“Why the inaudible mumbling?” Grant smiled.
“At least I said it,” Hailey rolled her eyes. “He wouldn’t say it! He wouldn’t look me in the eyes the entire time he was talking. His face was red, and he was all nervous and sweating, and he insisted that we used a code word for sex, so he wouldn’t have to say it…and the word he picked…well, it was dance.”
Grant laughed out loud. “Nice,” he nodded. His brow furrowed. “So can I interpret your giggling to mean that you were thinking about…”
“You wish!” Hailey rolled her eyes as she slapped him. Then she silently scolded herself for daring to let the very idea creep into her head as Grant held her close.
Grant opened his mouth to speak, and Hailey plastered her hand over it. “Don’t saying ANYTHING,” she insisted as she piled her free hand onto the other.
Grant held up his hands in a gesture of innocence before slowly easing them back on Hailey’s hips. Hailey eased her hands away from his mouth, and Grant started to speak again, but Hailey’s hands clapped back over his mouth before he could get a word out. “Get all those silly thoughts out of your head,” Hailey insisted. Grant smiled, and Hailey smiled back at him. “Are you still thinking it?” Hailey asked. Grant nodded truthfully. “Grant!” Hailey blurted, slapping him multiple times on the chest!
“I am guilty of being a guy,” Grant shrugged. “I can’t help it.”
Hailey stared at him, her eyes piercing. “Stop thinking about it!”
Grant smiled. “I’m sorry,” he laughed.
“Ugh!” Hailey exhaled. “Stop it!” she insisted.
“I’m trying,” Grant nodded.
Hailey crossed her arms and raised one eyebrow. “I cried for five days straight the first time I got my period because I wanted to get the surgery and be a boy!” She winked at him and nudged him with her hip as she walked away. “Still thinking it?” she grinned over her shoulder.
Grant stood, frozen, facing the back of the barn, refusing to turn around and watch her go. “No, I’m good now, thanks,” he called.
“No problem,” Hailey chirped as she skipped off toward the house.
“Hailey!” Grant called after a moment.
Reluctantly, Hailey turned around.
“Get in here,” Grant motioned, spinning around. “I can’t have you embarrassing me at this party with your lack of rhythm.”
Hailey’s mouth fell open. “Embarrassing you? Excuse me?” she exclaimed as she came charging back.
Grant grabbed her and pulled her toward him so forcefully that Hailey screamed. Then they both giggled.
As if on cue, Jessica began belting out a Pam Tillis song that seemed oddly appropriate: “Standin’ there lookin’ at you…A lonely boy far from home…Maybe it was Memphis…Maybe it was southern summer nights…Maybe it was you, maybe it was me…But it sure felt right…Read about you in a Faulkner novel…Met you once in a Williams play…heard about you in a country love song…”
Grant’s hands guided Hailey to sway with the music; when his hands stopped moving, so did she, but he couldn’t help smiling as she mouthed the words of the song’s chorus: “Lonely boy far from home…”
Hailey closed her eyes as Grant’s lips moved toward hers. The gentleness of his simple kiss surprised her. “Let’s go inside,” he smiled. Hailey stared up at him, almost ashamed to admit how fast her heart was beating.
The two of them walked back toward the house, hand-in-hand…both wondering what the other was thinking.
“Where have y’all been?” Jack asked as they came through the back door leading into the kitchen.
Grant shrugged nonchalantly. “I was just out in the barn dancing with your daughter.”
Jack’s eyes widened, and his face paled; he began coughing uncontrollably.
“You okay, Jack? What’s wrong?” Grant smiled.
“Nothing,” Jack shook his head as he returned to putting away the dishes. “Nothing, nothing at all.”
Hailey drug Grant into the living room. “You’re awful,” she said with a slap.
“Way to play, Hope Hull!” Misty yelled as she stood in the front row of the bleachers, waving a green and white pom pom in the air and shouting at the top of her lungs as Hope Hull lead 80-42 in the game’s closing moments. She smiled as Paul and Grant exchanged a high five when the buzzer sounded, then stood pondering the chest bump that followed. She looked at her watch as she waved Hailey toward her. “So what is going on with y’all today?” Misty blurted, as Hailey stood before her, sweaty and panting for breath. “You together? You not?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Hailey smiled.
“So, what I’m really asking is, are we still going to the party at the Harper farm?” Misty nodded excitedly.
“Yeah,” Hailey replied quickly. “I’m in if Grant is! He said he wasn’t feeling good earlier, so I don’t know if he’s up to it.”
“He looked like he felt fine during the game,” Misty shrugged.
Grant jogged over, and Paul was right behind him. “Hey, Grant, are you going to the party tonight?” Paul asked as though he hoped Grant would say yes! Big buddies now? the girls seemed to laugh skeptically between themselves.
“I don’t know,” Grant glanced at Hailey. “Are we going?”
“Let’s go you three!” Jack called from across the gym. “Locker room! Now!”
The boys jogged off, and Hailey glanced at her friend.
“‘I don’t know, are we going?’” Misty grinned. “Could he be any cuter?”
