Braedon doesn’t say anything. I know what he’s thinking, but he’s the opposite of Seth and doesn’t care to speak his mind. Braedon has always been the laid-back one of us, never offering much in the way of advice even when you ask for it. He prefers to let people find their own way because, in his words, they’re going to anyway.
“She’s different,” I repeat, though I think I said it more to myself than to Braedon this time, as if I need the reassurance.
I brush off that brief bout of doubt and let the dopey smile take over again.
The customer walks up and I step aside.
“Well, I’m gonna head out,” I say.
“All right,” Braedon says. “Can you cover for me Tuesday?”
“Sure thing,” I call out as I make my way to the tall glass door. “See yah later!”
The door closes behind me with the jingling of the bell.
I feel like I can’t get back to see Sienna fast enough.
Sienna’s been acting strange today. Ever since I got back from the shop, she seems a little distant. When she smiles at me it feels like there’s something else going on behind it. When I kiss her she kisses me back, but it just doesn’t feel the same.
I think I know what’s wrong; the same thing that’s wrong with me—she’s going back to San Diego in the morning.
I’m determined to make her last night with me memorable.
For the rest of the day, even though I feel as shitty as she probably does inside, I keep a smile on my face. I mess with her head as normally as I would any other day. I take her surfing and we walk along the beach together before sunset. And I get the smiles out of her that I can’t get enough of. But in a small way, it somehow feels … forced: the smiles, her kisses, her laughter. I just want to cheer her up, make her feel better about having to leave, let her know that nothing will change and that we’ll see each other again soon.
Finally, just before sunset, she begins to seem herself again. She curls up next to me in the hammock and we talk for a long time about her family, and later I tell her about the many odd jobs I’ve had—she laughs when I tell her I used to wear a chicken costume and stand outside a restaurant flashing an advertisement sign.
“Hey, you wouldn’t think so,” I say, “but several chicks walked up just to talk to me when I was sweatin’ my balls off in that costume.”
“Nuh-uh,” she says, wrinkling her freckled nose. “There’s nothing sexy about that.”
“That’s what I thought,” I say with a shrug.
She crosses her arms, sitting on the other end of my sofa across from me, our legs tangled in the center.
“You got laid, didn’t you?” She smirks and her playful jealousy is cute as hell.
I shrug my shoulders again, pursing my lips and looking off toward the television.
She makes a short breathy noise and her mouth falls open.
“Oh no, you did!” She throws her head back and laughs. “You got laid in a chicken costume!”
“HA! HA! No, not in the costume, but I did pick up a few girls when I worked there.”
She presses her toes, painted all kinds of weird colors, into the side of my thigh.
“That’s hilarious,” she says, shaking her head. “I see people dressed up in all kinds of strange costumes, dancing on the side of the road holding up signs, but I have never thought to pull over and hit on any of them. It’s an unfortunate, unsexy job.” She chuckles.
I poke her back with my foot in her thigh.
“Apparently not for all of us,” I say with a grin.
Every now and then, in times like this one, Sienna seems back to her playful self again, forgetting about having to leave. But she always slips back into that seemingly depressed state of mind that bothers me, even though she tries really hard not to let it show. I don’t want her to go. Hell, I’m crazy enough about her that if I didn’t think it’d be crossing some kind of line too soon, I’d tell her I want her to stay here with me for as long as she wants. But I know it wouldn’t be that simple. It wouldn’t be like it was that day two weeks ago when I asked her to miss her plane. Or when I told her to stay for two weeks. Sienna has a family and a job and a life in California. And I have all of that stuff here.
No, it wouldn’t be that easy.
It’s just an hour after dark and Sienna is inside taking a shower. The second she got in there, I went into my bedroom and dug through a box in my closet where I keep the holiday stuff I haven’t used in two years. It takes me five minutes to unravel a string of solid white Christmas lights. I plug them into an extension cord and take them outside, stretching the cord across the yard as far as it’ll go. I string the lights around the base of a palm tree.
I step back and cock my head to one side, looking at my work.
Damn.
OK, it kinda looks like shit—this crafty chick stuff really isn’t my thing, but I continue with it, going around the front of the house to get the other stuff out of the trunk of the car that I picked up from the store on the way home from the shop.
It doesn’t turn out at all like it was supposed to.
I feel like an idiot.
Sienna
I have to tell him. I’ve been avoiding it all day, both because I didn’t know how to say it, and also because I’ve been trying to force myself not to see it that way. I had hoped that maybe my mind would change and I’d be able to accept it, his dangerous lifestyle. Because it’s true—I care about Luke enough that I want desperately to just accept it. But the longer I thought about it, the more he held me in his arms, kissed my lips, made me smile and laugh and feel unlike I’ve ever felt before about any guy, the more it became clear to me that it would hurt a thousand times worse to lose him.