Don't Let These Boots Fool You

He was driving around parts of Philadelphia that I didn’t know. I figured he was just trying to get far enough away so we wouldn’t be seen by reporters. I was very nervous about spending a meal with him since the only true time we had spent together was at the fundraiser.

“You’re awfully quiet over there.” He looked over at me as he shut off the car. “What’s wrong? I haven’t even gotten down on one knee and asked you to marry me. Quit worrying.” He had a smile on his face as he got out of the car.

I let out the air that was holding residence in my chest. I tried to calm my nerves as he walked around the car to open my car door. He grabbed my hand and led me into the restaurant. It was small and quiet. It was the perfect place.

The hostess came right up and seated us, she didn’t get star struck or pissy with me as we were sat along a wall by a window. “This is gorgeous, why didn’t she freak out about who you were. I’ve never had that happen.” I was stunned by her behavior but I was okay with the fact that I didn’t get treated like scum.

“I’ve been coming here since before I was a big deal. They respect that about me. Can we not talk about fame, ex’s, or hockey tonight, I just want to get to know you.” He grabbed my hand and squeezed it trying to make me feel a little better.

My palms were sticky as I tried to calm down, “Do you have any idea how nervous I am?” He looked up at me and smiled. How I was nervous around him I still hadn’t figured out but I didn’t like it one bit. He started to play with my fingers and I smiled. I was nervous because he was such a great guy, I couldn’t imagine hurting him, I would feel horrible if I hurt him.

“I’m sorry about making you nervous.” He smiled as our small area of space was filled with his quiet laughter. “Okay, what’s your favorite part about Kentucky, and Pennsylvania?”

I wanted to tell him everything about Kentucky, all of the great things about small town life. I wanted to tell him about how much I loved the woods because at any given moment I could drive out to the middle of nowhere and sit in a field or something. “Well what did you have planned after this?” I figured it’d be better if I took him out to something that resembled Kentucky that would make him understand better. “It’s a lot easier if I show you my favorite part of Kentucky.”

He looked baffled at what I was asking him. He looked down in his lap and then back up at me, I could tell that he was fighting something. I pulled my hand back from his and placed it in my jean-clad lap. “What exactly would we be doing?” He looked skeptical about what I was asking him to do.

I laughed and let my head fall to my chest and laughed harder. I wanted to just burst out and let him know what it was I missed and loved about my home. I looked back up at him and smiled, “I want to show you what I miss about my home, what I miss about being in a small town.” I wanted to just leave right then and there, “Can we just go ahead and go, I really want to show you.”

He slapped a bill down on the table and stood to leave guiding me out of the restaurant to take me back to his car. We got out the front door of the restaurant and right to his car, “Where are we going to go.” I smiled and laughed a little as I tried to find a way to tell him to go where I wanted him to go.

“Go to a field, an empty field far away from things. Where no lights can reach it and cars don’t just go flying by.” He nodded his head and started driving off in a direction that I didn’t know. I wanted to make him understand what it was like to be here in comparison to Kentucky. I saw the streetlights disappear, as we got further away from the city.

He was starting to drive slower as the roads got narrower. I watched him concentrate as he pulled into a drive that had a field surrounded by trees. “No don’t stop. Keep going, go out until you’re in the middle of the field.” He continued to drive out to the middle of the field, stopping once he got into the middle of the field. “Good, now shut the car off and follow me.”

I got out of the car and moved to the bed of my truck, I still wasn’t sure why he had taken my truck but it made this that much better. “Why did you take my truck to the arena?” I looked at him trying to find the reason why as I pulled the tailgate of the truck down.

“I had to take my car up to get fixed, something went wrong, and luckily I had yours.” He smiled as he watched me climb into the bed of my truck and pull a blanket and pillow out of the toolbox that was sat right behind the back of the window. I laid out the blanket, set the pillow by the toolbox, and laid down.

“You going to come up here?” I just looked at him as he stood at the bed of the truck and kept opening and closing his mouth as if he had something to say. “You can’t understand why I love Kentucky until you come up here.” I patted the spot right beside me and waited for him to make up his mind.

