The Last Virgin in Texas Read online

  “Sure. That sounds really nice.”

  John softly closes the door behind him.

  “Let’s sit, honey.” Mama walks over to the chairs by the window.

  I kick off my Chucks before sinking into one, and she sits on the other.

  “You seem surprised, Gretchen. I’ve offered you help. I’ve told you to sell the diner—sock that money away and come out here. You keep turnin’ us down. I told you we were very comfortable out here.”

  “I knew John had money, but I had no idea, Mama. Besides, I don’t need anything. You paid to get the house painted for me last year, and you always do way too much at Christmas and my birthday.” I shrug. “There’s not a thing I want that I don’t have already.”

  “Nothing?” She leans closer. “Honey, I know a broken heart when I see one. You sure you don’t want to tell me what happened?”

  Thinking about losing my virginity is not exactly the type of thing I can talk to her about, not that there isn’t so much more to it than that. She is the one who beat Tucker’s ass that first time, after all. She loves me with her whole heart, but that’s just not the kind of relationship we have.

  “If you don’t want to tell me, Gretchen, that’s up to you. I’m not the same person I used to be, though. I feel like…” She pauses, looking down and swallows hard. When she looks back up, I can see that her eyes are moist. “I was such a miserable person for so long, ya know? I was so hurt when…well, when I realized that having you meant I’d be on my own. You were the only thing that made my life worth living. I thought, well, I wrongly thought that I had to choose between keeping you safe and havin’ a life for myself. I was so afraid you’d wind up havin’ to go through the same thing, I went too far.”

  I blink, tears breaching my lashes. “Mama, what exactly happened? With you and my father?” Mama gets up and paces back and forth.

  “Oh, honey. We were just so young. He found out I was pregnant, and he just felt like he couldn’t take care of us the way he should. He felt, I don’t know, helpless, maybe. That’s about the worst thing a man can feel.”

  “Gretchen, Tucker wasn’t a bad boy. He was just a regular, normal one after the same thing as every other boy his age. I went too far that night. If I hadn’t done what I did…maybe things would’ve turned out different. Back then, all I knew was that when men got what they wanted, they left. Men leavin’ was all I ever knew. It’s only since I met John that I realized what a good man is.”

  She brings my hands up to her face and kisses them. “I’m so sorry, baby. I’m so sorry I made things so hard on you.”

  “I always knew how much you loved me, Mama. You’ve given up so much for me, and I know that. It wasn’t your fault, what happened with Tucker and me. You didn’t make him leave. He did that on his own.” My voice cracks and I sob.

  Mama stands and scoops me up in her arms, smoothing my hair with her palm. “Tell me what else happened, Gretchen. Did he hurt you?”

  “No…not how you think. He…I thought he still had feelings for me. He came to see me, and we started talkin’ again. It was just like it used to be.”

  “I thought he had a girlfriend—that co-star of his.” She pulls back and looks at me, smoothing my hair away from my face.

  “I thought so too, but he said it wasn’t true. He told me that was just for publicity—that none of it was real.” I shake my head. “I believed him, but then they were doin’ a photoshoot at the diner, and Jared came in, he brought Marissa with him. She—she kissed him, and it looked real enough to me.”

  “Oh, baby. I’m so sorry.” She squeezes me tight. “No wonder you were so upset.”

  We sit like that for a few minutes, and being here, her holding me tight like she did when I was little, it calms me.

  “Mama?”

  “Yes, baby?”

  “Can I stay out here with you for a little while? I think…I think I just need some time to clear my head.”

  “Stay as long as you want, Gretchen. Move in, if you want to.”

  I laugh. “I don’t know that John wants your grown daughter movin’ in, crampin’ his style.”

  “Oh, honey.” Mama rubs her palm down my cheek, her smooth skin feeling cool and soothing against mine. “He never had kids, ya know. His wife never could have any, and when she died, he threw himself into his work for so many years. He always wanted a family of his own. You may not realize it, but he loves you like his own and wants nothin’ more than to see you happy, baby.”

