Page 54 of Unlikely to Stay
She rolled her eyes.“Psh.You might have fooled that girl with that mumbo jumbo, but you sure ain’t foolin’ your momma.”
After taking Colleen home the night before, he had fallen asleep with a smile on his face.He was up bright and early Sunday morning and had the strangest desire to talk to his mom about the girl with the cherry red hair and freckles he couldn’t get out of his head.
“Okay, you got me.I dropped her on purpose.But I got wet, too, so that should count for something.”
“You’re too ornery for your own good.Didn’t I raise you to respect pretty ladies?”
“Yeah.But you also taught me that I had to branch out and get them to flirt with me if I actually wanted a date.”
Betty slapped the chipped, wooden dining table she had when Brant had walked through her front doors and laughed.Brant was pretty sure it still had the marker stains on it from all the pictures he used to color for Betty to put on the fridge.“I sure did.Glad to see you’re finally taking my advice.Did it work?”
“It did up until the time I asked her for a haircut and startled her so much she nearly cut her finger off.”
“How did you manage that?”
Brant ran his fingers through his hair, a nervous gesture he’d had since he was a kid.“We had kinda settled into a peaceful quiet while she was cutting my hair.She has surround sound hooked up to her iPad or something in her shop and was playing a song I didn’t know.It was nice, just listening to music and feeling her fingers running through my hair.”
“Oooh, son.You got itbad.”
Brant ignored that comment.“All of a sudden, I asked her how she got the shop and bam!She jumped and the scissors cut a hunk out of her finger.I had to sew it up with five stitches.”
“Five?She’s lucky she still got a finger!”
Brant sighed.“I know.I felt so bad.”
“I know she’s sure ain’t cuttin’ your hair anymore.Will she at least see you again?”
“She said she was going to cut my hair again because the woman in Lakeview obviously didn’t know how to cut my cowlicks the right way.”
“I understand that.It took me about a year of trial and error to learn how to cut a white boy’s hair that went every which way but the way I wanted it to.You looked like Alfalfa the first year you was here.”
Brant rolled his eyes.“Don’t remind me.”
“Hey, now.I got the hang of it.”
“You did.”
“So she’s gonna cut your hairandstill see you.You know what that means, don’t ya?”
“No, but I guess you’ll fill me in.”
“It means you need to come up with your own date that keeps her attention.No cheating off her friends this time.They got your foot in the door.Now you gotta do the rest.Just don’t have her cut her finger again.I don’t think you’ll recover from that, no matter how much this girl likes you.”
“How do you know she likes me?”
Brant could see Betty’s pointed look through the screen.“You dumped that poor girl in the creek and almost made her cut her finger off.If she iswillinglyseeing you again, trust me…she’s smitten.”
He tried valiantly but couldn’t keep the smile off his face.His mom was usually spot on with her assessments.He couldn’t help but hope this is one instance she got right because…if he were being honest with himself…it would really suck to be the only one smitten.Because after he got a good look at her eyes and adorable freckles, he knew he wouldn’t be able to get Colleen Chandler out of his head.
CC staredat the balance in her bank account app on her phone.It hadn’t been that large in…well,ever.Breckin had deposited the money the town had raised for CC’s gym on her way to school that morning.CC still couldn’t believe how much it was.In fact, if she were a betting woman, she’d guess quite a fewdonationswere made directly into the account itself in order for the amount to be that large.The auction couldn’t have brought inthatmuch money.It was enough to do the work that was neededandpurchase some top-of-the-line workout equipment, especially if she was going to do the work herself or have Wyatt help her.
She looked down at her still-bandaged finger.It was obvious she wasn’t going to be cutting hair until the stitches came out, which Brant had told her would be five to ten days depending on how quickly her skin healed.Even though it had already been four days since she cut herself, she was terrified to take the bandage off when she was anywhere other than her apartment.She was terrified she’d accidently rip the stitch somehow and wind up back in the clinic.She’d like to see Brant again…really,reallylike to see Brant again.She just didn’t want to see him as a patient.
Picking up her phone, Annie told Siri to call Wyatt and placed the phone to her ear just as it began ringing.
“Hello?”Wyatt’s frazzled voice came over the other end of the line.
“Hey, Wy,” CC said.“You remember how you told me you’d be willing to help me get the gym up and running if I ever got the money to do it?”