He sighed as he stepped up into the bed of the truck, “Why am I laying in the bed of a truck, I haven’t done something like this since I was in high school and even then it was just a bon fire out in the middle of nowhere not laying in the bed of a truck.”

The sounds coming from around us made me smile as I rolled onto my side to face him. “Close your eyes,” I commanded as I watched to make sure he did as I told him. “No cheating, you have to close your eyes. Trust me you’ll know a part of me that other people around here don’t if you do it.” He smiled at that and closed his eyes and laid silently.

I rolled back onto my back, looked up at the clear night sky, and remembered all the times that I had laid in the bed of this truck in the middle of one of my fields and figured out where my life needed to go. “Now empty your mind, only listen to the sounds of the crickets. The sound of the wind through the trees, the brushing of branches against other branches, and if you empty your mind enough you can hear the sound of the snow starting to fall.” I smiled as all of the sounds hit me as I told him about them.

The snow touched his face and he smiled too. “How do you hear all of that?” I knew he really wanted to know and it made me smile because that was a major part of my life. “You hear the snow; most people can barely hear the wind moving through the trees. I know that’s not something that just happens, how did you learn to do that?”

My lips were drawn tight across my lips as I put my arms around his body and snuggled up to his body. “When I was a kid I was teased a lot, mostly for being the younger sibling, sometimes for being the different twin, and sometimes because my family didn’t have it great but we weren’t the worst off.” I looked up at the sky and then back at Danny. He was still listening to the noises that surrounded him. “When I couldn’t take it anymore I would take the truck out into the field and lay in the bed of the truck. When my mom couldn’t find me anywhere she would always go out to the field and find me laying in the middle of the bed of the truck with my arms over my eyes listening to what’s going on around me.” I watched him slowly open his eyes and look over at me. “That’s what I miss most about Kentucky.”

He rolled onto his side and smiled, “You don’t miss the cooking, or your family?” I saw the ideas floating around as he tried to grasp why I miss something like that. He was trying to ask the question that he really wanted to ask but didn’t know how to ask. “Why do you miss this?”

The idea of not being able to explain why I loved it so much, “I don’t know why I miss this so much but it’s the one thing that makes me feel like I’m doing something the right. I honestly don’t ever take any one out into a field and show them about this.” I sat up, scooted back to the toolbox and leaned against it. “This is my church, well besides the real one, this is sacred to me. Don’t tell anyone about this. It’s kind of my thing to clear my head and if everyone knows about it then it becomes just gives them one more clue as to where to find me if I need space.”

He didn’t say anything as he kissed me. “You talk too much when you get nervous, did you know that?” He placed another kiss to my lips as I tried to wrap my head around what exactly he was saying. “Come on let’s just go home now. I don’t want to taint your sacred spot.” He stood and folded the blanket that was laying in the truck bed and put it back in the toolbox as he waited for me to get back into the cab of the truck.

“Thanks.” I muttered as I climbed back into the truck and waited for him to pull back out of the field and go back home. He was silent the whole entire ride, but he had his hand in mine throughout the drive, which made me feel special for the first time in my life. I wasn’t just some girl who he had grown up with, I wasn’t his boss well I guess I was but not really, and I wasn’t just a young girl he was trying to chase after to get over his wife. I had heard about those from Sidney when he tried to convince me not to be around him.

The glass of the window was very cold as I leaned my head against it feeling my eyes slowly shut and sleep take over my body. I didn’t wake up until he had me in his arms as he closed the truck door. “It’s okay I’ve got you Kelly.” He kissed my forehead as he walked up stairs and into a room and laid me on the bed. I didn’t want him to leave me alone tonight, not after sharing what was so special to me. I pulled him back down by his shirt and shook my head as I tried to open one eye.

“Stay, right here, I want you to lay with me and hold me and make me feel like you did earlier when you held my hand.” I knew I’d regret spilling that information about enjoying him holding my hand but I was honestly okay with it since he was such a great guy. Plus I didn’t want him to leave me anyways since he was becoming such a fixture in my life.