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  “Bitch,” he grumbles under his breath when he pushes his chair back and walks away.

  I glance at Logan, ready to laugh about what a shithead Josh is. His eyes are zeroed in on Josh’s back and he looks…angry.

  “Hey,” I whisper, reaching across the table and putting my hand on top of his. “You okay?”

  He looks over at me and then down at our hands, his jaw noticeably unclenching. I move my hand quickly and feel my face turn red. I don’t know why I touched him like that, I don’t even know him.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  He swallows hard. “Don’t be,” he says. “Is that a-“

  The bell rings and interrupts whatever he was going to say. He shakes his head slightly and takes our trays and food wrappers to the garbage bin. I pick up my books, still embarrassed for basically attacking him with my awkward affection. I’m about to apologize again when he comes back for his own books.

  “Can I walk you home after school?” he asks.

  “Ye-yes,” I stutter.

  “I’ll meet you out front,” he tells me, again with that same tight smile.

  “Okay.”

  He turns and heads for the door and I finally snap out of it, heading to biology with a big stupid grin on my face.

  *

  When the final bell rings, I make a beeline for my locker, quickly dumping off the books I don’t need for tonight and packing up the ones that I do. Tonight’s homework is light but I’m going to do some extra reading from my biology textbook because I’m sure we’ll have a pop quiz on Friday.

  “Hey, what’s the hurry?” Emily asks, opening the locker beside mine.

  “No hurry,” I lie.

  “Josh said he asked you to come to The Hole and you said no,” she says. “Who was that guy you were sitting with in the cafeteria? I think he’s in my English class.”

  “His name’s Logan, he just moved here,” I tell her. “He lives in the trailer park.”

  “Hm. He’s cute,” she grins.

  “Liar,” I laugh. “He’s not your type Em.”

  “Well of course he’s not my type, but maybe he’s yours.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Ugh fine,” she whines. “Don’t give me any details. I’ll find out eventually through the gossip vine sooner or later,” she sings.

  “I’m sure you will,” I agree with a laugh before I close my locker. “See ya tomorrow.”

  “Later,” she says.

  I head for the main doors and watch for Logan. I see him standing off to the side of the crowd, leaning back against the building. I walk towards him and wave nervously when he looks up. He pushes off the wall and picks up his backpack and we head the same way we did yesterday. We pass Josh and Emily and a few others piling into Josh’s new truck. The sun is shining and there’s hardly a cloud in the sky, perfect for swimming at the hole.

  “If you’d rather be doing that, you can go,” Logan says. “I won’t mind.”

  “Nah. Emily, the one with the blonde hair,” I say, pointing casually. “She’s the only one in that group that I’m even friends with and she’ll be too busy climbing all over Josh,” I snort. “Besides, I’d rather walk home with you.”

  We reach the dirt road and move ourselves closer to the ditch, he puts himself on the outside closest to the traffic.

  “That guy…he’s into you,” he says.

  “Josh? Umm, no. We’ve never gotten along,” I explain. “He’s a brat.”

  “What did he mean in the cafeteria when he said, when you moved?”

  “We used to have a dairy farm,” I reply. “My parents ran it themselves and had a few employees. But then my dad got sick.”

  I tell Logan about the cancer and how my parents practically sold everything to pay for treatment and that in the end it didn’t matter because my dad was already too sick by the time they found the tumours.

  “We didn’t have much left by the time he passed away,” I explain. “So, we moved into town and my mom got a job at the diner. Things have been pretty tight, but I’m lucky to have a roof over my head so I try not to think about what we used to have.”

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “That sucks.”

  “Yeah, it does. But it’s not the end of the world, right? So anyways, that’s why I’m working my ass off. I wanna go to college and get a good job and be able to take some of the weight off my mom’s shoulders.”

  “Not a lot of people would do that.”

  “I don’t mind helping out,” I shrug. “It’s embarrassing when I think back before my dad got sick and what was important to me at the time.”

  “You shouldn’t be embarrassed.”

