

  I nod. “Yeah, I broke it again in junior high in a softball game. And don’t ask me how. I was sliding one second, and then the next, I felt this sharp pain, and all of a sudden, it was Broken Arm Número Dos.” I hold out two fingers.

  “Wow,” he exclaims. “You really are tough.”

  I just laugh into his chest.

  “Which one?” he asks.

  “My right.” I hold up my right arm
, and he takes it and trails soft kisses from my elbow to my wrist. The feel of his lips on my skin sends a rush of heat to my face. I try to hide it by burying my face deeper into the muscles in his chest.

  “And my high school is about a mile down the road,” I say, after his last kiss to my arm.

  “Do you think you would have noticed me in high school?” he asks.

  I look up at him and into his eyes. “I don’t know how I couldn’t have.”

  “Even if I would have just been a sophomore when you were a senior...”

  “I still would have noticed you.”

  “We could have been high school sweethearts,” he says.

  “We would have been,” I say, laughin’ softly to myself. “I really didn’t have a high school sweetheart.”

  “Really?”

  “Nope,” I confirm.

  “That surprises me.”

  “Well, you’ve never met the boys in my high school.”

  “Touché,” he says.

  He runs the inside of his hand gently along the length of my arm. The contrast of my skin and his rougher skin works to soothe me somehow.

  “Well, I didn’t have a high school sweetheart, either,” he says, squeezing me closer. “I had too many knuckleheads in my life advisin’ me against it.”

  “Nooo,” I say, sarcastically.

  “I know it’s hard to believe,” he says. I can feel the laugh tunneling through his chest, even before it leaves his lips.

  Then, he grows quiet, and I just try to soak up everything about this night, including the way my dad laughed at his jokes and how my mom smiled at him. They see what I see, too. And what I see is only the beginning of how much I feel for this boy.

  “Ashley?”

  “Hmm?” I peek up at him, not wanting to lift my face from his chest.

  “This is one of my new favorite moments.”

  I smile wide. “Rem?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m happy you’re here.”

  I hear him breathe in and then out, and I feel his chest rise and fall as he does it. “Me too,” he says. “Me too.”

  And with that, I nuzzle deeper into his muscles and feel his arms wrap tighter around me. In this moment, I can’t remember what it’s like to hurt. It feels so far away now. Now, everything just seems so happy and so full of life and love and possibility. I want to hold onto this feeling for dear life. I don’t ever want to feel what it’s like to lose it. I don’t ever want to feel what it’s like to lose Remington Jude. I’m falling for him. I know that I am.

  I’m falling for Remington Jude.

  Chapter Twenty

  Past

  Ashley

  “Remington.” I sing his name because I think he secretly likes when I do it.

  “What, baby?”

  I come up behind him and throw my arms around his neck. “Don’t work today,” I whisper into his ear. “Stay home and play with me.” I kiss his clean-shaven cheek and squeeze his shoulders tighter.

  He swings around in his chair, and I fall into his lap. “We can take a walk along the river or go to your grandpa’s farm...or build a bonfire and invite the whole town over.”

  He cringes at that last one, and it makes me laugh. “Or...,” I say, “we can just snuggle on the couch all day and watch old movies.”

  “I think...” he says, standing up and taking me with him. I playfully squeal and throw my arms around his neck as he slides one arm under my legs and one behind my back and carries me toward the living room.

  He lies me down onto the couch and kisses my forehead. “I think that last one’s my favorite,” he says, falling gently on top of me. His mouth hovers over mine. I can feel his warm breaths tenderly hit my lips one by one. “I love you, Ashley Westcott.”

  My smile starts to fade. Something in me stings at my heart a little. I haven’t heard those words in a long time. But I look into his eyes, and I see him; I see the man who is familiar, who is sexy, who is love, who is mine.

  “I...” I place a hand on either side of his suntanned face. “I love you, too, Remington Jude.”

  At my words, his lips edge up.

  “I should have said that a long time ago, shouldn’t I have?” he asks.

  I can’t help but smile. “I wouldn’t have believed you a day sooner.”

  He looks at me with this longing that I don’t think I’ll ever get enough of. It makes me feel as if I’m the only girl in the world for him.

  “And,” he says, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a little, silver key, “I want you to have this.”

  “What?” I ask, taking it into my hand.

  “It’s my spare key.”

  “To here? To your house?”

  He just nods, and I feel my smile growing wider.