  “Thanks, Mama. He’s a good man. I’m glad you found each other.”

  “I want you to find the same thing, Gretchen. Just don’t let it take you as long as it took me. Life is too short to spend it wishin’ for somethin’ you don’t have.”

  Thirty

  “Breathe in…and out.” The leggy brunette at the front of the yoga classes brings her palms together, one foot flat against the inside of her knee. With a headful of long, braids wildly jutting out in every direction, she looks like some sort of exotic bird in her turquoise leggings and purple sports bra.

  “We’re almost there,” her monotone voice is low and soothing. “Supta Matsyendrasana now.”

  We all recline on our mats, knees bent, and turn. The stretch feels good. It felt awkward, when I first got here, but now, the tension is seeping away, and my body actually craves this relaxation.

  “Now, let’s move to corpse pose. Savasana.”

  I put the bolster under my knees and let my weight sink into the floor. I try not to think. I try to meditate. I picture the sea of tall, green grass that stretches from the resort, down the hillside and into the valley as it sways in the gentle mountain breeze. The grass leans and swirls and the blades glint with golden flecks of sun.

  Try as I might, though, I can’t escape the pull. The grass swirls into a circle of green and gold with a dark center. The image in my mind zooms out, growing larger and more detailed. Dark, feathery strokes appear above and below the green. A flash of pale flesh, a dark, arched brow above. Pink cheeks. Plump lips. A shock of pale blonde hair.

  My lips part and with my eyes still shut tight, silently, I mouth her name.

  We might lie in repose for two minutes, or twenty. I can’t be sure. Time stops moving and all my mind can focus on is the image of her.

  A soft gong sounds.

  “Slowly, slowly rise whenever you feel ready. Thank you for the privilege of this time with you today. I’ll be with you at sunrise tomorrow on the hillside. Namaste.”

  I lay on the mat a few moments longer until everyone has filed out of the yoga studio. When I hear most of the footsteps grow distant, I let my eyelids flicker open.

  “I’ve been watching you.” The bird is standing over me, looking down at me.

  “That right?” I sit up and rest my arms on the top of my bent knees.

  “You’re blocked.” She puts a hand on my shoulder and pushes, gently, until I’m reclined on the mat again. “Here. Svadhisthana. This Chakra guides emotional stability. Creativity.” She leans a little closer and the next word is barely a whisper. “Sexuality. This chakra is desperately misaligned. Blocked. In need of a powerful release to restore balance.”

  She’s pretty enough, I suppose, and most guys would probably love this one-on-one attention from her. She’s not the only woman in the world I want her to be, though, so no amount of flirting or flexibility is going to do the trick with me.

  I sit up again. “Thank you, for your concern, but any issues I’ve got with my Chakras are ones I need to work out for myself.”

  I move to stand, and she puts her hand square in the middle of my chest. “That’s not all, though. This one. Anahata is also blocked. This Chakra is for healing, compassion, and love.”

  She stares at me for a long moment. “Your heart is broken, isn’t it?”

  “You could say I’m not having the easiest time right now.”

  She sits cross-legged, facing me. “You don’t want to talk about it, though, do you.” It’s a stateme
nt, not a question, and it’s an accurate one.

  “I do not.”

  She nods then looks into my eyes, narrowing hers a little as if she’s examining me. “Skip sunrise yoga tomorrow. Instead, go up the Warrior Path until you see the cedar lying beside the trail. Turn left by the stump and hike about a mile, toward the east. There’ll be a clearing with two small boulders, and there’s a hot spring there. Strip down and get in the water. Watch the sunrise. Meditate. The answers you seek will appear before you.”

  I narrow my eyes a little, my brows dipping. My skepticism must be plastered all over my face.

  “I know you might think I’m a little crazy. Let me just ask you this; has anything else you’ve done so far worked?”

  I shake my head back and forth.

  “Then what do you have to lose?”

  I’m not sure if it’s the mountain air or all the vegetarian food I’ve eaten this week, or maybe I’m high on the patchouli wafting off of the resort staff, but for some reason, I take the yoga bird’s advice. Inn the early morning, with it still dark outside, I throw on a daypack on and head out of the resort toward the Warrior Path Trail.

