The Fear of Letting Go (21 page)

“If you could steer clear of tube tops and overalls, it would be in our best interest,” he says. “But other than that, go wild.”

I laugh and give him a big hug. “Thank you,” I say.

“Is that a yes?”

“Yes,” I say, wondering if this is the dumbest thing I've ever done in my life. “It could be fun.”

“As long as we're together, I know it will be,” he says. “Now go forth and shop.”

“What are you going to do?”

He points to the well-worn leather recliner near the dressing rooms. “I'm going to park myself on this recliner and watch,” he says. “I would not be opposed to seeing you model some dresses. The tighter and shorter, the better.”

I roll my eyes and make my way to the dress section. Since I moved to Fairhope several years ago, I've been in this store nearly once a week. I adore thrift shops, which I guess is odd considering my past experience with hand-me-downs. But searching for treasure in a place like this is different from someone giving you a bag full of clothes that barely fit, because they know you can't afford your own.

I like the anonymity of thrift shops. I don't know who these clothes used to belong to, and I don't care. I can find things on the cheap and alter them to fit my own style. I've been known to rip sleeves off jackets and holes in jeans, or shorten the skirt of a dress. When you grow up never having anything new, you find ways to make it seem new and different. I'm handy with a sewing machine and bought a used one when I was fifteen, which I still have in my apartment.

I flip through the dresses on the rack and an orange taffeta bridesmaid nightmare of a dress catches my eye. I glance over a Preston, who is reclined on the leather chair and reading something on his phone. If he's really not bothered about the time, we might as well have a little fun. I take the orange dress off the rack and go through the rest quickly, choosing every hideous dress I can find.

“I'm heading back to the dressing room,” I call out, both hands full of hangers.

Preston barely looks up from his phone, and I smile. I pile into the dressing room with all my treasures and undress quickly down to just my underwear. I pull on that first taffeta dress and stand back, admiring the worst of it in the mirror. The dress has huge puffy sleeves, is about two sizes too big, and there's a dark chocolate stain near the bottom. Or at least I hope that's chocolate.

I wonder how far I can take this before he goes running for the hills. There is no way he would let me walk into a fancy dinner wearing this dress. His mother would probably strangle him.

The thought makes me laugh out loud.

I open the door and lift the long ruffled skirt as I walk toward where he's sitting.

“What about this one?” I ask. I smile widely. “Isn't this adorable? It would be perfect, don't you think?”

Preston glances up from his phone and his eyes widen. The sheer terror on his face is priceless. He clears his throat and takes a deep breath. I can literally see the debate going on inside his head. “It's cute,” he says, his voice a couple tones higher than normal. “If that's the one you love, let's get it.”

I hold back my laughter. “Do you think?” I twirl around and fluff the ruffles. “You don't think it's too orange?”

He scratches his cheek. “It's a little more colorful than what I was expecting,” he says. “But you'll look beautiful no matter what you wear.”

I can't hold it back any longer. He actually thinks I'm serious, and I can tell it's killing him. I laugh and hold the skirt out from my body. “I'm kidding, Preston. Would you honestly let me buy this and wear it to the party?”

He lets out a long breath and laughs. “Thank God,” he says. “That dress is hideous.”

“Isn't it?” I say turning again. “It's probably been in someone's closet since the eighties and they finally brought it up here to try and sell. I look like a pumpkin.”

“The sexiest pumpkin I ever saw,” he says, his eyes dancing with laughter.

“Okay, if you think I look sexy in this dress, you've got it worse than I thought,” I say.

“Oh, I've got it bad,” he says, raising an eyebrow.

My stomach flutters and I inhale. The tension between us is delicious and warm, and all I can think about is the way the muscles in his back rippled against my hands as he hovered over me last night.

“There's more,” I say, breathless.

“I can't wait,” he says. “Please tell me they aren't all as bad as this one.”

“Worse,” I say as I lift the skirt and run back to the dressing room.