  “You know, Ashley Westcott,” he says, in a low, rasping voice. The way he says my name makes me take notice. “I realize there was probably a chance—before we ever met—that our paths were never gonna cross in this life.” He shrugs his shoulders a little. “You know, maybe it was some choice we made or didn’t make that caused a road to fork a different way or somethin’, and we missed each other by just an inch. We’d never know it, of course, and we’d go on livin’ our lives in blissful ignorance, never knowin’ what we missed out on. ...I don’t know, maybe we’d each marry different people and have a couple kids. And maybe we’d grow old with the people we married.” He pauses and lowers his eyes before finding mine again. “But I know, if that were the case—if I never would have crossed paths with you—I never would have known love. Because as far as I’m concerned, there’s only one definition of it out there...and I’m convinced it’s lyin’ right here next to me.”

  He says his last word, and then he leans in and presses his lips to mine. “Did you know that?” he asks, pulling away from my lips and trailing tender kisses down my neck.

  I can’t even form a word. There are tears in my eyes, as if they’re literally welling up from somewhere deep inside my soul, and his kisses are making me melt into a pool of sweet dizziness under his body. And with one last kiss onto my collarbone, he wraps his arms around me and pulls me close. I feel so safe as he holds me in this happy silence. And before long, I hear him hum a soft tune near my ear. I recognize it. It’s the song we first danced to. It’s the song we were listening to when I think we both knew we were in for a long ride. I squeeze the key into the palm of my hand, and then I nuzzle my cheek deep into his chest, and I breathe him in. I love this man. And I know, in this moment and without a doubt, I was right about this place and in coming here. To me, Ava was the fork in the road. This place has both healed my soul and stolen my heart. Thank God for this small town. And thank God that Remington Jude calls it home.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Present

  Rem

  “Hey, Jack,” I mumble. My mind feels distracted, like it’s somewhere else entirely.

  “Hey, Rem! Pull up a seat.” He says the words way too cheerfully.

  I throw my jacket over an old wooden chair across from him. And right before I take a seat, I steal a quick glance around the little bar, checkin’ to see who’s here. “Thanks for meetin’ me here,” I say.

  “No problem. So, what’s up?”

  I lean into the table. There’s no one in the bar except Old Man Seeger, who can’t even hear, but I don’t take any chances. “Well, you know how we joked about her writing a book one day?”

  Jack’s quiet for a second. Then he cocks his head to one side. “Uh, yeah?”

  “Well...” I draw out the word.

  He doesn’t move. He just narrows an eye at me. “Wait, what are you sayin’?”

  I can feel a long, drawn-out breath drag across my lips, as he stares back at me. “I’m sayin’ she wrote a book.”

  “Ashley?”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “About you?”

  “Well, not exactly. But it’s a little too familiar, if you know what I mean.” I look around the bar a
gain before my eyes settle back on him.

  “Wow.” He says the word like it’s all still settin’ in. Then he leans back until both of the chair’s front legs are off the floor. “Wow,” he says again.

  I sit back in my own chair and just watch him shake his head.

  “It’s you, you know?” he says.

  I shrug my shoulders and open my mouth to counter that statement, but nothin’ comes out.

  “Well...?” he asks.

  “Well, what?”

  “Well, what’d she say?”

  I rub the back of my neck. “I don’t know. What do you mean?”

  “I mean, what does she say about you?”

  “I don’t know. I just read a few chapters. The book was in my mailbox last night when I got home.” I don’t tell him I stopped readin’ it because it was hittin’ too close to home. I don’t tell him that I got scared; I leave that part out.

  Jack stares up at the little bar’s ceiling as if it’s the most interesting thing in the world. “Wow,” he exclaims again, still shakin’ his head. He does that for a little while longer, until his eyes eventually settle back on mine. “You’ve gotta finish that book.”

  I push out some air I think I had been holdin’ hostage in my lungs.

  “Seriously, what are you doin’ here?” he asks. “Go finish it.”

  “I just... Well, so what?”

  He looks at me with both corners of his mouth turned down at the ends. “What? What do mean, so what?”

  “So what if she wrote it?” I ask. “So what if it sounds familiar? So what?”

  “So what?” He gives me this look as if I just spoke a bunch of gibberish. Then, he rests the chair’s legs back onto the floor and leans in over the table. “It’s your life, dude. If it’s real in the beginnin’, the end’s gotta be real too, right? Or at least, it’s gotta be what she wants to be real. Right?” Now, he scoots his chair even closer and rests his elbows on the table. “Don’t you wanna know what she thinks? Don’t you wanna know the ending? I mean, she just up and left. Just like that. Aren’t you curious to know why?”

  I sit there and think about what he’s sayin’ for a minute. Then I slowly shake my head. “No,” I say.