Lyrics of a Small Town by Abbi Glines
Ten
Waking up at four in the morning to bake the items for the shop, then dropping them off after a late night hadn’t been easy. I had slept very little when I finally got in bed last night. One would think I had lain awake thinking about all Rio had told me and I did at first. However, my thoughts had ended up on Saul and our brief conversation.
Which was why I had gone back to bed and fallen asleep quickly after taking the baked goods to Hillya this morning. When the roar of a lawn mower right outside my window woke me up only thirty minutes later, I was not happy. I was far from it. One could say I was furious. Lack of sleep is not something I handle well.
Covering my head with the extra pillow on the bed didn’t help muffle the sound and I finally growled in frustration and got up. Stalking to the door, I slipped on my fuzzy pink house shoes and swung open the door with more force than necessary. Whoever was outside cutting grass at this hour should be shot. This was ridiculous. People were sleeping.
It wasn’t until I was down the stairs and on the sidewalk headed toward the grassy part of Gran’s yard that I saw the truck. The blue Ford truck that seemed to taunt me with its presence. Was this a joke? Turning, I looked at the cause of my interrupted sleep.
Saul was wearing a cowboy hat and pushing a red lawn mower in my gran’s yard. He lifted his hand and saluted me but did not stop his noise-making machine. The white tank he was wearing should be as illegal as his cutting grass this early in the morning. It clung to his skin from the humidity and sweat, making his muscular chest even more pronounced. I forgot my anger for a moment while I took in the sight of his arms and the way they flexed as he worked.
The sound cut off and my eyes snapped back up to his face. Saul had pushed the hat back on his head and was wiping his face with a towel. I hoped that meant he hadn’t noticed me staring at him. Although I was sure he was used to it. You didn’t look like that and not get ogled daily. It was part of his penance for being beautiful.
I remembered why I was out here and tried to get my anger ramped up again before he made his way over to me, if that was what he was going to do. I was already getting a damp sheen of sweat on my body from just standing outside in this humidity and heat. Why was it so hot so early here?
Saul stepped around the mower and began walking in my direction. The jeans he was wearing were ripped and hung on his hips just enough to be sexy. Although I was positive he could be wearing a pair of khaki pants and a polo and still appear sexy. It wasn’t the good ole boy way he dressed that made him visually appealing. That was all genetics.
I tried to remember how good the bed had felt when he’d so rudely woke me up.
“You need something?” he asked me and squinted from the sun shining in his eyes. He reached up and pulled the hat forward until it shaded his face.
“It’s eight in the morning and you’re cutting Gran’s grass,” I stated the obvious.
He nodded. “Yeah,” he agreed.
“Why are you cutting Gran’s grass?” I asked him since he wasn’t going to elaborate.
“I always cut her grass,” he replied.
Frustrated I sighed and put a hand on my hip. “I’m not Gran. I didn’t ask you to cut the grass.”
He studied me a minute. “Were you going to cut it?” he asked.
I hadn’t thought about it. The grass was fine when I got here and cutting grass had never been something I gave much thought. “I don’t know,” I shot back. “But I do know I was asleep and now I am not.”
Saul ran a hand through his curls. I tried very hard not to get distracted by that. “Don’t you have a job?” he asked me.
“YES, I have a job and I was up at four this morning baking for that job. This is my day off, so when I finished delivering the items to the shop I came back home to sleep!”
He didn’t say anything for a minute and I wondered if he was going to apologize or if he even should. Did he expect me to pay him for cutting the grass? That was another issue if he did. I hadn’t hired him to do it.
“Did you take it all to the café?” he asked me.
Confused, I frowned. “What?”
He glanced up at the front door. “Is there some of your baked goods inside?”
I followed his gaze then looked back at him. “Uh, yes,” I replied because there was an entire banana loaf I hadn’t been pleased with its appearance.
“I’ll stop mowing if you’ll feed me.”
Again I stood there confused. “What?” I repeated.
“I’m hungry. You give me food and I’ll finish mowing later today when it’s fucking hot as the surface of hell out here,” he said.
I did not want him in the house and I did not want to feed him, but I was southern. I couldn’t be rude. It was in my blood to feed a man when he asked. How annoying.
“I didn’t hire you,” I told him because that was something I could be rude about.
“I know. I wasn’t doing it for you,” he replied.
He was doing it for my gran? He hadn’t said it but neither of us needed him to clarify. There were several things I did not like about Saul, but this wasn’t one of them. Whatever the reason he felt he needed to keep mowing my gran’s yard after she was gone, said more about him than his faults did.
“Fine. Come on up to the porch and I’ll give you an entire loaf of banana bread,” I told him and began walking back to the stairs.
He smirked. “You’re not going to invite me in?”
I didn’t stop and look back at him. I simply said, “Nope.” Just because he was good to my gran and even after her death he was mowing her lawn did not mean I felt charitable enough to ask him to come inside. We weren’t friends and I wanted to go back to bed.
When I reached the front door, I glanced back over my shoulder. “Milk or coffee?” I asked.
“Whole milk?”
“I have low-fat oat milk,” I replied with a smile.
“Coffee,” he said then and for some weird reason, I enjoyed the fact I didn’t have the kind of milk he would prefer. Lack of sleep made me testy. I was going to blame it on that. Besides my less than eight hours of sleep was now completely his fault. Last night he’d been in my head and wouldn’t get out, and this morning, he’d been cutting the grass in a freaking white tank.
Opening the door, I walked inside and when I turned to close it, I saw him walk over and sit down on the swing. I hoped he wasn’t going to sit out there and eat. I was making this meal to go because he needed to go. I needed for him to go. If he didn’t, I would end up doing something stupid like bringing him a plate and asking if he needed creamer for his coffee.
I started a pot of coffee then I wrapped up the banana bread in foil and placed it in a paper bag I had from the shop. Only twice did I glance out the window while doing this. Both times Saul had been sitting in the swing looking toward main street. I was glad he hadn’t lit a cigarette while on Gran’s porch. I didn’t want the smell of cigarette smoke on her patio furniture.
Once the coffee was done, I poured it into a thermos and then put two napkins in the paper bag before picking it up and heading for the door. I hadn’t tasted the bread, but I was sure it was good. The uneven way it had risen was why I hadn’t taken it to Hillya. I wanted it to look appealing not warped when she put it in the bakery display case.
Saul shifted his gaze to me when I stepped outside and then stood up as I held out the bag and thermos to him. “Here you go,” I said, not moving in his direction. He needed to walk to me to get it then he could keep walking until he was in his truck.
The amused grin on his face said he knew exactly what I was doing. He stopped in front of me and took the bag and thermos. “Thanks,” he said.
“You’re welcome,” I replied, wishing I had said nothing at all.
“Sorry I woke you,” he then said.
He was still damp with sweat and I felt a pang of guilt at having acted the way I did. He’d been mowing the lawn. He was right; I wasn’t going to mow the lawn. For starters, I didn’t know how to mow a lawn or how to start the lawn mower up and did it use gas? I should be thanking him. My pride wouldn’t allow that though.
“I’ll be back later today to finish up,” he said then turned and left with the bag and thermos.
As he walked away, I could hear Gran’s voice in my head saying, “It don’t fix a thing if you treat others the way they treat you, Henley. Only kindness can fix bullshit.”
I went back inside and closed the door before replying to the voice in my head.
“Some bullshit is better left alone, Gran.”