Preston

Each time Jenna comes out of the dressing room, she reaches a new level of hideous.

By the fifth dress—a terrible shiny gold skirt with a black sequined shirt—we are laughing so hard my stomach hurts. “That's the one,” I say, doubled over in the recliner. “All you need is a tiara and some bright pink lipstick and you will be perfect.”

“I was thinking more like a top-hat and some really long gold earrings,” she says. She holds her hand over her mouth and nearly collapses from laughter.

“Wait, I think I saw a black top-hat.” I stand and walk over to the men's section. There's a dusty black top-hat sitting on the head of a mannequin wearing a powder blue tuxedo. I take it from the unfortunate guy's head and walk back to Jenna.

Her cheeks are flushed and her blue eyes are lit up. I move close and place the hat on her head. She tilts her chin up, and I'm struck by her beauty. By her ability to be so free and joyful. I know there are demons in her past, but that's part of what makes her so beautiful to me. She hasn't let her past rob her of joy, and the more I get to know her, the more I realize just how strong she truly is.

“I need a picture,” I say.

She poses for me and I snap a few shots on my cell phone.

She wraps her arms around my waist and pulls me close. “Thank you for bringing me here,” she says. “It means a lot to me.”

“I just want to be with you. Nothing else matters.”

I claim her lips and her arms tighten around me. The hat falls to the floor behind her, but we don't stop to pick it up. Her gold skirt makes whispered swishing sounds as she presses against me, and I would love nothing more than to rip this ugly dress from her body and take her again right here. If it wasn't for Miss Jolene in the next room, I probably would.

“I still need to find a dress,” she says, her voice low and sexy and breathless.

I press my forehead to hers. “What? Something better than this?” I say. “Not possible.”

She smiles and makes the sweetest little moan of a sound in her throat. “It is the best one so far,” she says. “But I don't want to make the other women at the dinner too jealous. I'll already be on the arm of the hottest guy there.”

Jenna pulls away and nods back toward the blue tuxedo.

“You should try that on,” she says. “It looks just about your size.”

She smiles and disappears into the racks of ladies dresses. I turn and study the powder blue tux. I laugh and shake my head. My mother would have a heart-attack. But then again, why should Jenna have all the fun?

As she searches through the rest of the dresses, I take a stroll through the aisles of men's clothing. I expect everything to be equally as terrible as most of what Jenna has just spent the last hour parading in front of me, but I'm surprised to see some nice clothes in here. A pair of Guess jeans drapes over a cheap metal hanger and I reach for the price tag, turning it over between my fingers. Fifteen bucks? Damn. They hardly look worn.

Guilt nags at me. How many pairs of hundred-dollar jeans have I just tossed in the trash after only wearing them a few times? A couple of times a year, my mom used to make me go through my closet and throw some old clothes in a bag to donate to charity, but I never really considered that people would pay for used clothes. I honestly have never given two thoughts to the prices on the clothes I buy, but watching Jenna now, seriously looking through the racks for something nice enough to wear to this dinner, I realize how stupid I was to buy her that expensive dress.

I've been so caught up in my own world, complaining about dating women who only want me for my money, never realizing how much I've let my money define me. How much I've taken it for granted. It makes me wonder how many people I've offended by offering to pay for things in the past. I usually think nothing of it to pick up the tab at bars with my friends or out at dinner. I always figured it was expected of me, but now, after hearing Jenna out, I'm wondering if it makes me seem like a jerk who's always throwing his wealth in people's faces. I never considered it would make people feel like I was saying I'm somehow better than they are.

I think back on all the parties I've thrown in the past couple of years. All the reckless spending, when there are so many out there who are less fortunate. No wonder my sister Penny is always on our mother to spend more of her charity dollars here in Fairhope instead of sending the money overseas.

And no wonder every girl I've gone out with only cares about money. I have flaunted it so much in the past three years of college, I've let it become the single most important aspect of my character.