  I feel a little silly with this high-end hiking gear I got from the resort shop strapped to my back. Still, if this hippie shit has any chance of working, I’ll try it. I’ll try anything to dislodge the image of Jared and Gretchen together from my mind. Liquor didn’t do the trick, and the month since I left Shiner hasn’t done it either, so I might as well give this a try.

  On the trail, I find the fallen cedar, just as the yoga instructor said there’d be. At the stump, I turn, and hike about twenty- or twenty-five minutes until I see the boulders in the clearing. There, not far off to the right is a small hot spring.

  I sit on a rock that’s a couple of feet high and take off my boots, wadding up my wool socks and tucking them inside. Next, I peel off my tee and drop my shorts, draping my clothes across the rock to keep them off the ground and dry. I pull the bottle of water out of the pack and step toward the pool.

  Squatting, I stretch my fingers to dip them in the water, checking the temperature. It’s hot, but not so hot as to be uncomfortable, especially against the cool mountain air.

  I step in and fine, soft silt covers the bottom of the pool, but it’s not so soft that my feet sink in more than about halfway up. To my surprise, there are a few large, round stones at the edges, but the end of the pond where I’m sitting to face the East doesn’t have any rocks or twigs. I lay back, letting my head rest on the ground at the edge of the water.

  I open the water bottle and take a sip, then settle in to relax and wait for the sun. I close my eyes and try to meditate for a few minutes. I concentrate on clearing my mind, but it’s hard to dislodge thoughts of Gretchen from my head.

  I think back to the day we baked at the Women’s Auxiliary. I remember how her cheeks turned pink as I stood close to her. I remember how her lips tasted like the sugar that swirled in the air around us in the kitchen. I think about the night I spent at her house…how I kissed her and touched her, then found out that, even after all this time, she hadn’t been with anyone else.

  She was so soft and sweet in my arms that night. I wanted her so damn bad. Maybe I should’ve made my move right then, but it didn’t feel right. She was more than someone to have some fun with. Spending time with her like I had, she was getting under my skin again. I was having all those same old feelings bubble up from years ago.

  I open my eyes and a soft glow is silhouetting the mountains against the sky. There’s a line of tangerine-colored light creeping up and casting a sapphire hue across the edges of the mountainside. It soon bleeds into a soft lavender glow that creeps into pale daisy yellow across the sky.

  As the colors paint the sky, I feel my breath slowing. I concentrate on the beauty unfolding before me.

  Deep breath in, deep breath out.

  Dark orange gives way to a color like dark honey and the lavender from before becomes pale blue.

  Breathe in, breathe out.

  When the sun slips into the sky above the mountain peak in the distance, the beauty of the scene takes my breath away.

  I’m a lucky bastard—a fact I fully appreciate. Since I left the tiny Texas town where I thought I’d live my whole life, I’ve seen some of the most beautiful places in the world. From the whales playing in the waves off the coast of Catalina, to the sun setting over the water in Curacao. I’ve dined in the Eiffel Tower and listened to Haydn in a four-hundred-year-old concert hall in Vienna. I’ve seen the Swiss Alps and the Great Barrier Reef. I’ve dated some of the most beautiful women in the world, and some of them even loved me in their own way, I’m sure. Each time I had one of these incredible experiences, I couldn’t help but feel that something was missing.

  I take another deep breath, and when I close my eyes, it’s all crystal clear in my mind. What’s been missing in my life is the woman I want to share all those experiences with.

  I’m in love with Gretchen.

  Present tense, not past.

  I wish I could say that seeing what I saw, knowing what I know, made me feel differently, but it doesn’t. I’m angry, I’m bitter, and more than anything, I’m hurt that she would give it up so easily to Jared, of all people. That doesn’t change the fact that I’m in love with her.