  “Well I am. I was never as bad as Josh, my parents actually made me work for things. But I totally took everything for granted.”

  “So, you’re not perfect, is that what you’re saying?” he asks with a grin.

  I slap him lightly on the arm. “Ha, ha. Look at you, making jokes,” I tease.

  A chuckle rumbles deep in his throat and I decide right then and there that it’s my favourite sound in the entire world.

  We walk through the gate and onto the pavement leading into the trailer park when an old brown station wagon comes rumbling towards us. It slows to a stop and I hear Logan mutter something under his breath.

  “There’s cold pizza on the counter,” the woman behind the wheel calls out to Logan, her voice raspy. “I’m goin’ to work.”

  She doesn’t wait for him to answer before she rolls the window back up and pulls onto the gravel. I watch the tail lights disappear and look at Logan. He doesn’t seem to be bothered or even surprised at his mother’s behaviour.

  I’ve seen her and that man she lives with now and then, coming and going. Her bright red hair is always teased to the max and she’s always dressed like she’s going to a bar or going dancing. I saw her with a black eye once and asked my mom if we should call the Sheriff but she said it wouldn’t do any good. She said some folks just don’t want help and people stopped trying to help Brenda Mackenzie a long time ago. Before I can stop myself, I slip my hand into Logan’s and lace my fingers with his. He looks down at our hands and then up at me, his brown eyes so deep and unsure that it makes my heart hurt. I tug him forward and we keep walking, his fingers tightening around mine.

  Chapter 4

  Logan

  I crawl out from under the truck and the first thing I see is Brad’s scuffed up cowboy boots. I look up and see him smirking down at me with a beer in his hand. It’s nine a.m. On a Sunday.

  “How you fixin’ to afford to drive this thing anyways?” he asks before he spits onto the pavement near my head, the scent of tobacco wafting up from the pool of brown tinged saliva.

  I sit up on the creeper and stand, wiping my hands on an old towel. “That’s my business,” I grunt.

  “You think you’re better than me, boy?”

  God I’m sick of this prick. I want nothing more than to shove my fist into his face and watch him drop. But before I can even reply, Brenda hangs her head out of the kitchen window.

  “Game’s on!” she shouts.

  He spits again and slowly turns for the door, mumbling something under his breath about today’s youth. I wipe the oil from my hands and look at the rusted Chev in front of me. It’s not much but Gary sold it to me last week for five hundred bucks. It doesn’t run yet and I had to get it towed here, but I’m determined to fix it up. I didn’t want to take that much out of my stash but I hate walking everywhere. I took Prairie’s advice and applied for a job at his garage, luckily he was hiring and I’ve been working a few days a week after school and some hours on the weekend. He’s a decent boss and I get a discount at the diner.

  It’s been three weeks since the first day of school. Classes are okay and now with a job to go to, I feel like time isn’t moving so slow. For the most part, my mom and Brad stay out of my way and I stay out of theirs. Whenever he gives me shit or I feel like I might snap, I just think of Prairie and for some r
eason it calms me down. She reached for my hand twice that one day and hasn’t done it again since, probably because I didn’t tell her how much it meant to me. I wanted to, but I didn’t want to freak her out. We barely knew each other.

  When that jerk came and sat down at our table as if he owned it, I could see her shoulders tense up and the minute he opened his mouth I wanted to knock him on his ass. I was surprised when Prairie told him off and the only reason I didn’t hit him when he called her a bitch was because of the way she was looking at me. Like he didn’t matter and what he said didn’t matter. She seemed relieved when he left us alone so it could be just me and her. The second time she reached for me was when she witnessed the extent of Brenda’s mothering skills. All I seemed to be able to manage after that was a nod and a mumbled goodbye.

  We’ve been riding to school together every day and walking home together afterwards when I’m not working and those are my favourite times of the day. Sometimes we eat lunch together when she’s not busy helping out the teachers for extra credit.

  “Logan?”

  I shake my head and turn to see her standing on the other side of the truck.

  “Didn’t you hear me?”