But how can I change? The thought of giving most of my money to charity like Penny, makes me feel sick to my stomach. I like being able to buy whatever I want, whenever I want. I like having nice cars and cutting edge technology. Does that make me a bad person? At this point, I honestly don't even know.

Once you start to realize how much less everyone around you has, it makes everything about loving money feel wrong and greedy. But at the same time, I can't imagine giving it up.

Maybe I should take a small page out of Penny's book and spend some time living a more simple life. How hard could that really be? If it makes me appreciate the money, instead of taking it for granted, wouldn't that be a step in the right direction, at least?

I browse the small section of men's suits. There has to be something here that will fit. I had planned to wear my tailored black Versace suit to the dinner, but there's no rule saying I can't wear something new. Or, new-to-me. I take a few things off the rack and head back to the one small men's dressing room in the back of the store.

The first few suits are awful. The pants are too long or the material is way too scratchy. But the third option isn't half-bad. It's dark grey and a quick check of the label shows a designer I don't recognize. The price tag reads fifty dollars. I adjust the collar of a plain white dress shirt and stand back from the mirror. It's not too bad, really.

When I come out of the dressing room, Jenna is standing in front of the three-way mirror in a knee-length black dress that takes my breath away. It's simple and unadorned, but fits her like it was made for her body.

“What do you think of this one?” she asks. She is staring at herself, turning at various angles to get a better look at the dress. She hasn't noticed what I'm wearing yet.

“It's perfect,” I say, breathless. The back dips low enough that her tattoos become a show-piece, better than any jewelry she could have found to go with it. I want to run my fingertips across the roses the way I did last night.

She finally glances over, then does a double-take. Her lips part and then slowly curl into a smile. “Did you find that here?” she asks.

“Yeah. What do you think?” I join her at the mirror and in my eyes, we look like the perfect couple.

“It's fantastic,” she says. “We look good together.”

I slip my hands around her waist, running them over her hips and pressing my body against her back. I rest my chin on her head and smile at our reflection in the mirror. I have wanted her for months, and it's hard to believe I finally managed to break through her resolve. I'm falling for her faster than I ever could have expected, and in this moment, I want to tell her how much she means to me. But the relationship is still so fragile, I'm afraid to push her.

“Are you going to buy the suit?” she asks.

“I think I am,” I say. “It will be my first thrift-store purchase. I'm kind of proud of that.”

“You should be,” she says with a smile. “You can finally get a taste for how the other half lives.”

She spins around and puts her arms through mine. I kiss her again, our bodies rocking slowly, as if music is playing. I want this moment to last forever. As long as it's just the two of us, alone in our cocoon, nothing can keep us apart. But I can't shake the nagging suspicion that the demons of her past are never too far behind.

Jenna

Outside, I hear Preston's car drive away, his headlights shining briefly through the gauzy curtains of my front window. He skipped his family's weekly brunch to spend the day with me, but agreed to meet back at their house for dinner. I don't envy the conversation he's bound to have with them about me. If he even decides to tell them about our relationship yet. Either way, they're going to find out next weekend at the dinner.

I grab a beer from the fridge and walk out to the small balcony just off the living room of my one bedroom apartment.

I light a cigarette and watch as the smoke is lifted away by the wind. It's eerily peaceful, considering the furious storms that passed through here earlier this week. Inside, there's a different kind of storm brewing in my heart.

We had agreed to keep things light, but here I am now, falling in love with him. Fate brought us together, and even though I never used to believe in that sort of thing, this feels right.

But as much as I want to be with him, I worry how much longer we can keep this up without our differences pulling us apart. I'm terrified I'll go to this charity dinner with him and he'll see me standing there beside the girls who really belong, and realize how much I don't.

Everything has come so easily for him, is he really going to be willing to work on us when things get hard? When the storms of my past roll over me like they did when that gift arrived?

Nothing has come easy for me. I had to fight my way through life from that first newborn squeeze through the birth canal. How could a guy like Preston ever understand me?