  Maybe she’ll never love me back. Maybe we’ll never get past this. I don’t know. What I’m sure about is that what I feel for Gretchen isn’t like anything else I’ve ever felt for anyone. I’m not sure I can ever find anyone else that will make me feel the way I do with her. When I’m with her, I feel grounded. Everywhere else, I’m untethered—just floating through a life without substance.

  I tip my head back and rest it against the grass as I look up, through the trees, to the now bright blue sky above.

  I know what I have to do.

  Thirty-One

  I pull my SUV up to the security keypad and punch in the code. The massive black gates come to life with a creak as they slide on their track until they’ve parted enough to let me through.

  I drive up to the front of the house and walk up the wide, marble steps to the oversized front door. Lifting my hand, I press the round, brass button at the center of the door to ring the bell.

  A few minutes later, the massive door opens.

  “About time I heard from you, fucker. I haven’t seen or heard from you in a month. Where the hell have you been?” Jared gestures with his arm, welcoming me in.

  If he knew why I was here, he wouldn’t.

  I glance over at him and just walk past him and into the living room. He follows me, resting his hands on his waist. “What’s your fucking problem, Tuck?”

  I glance down for a moment, stretching the fingers of my right hand before folding them, one by one, into a fist. I square myself to face him and bring my fist up. He realizes what’s coming and leans back to dodge me, but he’s not quick enough. I connect with the left side of his jaw.

  My adrenaline’s up, so I don’t feel the blow connect. When Jared’s hand goes to his jaw, and he pulls it away bloody, I know I hit him and hit him hard.

  He shoves my shoulder with his right hand as he strokes his jaw, checking for damage with his left. “What the fuck is wrong with you, dude? What was that for?”

  “I love her, Jared. I love her, and you fucked her.”

  He stops pacing around and turns to look me square in the eye.

  “Gretchen?”

  “Of course, Gretchen. Who the fuck do you think I’m talking about?” I fall back and slump into the armchair and Jared takes a seat on the sofa. “I suppose this was just more of your childish fuckin’ game. You wanted to check off the virgin square on your bingo card.”

  “Wasn’t like that. And…I didn’t fuck her,” he mumbles.

  My head snaps up. “Liar! I saw her glasses, next to your bed.”

  He tips his head back, then stands and walks over to the bar. He dumps a handful of ice into a cloth napkin and presses the bun
dle to his jaw as he walks back to the sofa.

  “I wanted to. I tried. She wouldn’t go for it. We just kissed. That was it.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “Yeah, because bragging about striking out with a virgin sounds like something I’d do.”

  He’s got a point.

  “Why would you do that to me, Jared? What the fuck happened?”

  He shakes his head and stands, walking over to stare out the window. “I felt kinda bad about springing Marissa on her like that. It was a shit move. I told her how I didn’t realize you two were back on. So, I offered to buy her dinner to make it up to her.”

  He turns to look at me, and I glare at him from under my brows until he continues.

  “So, we went back to my place. I was going to tell her to give you another chance, but…I don’t know what happened. She told me about never having done it. So instead, I told her, if she wanted it to be someone she knew, somebody safe, I could be that guy.”

  Bile claws at my throat and heat spreads across my chest. I don’t want to hear how he tried to sell my girl on letting him fuck her. I don’t want to think about him clawing at her skin or kissing sweet lips that shouldn’t belong to anyone but me. Through a clenched jaw, I tell him to go on.

  “Yeah, well, we…are you sure you want to hear this, man?”

  I spit the words out. “Tell me, asshole.”

  “Okay, so we went into my room and started to kiss some more, and she started crying.”

  He barely gets the words out and I’m on my feet. “You made her cry? What the fuck did you do?”

  “I didn’t do anything, I swear. She just started sobbing and saying it didn’t feel right and that…that she was too upset over you.”

  “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me that before now?”

  He’s sitting with his elbows on his knees, one hand holding the ice bundle to his cheek when he looks up to meet my eyes.

  “Honestly? Because you’ve been walking around with your head up your ass ever since you found out you’d be going back home. You needed to get this girl outta your system, and I figured, hell, if you aren’t going to fuck her outta your system yourself, maybe I should help you out like I did last time.”