Heidi's Guide to Four Letter Words(45)

Brent’s smile never leaves his face, and it’s not one of those smiles most people give me when I say something weird. The smile that is more fake than real, because they don’t want to hurt your feelings by making you think you’re weird, because that’s the Minnesota way. Brent’s smile is so genuine when he looks at me. I make him laugh with the things I say. But he’s not laughing at me. He’s laughing because of me. He’s not immediately heading for the hills every time more of my weirdness comes out. Dare I say, he might even be a little turned on by my weirdness?

Brent’s arm tightens around me, and we’re so smushed together I can feel every inch of him from his chest to his thighs.

Oh. Oh! Oh my. He’s turned on by my weirdness! He’s turned on by my weirdness! I. Can. Feel. Every. Inch. Of. Him. H IS FOR HARDNESS!

“Heidi Larson, stop making out on the midway!”

I jerk away from Brent’s body so fast I slam into someone walking by us, quickly apologizing before turning around to glare at the person who just… cock-blocked me.

“Aunt Margie, it’s so nice to see you!”

I smile at my aunt, but I’m really hoping my eyes are conveying just how annoyed I am with her right now.

“Are you having a stroke? What’s wrong with your eyes?” Aunt Margie questions. “And who’s the hottie behind you I almost had to spray with a hose?”

Brent might be totally on board with my weirdness, but when you add my family to the mix, that could be his breaking point. I guess we might as well find out his true character right from the get-go, before I fall even harder for him. One dose of my aunt can break even the strongest of men.

Godspeed, good man.

Brent moves to stand next to me, sliding one arm around my waist and holding his free hand out toward my aunt.

“Brent Miller, ma’am. I live next door to your niece.”

Aunt Margie shakes his hand, clasping her other hand on top of his to hold it in place when he tries to pull away.

“So, this is the sexy neighbor you’ve been going on about. Oh, you betcha, I see the appeal!”

“I haven’t been going on about anything.” I laugh nervously, turning away from Brent’s amused smile to glare at my aunt. “I have no clue what you’re talking about.”

“You know, that tape recorder thingy you’re—”

“Oh hey there, Christie!” I shout, cutting off my aunt to lift my hand and wave at absolutely no one I know behind her.

I’m pretty sure I don’t even know anyone named Christie.

“Christie Nelson’s here? She just fractured her ankle on her mail route yesterday and isn’t supposed to be walking. Is she in a wheelchair? Where is she? Christie!” my aunt shouts as she drops Brent’s hand, turns, and looks all around.

Crap, I really stink at this. Maybe some F-bombs would work. Ffffuck. Fuck! Okay, much better.

“Looks like Christie’s already been swallowed up by all the people. We should probably get going. Brent’s got a lot of things left to eat that are on a stick and deep fried,” I tell my aunt.

I am in no way ready for Brent to know about my podcast. It’s too soon! He’ll think I’m a psycho. I know I should be all confident and own it, because it truly has helped me get where I am right now, but oh my God, the things I’ve said about him! All the dirty words I’ve said! Nope. Can’t tell him. Not right now, but I will. There’s no way I could keep something like that from him forever. I’ll tell him sometime in the very, very distant future. Like, say, our fiftieth wedding anniversary, when he’s old and frankly just too tired to leave me because it would be too much work to argue about who gets the leather sectional and who gets the tiny spoon collection from all the states we visited on all the vacations we took together.

“Oh sure!” Aunt Margie nods, immediately taking to my gentle suggestion that she needs to go away. “I have to get back to your Uncle Harold in the 4-H building. He got to talking with one of his poker friends, and I left them to it to go get my cheese curds.” She smiles over at Brent as she walks up to him and pats him on the shoulder. “It was nice to meet you, sexy neighbor. My niece is just the cutest. You two look great together. Don’t screw it up.”

With that, she walks away from us and disappears into the crowd.

“So, now you met my family. Obviously, you can see where I get all this normal from,” I tell Brent, using my hands to gesture from my head down.

He grabs one of my hands, pulling it up to his mouth and placing a soft kiss on top of it.

“Normal is overrated and boring,” he says, lacing our fingers together and turning us around to start walking with the flow of traffic. “We need to get a move on. I have to find those cheese curds your aunt mentioned.”



“All right, tell me what’s wrong,” Brent states, my hand pausing on the door handle of his truck after he parked and we both unbuckled.

“Nothing’s wrong. Why would you think anything is wrong?”

“You’ve been a little… off. Ever since right around the time we walked away from your aunt.”

I can’t believe he even noticed that. It’s not like I was pouting or frowning or anything after we walked away from her. I really did have an amazing rest of the day with him. One of the best days ever. Big City Brent was completely at home at the fair. He tried every strange food on a stick I gave him, pet every animal, rode every ride, and looked at everything in the exhibit barns, all while happily carrying around his free yardstick from a local gas company and fanning himself with his free flyswatter from a local homebuilder. He put his arm around my shoulders and I rested my head in the crook of his neck when we rode the Ferris wheel, and he carried all the stuffed animals he won me playing games. But no matter how amazing the day and evening was, and no matter how much I laughed, there was still something nagging at the back of my mind, and Brent noticed.