It was pure. It was sweet.
And at the moment it was all for me.
She was unlike anything I’d experienced before. And that wasn’t because I’d never been around pure and sweet before. Heck, my first serious girlfriend, Joanna, a figure skater, was sweet and it took nearly six months before I made it to second base.
I never did make it to third and that wasn’t for lack of trying. At the time I thought I was in love with her and that she’d wait for me and as soon as I made it to the big leagues I’d marry her.
Of course that never happened. I moved away to play Junior A hockey and then went to University in Ohio on a hockey scholarship, while she finally let the local Pastor’s son make it all the way to home plate. Last I heard they got married right out of high school and she was happily pumping out a pack of kids.
Joanna had been pure and she had been sweet, but she hadn’t been for me.
But this one here, this girl with the exotic eyes, she was something special and the fact that she had no idea made her even hotter.
“Isn’t it awesome?”
“Yeah,” I answered, my feet suddenly blocks of concrete as I came to a full stop and just took a moment to take all of her in. The sun was starting to set in the distance and standing there in a beam of light, she was on fire. My blood was boiling and the need to touch her again was something fierce.
“What?” she said slowly, a slight frown between her eyebrows.
I found my feet again and took the last few steps that brought me to within a couple inches of her. That summer scent, the one that lived in her hair and on her skin, was in the air
“You smell real nice.” I spoke without thinking and tried not to wince. What the hell was wrong with me? You smell real nice? She was going to think I was some backward hick from the north.
Her eyes widened just a smidge and then she blushed. The girl full-on blushed. When was the last time I’d made a girl blush? Not in the last three years that’s for sure and I wasn’t going to count Sendin’s sister, Eve. First off she was only fifteen so that didn’t count and secondly, she’d sneaked a couple glasses of the rum punch from the King’s annual family Christmas party.
“Well, that’s better than the alternative I guess,” she said softly.
I didn’t answer. I just shook my head like an idiot.
“So what do you think of it?” she prodded.
“Your shampoo?”
“What?”
Okay, her eyebrows were really close together now and she was looking at me like I was crazy. Which, I probably was, but hell, what could I say? This girl had reduced me to a level of idiot that I’d not seen since I was fourteen when my mother caught me masturbating in the shower.
“Have you been smoking weed when I wasn’t looking? You’re not making sense.” She jerked her head. “I’m talking about the barn.”
Right. The barn.
What fucking barn?
I turned and saw it. The barn. A barn that was out in the middle of nowhere and just like the rest of the property it was rundown. But you wouldn’t know it by the look on Georgia’s face. She looked like she had just found buried treasure.
“Come on,” she said breathlessly.
She took off at a jog and I followed slowly, enjoying the view because I couldn’t take my eyes off her butt. Or her ankles.
By the time I reached the barn she had already yanked open the main doors and was inside. It smelled musty and even the power of her summer scent couldn’t hide the old, unused air.
I stood beside her and glanced around at nothing. There wasn’t anything inside the barn other than a couple of old pitchforks and a wheelbarrow that was missing its wheel. There was however a good amount of light filtering in on account of the gaping holes in some of the walls and the windows that had no glass. But the roof was good. There was that.
We poked around a bit and then I followed her back outside until we made it past the trees and stood in the middle of the knee high weeds in what would one day be an amazing yard.
“What do you think?” I asked, turning to look at her and surprised to find her gaze on me.
For a moment she said nothing, though she didn’t need to, her shiny eyes said it all. “It’s perfect. It’s more than perfect.” She closed her eyes and whispered. “It’s so quiet and…still.”