A taste of Lex.
My lips were just inches from an unknowing Lex's when Brewer let out a loud bark. I jerked back, hitting the steering wheel with my arm in the process. I bit back a curse as I straightened in my seat and looked around. There was a car coming up behind us. I’d pulled off to the side of the road, so the vehicle went around us. I recognized the driver as Mrs. Goldfinch, one of the town’s biggest gossips. Not surprisingly, she pulled her old Buick sedan to a stop next to my truck so I was forced to roll down the window.
"Is that you, Mouse?"
"Good afternoon, Mrs. Goldfinch," I stammered. My adrenaline was rushing through my blood as I tried to come down from the rush of nearly kissing Lex.
"Mr. Goldfinch said he saw you in aisle seven down at Merv's." The woman raised her eyebrows at me. As hard as I'd worked to get the people of Fisher Cove to stay out of my business, there were a handful of older residents who’d never quite gotten the message and still saw me as the little kid they'd watched grow up so many years earlier.
"I'm sure he was mistaken," I responded. I began rolling up the window in hopes of sending her a hint. She didn't get it.
"Who have you got there with you?" she asked.
Thankfully, a car pulling up behind us was all the distraction I needed. "Looks like we better get moving. Don't want to block traffic."
Of course, Mrs. Goldfinch did nothing more than glance in her rearview mirror before saying, "Oh no, dear, that's just Edna. She'll keep. Now who'd you say you had with you, Mouse?"
"Okay, gotta go, bye," I said in a rush as I rolled the window up and put the truck back into gear. I pulled ahead of Mrs. Goldfinch’s sedan and then glanced in my rearview mirror. Not surprisingly, Mrs. Goldfinch was already out of her car and walking toward the vehicle behind hers. No doubt to update Edna Wingate about my trip to aisle seven as well as to share the gossip about the mysterious stranger in my truck.
I glanced at Lex, intending to apologize for not having introduced him to the old biddy, but when I saw him looking at me with a huge grin on his face, I forgot what I wanted to say. He looked so light and free and downright happy that I just wanted to take a mental picture and hang on to it for as long as I could.
"What?" I finally said to him when he continued to grin like a fool.
"So what's in aisle seven… Mouse?”
Chapter Nine
Lex
What I wouldn't have given to be able to see his face when I called him Mouse. As I waited for him to respond, I belatedly realized that I probably wasn't in any position to make fun of what I assumed was a nickname. Admittedly, I would have gladly grabbed onto anything that could have potentially changed the mood in the cab of the truck, but maybe I was going too far. I was beyond humiliated to have admitted what Grady had done to me and how stupid I’d been for having fallen for it in the first place. I hadn't meant to go into so much detail, but when Gideon had pressed me, I’d found it surprisingly easy to tell him about the first and only time I'd given my heart to someone.
I opened my mouth to apologize for yet another fumble on my part, but when I heard Gideon growl "Jesus Fucking Christ" in exasperation, I felt a little more at ease. Maybe I hadn't overstepped.
"I have to know," I said. I felt emotionally drained, so having this moment of lightness between us felt like a good way to get back on track. Gideon had said he’d forgiven me for my behavior, but I most certainly didn't want to risk screwing up our tentative friendship—if you could even call it that—again.
Gideon let out a long sigh and said, "It was the summer before I turned eighteen. I was crazy for music and was in a classic rock phase. I’d always been particularly fascinated with The Stones. Mick Jagger was my personal hero. Anyway, that year they were kicking off their No Security tour. I had this friend who’d scored an extra ticket to their concert in Tampa. I spent my entire savings paying for the ticket but I didn’t have anything left over to actually get me to Florida. So I begged my grandparents to take me. I told them since the concert was the following March, they could make a vacation out of it and I’d finally get to see my idol, Mick. I had this dream of Mick pulling me on stage to sing with him.”
Gideon sighed again. “I spent the whole summer begging them to take me, but they waited until the day before I went home to tell me that they were going to.”
“So you got to go to the concert?” I asked.
“I went to a concert,” Gideon hedged.
“What does that mean?”
I was sure I heard Gideon grumble something under his breath before he said, “Did I mention my grandparents weren’t exactly connoisseurs of fine music nor did they have the best hearing in the world?”
“I don’t unders—” I began to say but then stopped when I considered his words along with the nickname the woman in the other car had called him.
“Oh my God,” I said.
“Yeah,” Gideon said dryly.
“Oh my God!” I repeated as I began laughing like a loon. “They—they took you to see Mickey Mouse in concert?” I didn’t wait for Gideon to respond because I was laughing too hard. I felt him give me a light shove on my arm, and I tried to squelch my laughter.
“Do you want to hear the rest of this or not?”
“There’s more?” I asked. “I would sell my firstborn child to hear more!"
"Needless to say, I was a bit disappointed when I found out once we were in Tampa exactly why we were there. But my grandparents had scrimped and saved for the trip, so I went. Since I didn’t have the heart to tell them the truth, as soon as we got to Disney World, I found myself posing for pictures with a particularly annoying rat in trousers. If that wasn’t bad enough, my grandparents had worked it so I’d get to be a VIM at Mickey’s concert.”
“VIM?”
I could practically feel Gideon’s eyes on me. I could only imagine the dark looks he was sending me. It was all I could do to contain the ridiculous giggles that were buried in my throat.
“Very Important Mousketeer.”
“Oh God,” I barked as I gave up on trying to contain my laughter. Tears began slipping down my face. When my belly began to hurt from laughing so hard, I was forced to try and control myself.
“You finished?” Gideon asked drolly.
“I make no promises,” I admitted. “Does being a VIM come with any perks?”
Gideon didn’t speak right away. When he did, he said, “You ever hear of that saying, if looks could kill?”
“Sorry,” I choked out. But no amount of effort on my part kept me from sputtering and coughing as I tried to not laugh. “So, perks?” I reminded him.
I heard a very put-out sigh from the other side of the cab. “VIMs get to join the Mickster on stage to perform.”
I started laughing all over again. “Oh God, it hurts,” I bellowed as I grabbed my belly. “What—what song did you get to sing?”
When Gideon didn’t answer, I forced myself to go silent, even though I was sure I’d explode from trying to hold my glee in. “Please, Gideon, I’ll behave. What song did you sing?”