  “Sorry, I was…” I shrug it off like I wasn’t just thinking about her.

  “No worries,” she grins. “My mom’s off today. She said I could take the car and I was thinking about going down to The Hole since it’s so warm out already. You wanna come?”

  “Uh, sure,” I say.

  “Okay. Grab your bathing suit and I’ll meet you back at my place,” she smiles, turning back the way she came. She’s wearing a light yellow dress and her hair is pulled back in a messy braid thing. I try not to be a pervert and look at her legs when she walks away and how the dress swishes around her thighs but I can’t help it. She’s beautiful.

  There were plenty of pretty girls in Drayton and it’s not like I’ve never fooled around or had sex before, but something about Prairie is different.

  I run inside and wash up quick before I throw my swimming trunks on under my jeans. I put on a clean T-shirt and grab my hat. I leave again without saying a word, not that anyone bothers to ask where I’m going anyways.

  I reach the car just as Prairie’s tossing a beach bag and some towels into the backseat. She takes the sunglasses off the top of her head and puts them on.

  “Ready?”

  “Yup.”

  As we drive down the bumpy dirt road, she switches the cassette player on and some old country song starts playing.

  “Sorry,” she winces. “It’s all I got.”

  “It’s fine,” I say. “Let me guess, this one is about a guy whose wife left him and then his dog died?”

  “Make all the jokes you want Logan, but did you or did you not admit to me last week that the new Tim McGraw song is catchy?”

  “I told you it was catchy,” I admit.

  “Exactly, so shush,” she says with a wink.

  Twenty minutes later we’re pulling up to a man-made parking lot in front of a creek surrounded by drooping willow trees and large rocks. It looks like it doesn’t belong anywhere near Redemption.

  “I know, it seems so out of place, doesn’t it?” she says, reading my mind. “Only the locals know about it, and it’ll probably be packed by lunchtime, so we should enjoy it while we can.”

  I lean back and grab the bag and towels before she can get to it and follow her as she takes the narrow trail down to the water. She leads me to a sandy bank where the sun shines down.

  “Let’s set up here,” she suggests.

  We spread out the towels she brought and she kicks off her sneakers. I watch as she pulls her dress over her head and tosses it onto the ground. She’s wearing a plain dark blue bikini and I swear I’ve never seen anything sexier. She’s small but not too skinny, she has slight curves and her skin is already lightly tanned and freckled in some spots. I keep watching as she walks down to the water and dips her toes in.

  I hesitate for a minute and try to talk down my raging hard on before I kick off my boots and socks and strip down to my swim trunks. I walk across the sand and when I’m not more than a foot behind her she turns.

  “You com- Oh shit,” she gasps with a laugh. “I didn’t realize you were behind me.”

  She glances down my chest and then back up. Her eyes might be hidden behind her sunglasses but I can see the blush spread across her cheeks. It makes me feel good to know that she’s looking at me the same way I’m looking at her. I’m not conceited but I know that I’m bigger than most guys my age. Turning wrenches and hard work have given me decent muscles and back in Drayton I went to the gym whenever I needed to burn off whatever was pissing me off at the time.

  “So,” I begin. “This is The Hole everyone is always talking about, huh?”

  “Uh, yeah, this is it,” she says. “It’s so pretty down here. I suppose it makes up for the rest of Redemption.”

  We wade into the water, it isn’t very deep and we can both still touch. We float around and talk about nothing really, but every word she says feels important to me and I don’t wanna forget any of it. We decide to take a break and lie in the sun for a bit. When we sit down she unzips her bag and tosses me an apple and takes one for herself. Eventually she lays back and I do the same, my hat resting on my eyes to shield the sun. I sneak a glance at her and watch her chest rise and fall, the sun drying up the tiny drops of water on her skin. Without overthinking it, I reach my hand out for hers and our fingers lace together without hesitation. She squeezes my hand gently.

  “I’m glad you moved back here, Logan,” she says.

  “Me too.”

  She slides closer to me until our sides are touching and she rests our hands on top of her stomach.

