Summer Fling: An Anthology by Vi Keeland
Dean
IT’S BEEN ATleast four years since I first saw Lysa Hart. My father was showing me “a hole in the wall” bar he’d found. Since I was a little kid, every summer I’d gone with him in his truck for the rides during the summer. My dad’s a truck driver, my uncle, my brother. So it just made sense to me that I would be too.
I was twenty-three and I’d had my own truck for a while when my dad brought me in here four years ago. Craft beers, football games, a pool table and a small town vibe that made you feel at home. That’s what he told me it was like, but when I walked through those doors, there was only one thing that felt like home to me.
It was her laugh that I heard first, and I caught her swinging her hair around to the other shoulder and telling someone to ‘shut their mouth’ before swatting them with an imaginary towel. Her long hair matched her deep brown eyes and her smile… her smile was everything.
It only took one look… and that was years ago. Just before her life changed forever.
I work on drinking the beer quickly, knowing she’s got to want to get out of here.
“How long have you been on the road?” she asks; she only ever makes small talk. The thing I learned about Lysa first was how guarded she was. She could make friends with anyone, but to get to know her took time. And I know her, I know every little thing about her. Because after I’m inside her, after pulling down all of those walls and giving her everything I have, she bares it all. Heart and soul.
“Came in from Georgia, so a little while I guess,” I joke and she winces, the idea of spending nearly ten hours on the road isn’t her kind of fun. I don’t mind it. With the audio books and the sites along the way, it’s been good to me. But she’s better.
Every time I come back, Lysa’s made at least one change to the bar, this time the felt on the pool table’s new. She does that, trying to keep the place updated… but a few things never change.
“Still have the photos up?” I question although the answer is clear. The photograph paper is yellowed from decades and decades of simply existing. Lysa’s done a hell of a lot to fix up the old bar, but she’s stuck in the past in a lot of ways. Understandably. “You could move them to the backroom you know?” I suggest for the second time. The first was a year ago, maybe more. I know she wants to move them because they just look dated, but she’s dead set on the fact that they belong there.
A brunette lock slips out of place from her bun of messy hair, falling gently against the curve of Lysa’s jaw when she turns to look over her shoulder.
I know her body better than I know the backroads. And damn do I miss it every time I leave. I spent my life in a truck, she spent hers in this bar. Both of us taking after our fathers.
“I just don’t want to move them; you know?”
“I get it, it just might help bring the bar up to this decade… or,” I offer up, “You could take it back. You know, make it look like a speakeasy or something? Isn’t that the look that your grandpa went for back then?”
I’ve been thinking a lot about this bar and what Lysa could do on little money and even short time.
She laughs at me, “No. It was not a speakeasy. It was a biker club.” The hint of a smile at her lips is addictive.
“Make it a biker club then,” I shrug knowing damn well what she’s going to say.
“In a small town with no bikers, I bet that would go over just wonderfully.”
“You know what they say, you build it and they’ll come.”
She shrugs it off, tiredness forces a yawn out of her.
I finish off the last bit of my beer and the empty bottle clinks when I set it back down.
“You want to get out of here?” she asks me.
No. I don’t want to get out of here. I want to stay with her and bring that smile, sweet and innocent, full of hope, back to her beautiful face. Just like it was when I first saw her. I want to stay here and fix this with her. Sometimes though… all a person can do is stand beside them and wait.
“If you do,” I answer her, lowering my voice and letting my gaze drop to those lips of hers. Lips I dream about kissing every night. She parts them just slightly, taking in a sharp inhale. “Yeah,” I tell her, pushing myself off the stool and grabbing my cap. “Let’s get out of here.”
