Page 30 of Missing Pieces

I shrug him off and sit on the edge of the couch. “Why? Why is she doing this? Wanting us together?”

He shrugs. “She hates Quinn, my ex. She doesn’t want me to get back together with her. Not that I would do that, she is a raging bitch. But Quinn is persistent. And sometimes I remember that she isn’t entirely bad.”

I look down at my feet and count the speckles of paint that got on my white slip-ons. Is that really all I am to Ivy? A way to get her friend out of a bad situation? Maybe I don’t fit in here. After all this time and the feeling of home that I get around these people maybe it really is just a lie. I am just a pawn in another game.

And Easton does have feelings for his ex, he just admitted it. But if that’s true then why does he flirt with me so much? My emotions are a wreck. I feel like a hormonal teenager. I did just get that money from my parents, maybe I can skip town and rent a car closer to Chattanooga and forget about this place.

“That’s not the only reason.” Easton breaks in to my thoughts. “Ivy likes you. A lot. I think she wants you to stay. You seem to be the closest she’s ever gotten to someone.”

I am startled by his admission because Ivy seems like she’s friends with everyone. “She’s close with others. Everyone seems to love her when they walk into the diner.”

Easton leans against a wall bending his knee up and placing his foot against the wall. “I think you remind her of herself. You both were kinda running away from something and both ended up here. I think she’s happy to find someone who isn’t born and raised here. Hell, maybe it makes her feel not so alone in that matter. Almost everyone here was born here.”

I never thought about the fact that me and Ivy did share similar stories. I might not have burnt a house to the ground, but I was still running from a relationship I let burn until there weren’t even embers left to try and revive it.

I’m about to agree with Easton when I hear him mutter shit. I look up at him realizing he leaned against our freshly painted wall. I cover my mouth with my hand to try and hold in the laughter. But it’s too hard not to. His face starts turning red from embarrassment and I lose it. I nearly fall over because I am laughing so hard.

He peels himself off the wall leaving a nice impression of his back and boot in the surface. He tugs his boots off and pulls his shirt over his head and I am suddenly much more aware of everything. His body sends heat rippling through me. A feeling I did not think I would ever feel again. Luckily his back is to me so he can’t see me staring. His back is solid muscle, I could see every muscle in his shoulders move as he took his shirt off. And on his back is a giant tattoo of a phoenix rising from flames. He turns around suddenly and my giggles completely cease. I thought his arm muscles were huge from the sleeves of his shirt, but everything about him is huge. His skin is tanned from the sun, his chest broad and defined, and his abs, oh god, his abs. I could lick every one of them all the way down to the V going into his pants. Okay, I would probably lick even farther south than that.

He clears his throat and I realize he’s watching me stare at him. “Wanna drool some more?”

I throw my hands up to cover my face, completely embarrassed he saw me ogling him and I am pretty sure at some point I licked my lips because I definitely wanted to taste him. He starts laughing and I am suddenly covered by his shirt. His paint covered shirt that has now landed in my hair. I peel it off and start laughing again as I feel small bits of paint cling to my face.

“You think this is funny?” he asks, which only make me start to laugh more.

I finally open my eyes wide enough to look at him between my stomach pain inducing laughs when I see him stomp over to me with paint covered hands.

“I’ll show you funny,” he says. I try to scramble backward to escape his paint covered hands but end up scrambling right into the paint pan on the floor at the same time he grabs my face with both hands. I reach behind me and manage to get my hands sopping wet with paint, I push into his chest and drench him in more paint. He pushes me over, and I land right in the paint pan, my entire backside covered. I try to grab his face, but he swats me away, both of us laughing uncontrollably. He tries to push me back down but his knees slide in the spilled paint and he falls to the ground. He flips over onto his back just before I straddle him and rub the paint all over his face and into his hair.

He throws his hands up in the air and shouts, “I surrender.”

I ease back and I’m about to stand up when he smacks my face with a soaking wet palm of paint knocking me over. I lose all control as I curl into a ball, laughing hysterically. I haven’t had this much fun in years. I look over at Easton who is in a similar position. His laughter dying as he stares at me. The emotion in his eyes pulls at my heartstrings. I see passion in them but not romance; understanding. As if he knows this was what I needed to lift the ever-present cloud over my head, even if just for a little while.

We help each other up off the floor, fix the wall and clean up the floor. The sexual tension that was radiating between us has faded, in a good way. Like we were both able to go back to normal, but without the awkwardness I always felt.

Luckily we had plastic down so the mess wasn’t catastrophic. I offer Easton the option of borrowing my shower, but he declines. He asks me if I want to paint the bedroom tomorrow night sans paint war and I agree. If nights with Easton continued to be platonic but allowed me to feel free then I would take as many nights as possible.

* * *

I was so excited for another night with Easton I bought groceries for dinner, real ones to make a real meal. I even got my hair done, finally after so long. Not that I was trying to impress him, but the way he made me feel allowed me to feel like me again and I deserved to get my hair redone, a dirty shade of blonde with a few highlights, much less fake than the overly blonde highlights I sported for years.

The only problem with the night we planned was that he never showed. I even tried calling him, but it went straight to voicemail. Just when I thought I had him figured out or at least partially figured out he went back to his asshole self and stood me up.

I tried hard not to cry. Not because I was upset I wasn’t seeing him but because it brought back that feeling of rejection. The one that overwhelmed me day after day and not just from Drew but from my friends and my mother. The feeling of not being good enough. And maybe I wasn’t good enough for Easton. We came from two different worlds. My world was a mess that didn’t need to blow into his small town perfection.

Thinking about Easton made me realize one major problem with my plan to be alone. I was completely crushing on him. And I should not be having these feelings at all. I needed to find a solution.

“Wine or Sawyer’s?” I ask Ivy as she answers the phone.

“I am guessing your day off didn’t go as planned?” I don’t even respond because I don’t know what to say. She takes my silence as a yes. “Well Trace is working tonight, and I do not want girl talk to make its way into his gossiping ears. Let me drop the kids off at his momma’s and I’ll be over in fifteen.”

I didn’t even respond before she hung up. A feeling of serenity enveloped me as I thought of our three sentence conversation. Back home it would take hours to plan these necessary girl hours and it was never with just one person. I always had to have the opinion of at least three other friends. But right now, the only thing I wanted was one person to hear me out and comfort me. Maybe I really was changing.

Fifteen minutes on the dot. Ivy strolled right through the front door without even knocking. “You could knock.”

“Darlin’ this is my house, I can walk in if I please.”

“What if I was naked?” I ask teasingly.