  “Logan?”

  “Yeah?”

  She pulls off her sunglasses and lifts my hat so that it’s shielding both of our eyes from the sun beaming down on us. She looks up at me but doesn’t say anything. I lean my head down and press my lips to hers firmly, half expecting her to pull away but she doesn’t. She presses up and kisses me back, her breath catching when I reach my other hand around her back and pull her closer. I might not have a lot of nice things and I might come from trash, but right now Prairie’s kissing me back and it’s everything.

  I take my hand from hers and roll her onto her back, she opens her legs and pulls me between them. Her fingertips trace up and down my back. I’m so hard it almost hurts and I feel like an asshole for it, but she doesn’t seem to mind that I’m rubbing up against her. She moans quietly and brings her hands up to my face. Pulling back, she looks up at me and smiles. Her cheeks are pink and her eyes are brighter than usual.

  “That was my first kiss,” she confesses. “I knew I was waiting for a reason.”

  I feel so damn happy when she tells me that but all I can do is stare right back at her and wish that I had waited too.

  “Say something,” she whispers, her breath touching my lips.

  I kiss her once more, gently, and lean back. “I don’t want anyone else to kiss you,” I say.

  “Me either,” she agrees. “And I don’t want anyone else to kiss you either.”

  The sound of tires crunching on the gravel and a little kid shouting for his mom to hurry up makes us both laugh as I roll off of her and try to hide just how hard I am. We pack up our stuff and head back to the car, passing the family of four along the way as they make their way down to the same sandy bank. Prairie stands on her toes and gives me one more kiss before she slides behind the wheel. She lets me hold her hand the entire way back to town.

  I know without a doubt that this is the best day of my entire life so far, and it scares the shit out of me. Because nothing good lasts forever, everyone knows that. Especially me.

  *

  “Fuck you, you piece of shit asshole!”

  “Woman, I fucking told you to bite your damn tongue!”

  “I hate you!”

  I roll out of bed and reach for my
jeans on the floor just as something shatters onto the kitchen floor. Probably a beer bottle. Part of me still feels like I should get in the middle of it but I learned my first night here when I tried to pull Brad away from my mom that it was pointless. She turned to me and called me everything she was calling him and told me to mind my own damn business. So that’s what I do now. I pull my T-shirt over my head and slide on my boots, ignoring the yelling and cussing as I pop the screen and crawl out through the window. I shut it behind me and head down the row, to the same place I’ve been coming to for the last two months every time I get woken up in the middle of the night by another drunken brawl.

  I tap lightly on Prairie’s window and soon her lamp comes on and she opens her curtains, looking down at me with a sleepy smile. She opens the window and I step up on the cinder block laying on the pavement and hoist myself up. I close it behind me and follow her to the bed where she lies back down and scoots towards the wall, making room for me. I kick off my boots but keep my clothes on, turning onto my side so that she can nestle herself against me like she always does.

  I wrap my arms around her and kiss her head. “Go back to sleep, babe.”

  “You’ll always have me, Logan,” she promises quietly. “Always.”

  Chapter 5

  Prairie

  I stack the freshly copied paper along with my books and hold them underneath my arm while I sling my backpack over my shoulder. I glance up at the clock in the copy room and see that I still have twenty minutes until next period, which gives me enough time to drop off these booklets and then find Logan.

  I’ve been filling most of my lunch hours this semester with teacher assigned jobs for extra credit. Every little bit is going to make a difference on my college applications. That’s what I hope for anyways. I leave the papers on Mr. Lewis’s desk and head for the cafeteria. Logan and I have been together for three months now, ever since that day at the swimming hole when he gave me my first kiss. Every time I think about that day, I smile. Emily used to tease me all the time for being a prude but I knew that I was saving my first kiss and everything else for a reason. I didn’t want to waste it. I feel flushed when I remember his reaction that day too. It’s not like I don’t know stuff, I’ve taken sex-ed and I’ve had more than one awkward conversation with my mom, but feeling him pressed against me like that made me feel so much more than just butterflies.