Free Dirty Little Secret by Jennifer Echols Page A

was the fireflies I noticed out the window rather than the sunlight—when a knock sounded on the door.
    I didn’t feel comfortable enough with my grandfather to have a talk with him. I didn’t want to see him right now or discuss how I deserved this. I’d already done that once with my family. But I was living in his house, and he’d gotten me the job. After a resigned sigh, I called, “Come in.”
    I heard the door open, but I kept my eyes on the old wooden floor, feeling hungry and sick to my stomach at the same time. I couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t be ironic and therefore pathetic. I saw myself as he must see me, a punk sitting on the floor, a defiant girl utterly beaten by an old man and a “no.”
    When the seconds stretched and he didn’t say anything either, I looked up. It wasn’t my granddad in the doorway. It was Sam.
    He squinted into the dark room, unable to locate me. But I saw him perfectly, his dark hair shining and his face bathed in the softest light from the windows. Maybe he thought he’d come to rescue me, but I knew from the way my heart pounded at the sight of him that I’d never been in more trouble.

4

    He flicked the light switch on and saw me. “Oh, I’m sorry, I—” Embarrassed, I backed against the bed like a mouse in a cage with nowhere to go. He’d already seen the mascara stains under my eyes. I hadn’t been crying. My granddad refusing to let me play a gig was nothing to cry about. But I’d been rubbing my eyes pretty hard, something I tended to do when my looks didn’t matter. And I hadn’t thought anybody but my granddad would see me until next Tuesday at the mall.
    Instead of retreating out the door, stammering in embarrassment, Sam stood still with one hand on the knob and the other gripping his guitar case. His face was open with concern. “What’s the matter?”
    I ran my middle fingers under both eyes at once, assuredly emphasizing my beaten-up look, which is what I got for wearing heavy eye makeup in the first place. It didn’t matter what Sam thought of me anyway. I deserved what I got. All I wanted now was to release him with as little further mortification on both our parts as possible. I mumbled, “I told you, my granddad won’t let me go tonight. It’s not even that. It’s just been a long . . .” Week. Month. Year. “. . .  day.”
    Sam looked over his shoulder, as if he could see down the stairs and around the walls to my granddad. Then he walked into the room and slid his guitar case onto my bed.
    He’d changed again from his T-shirt into a different color of the same plaid shirt he’d worn as Johnny Cash’s son, tight across his chest, with the sleeves rolled up past his elbows like a 1940s farmhand. He’d traded his Chucks for a pair of cowboy boots that looked like they’d seen a few seasons herding cattle. I was pretty sure they hadn’t, though. Sam didn’t strike me as the cattle-herding type. Sam herded people.
    He walked back around the bed and stood right in front of me, gazing way down at me, his boots toe to toe with my sneakers. “You can’t wear that,” he said. “You’re cute, but I need you to pull out some stops for me.” He held his hand down to help me up.
    The ceiling light behind his head made the edges of his hair seem to glow. I blinked up at him as I put my hand in his. When he pulled me to my feet, I realized how sore my butt had gotten from sitting on the bare floor for an hour.
    “What are you doing here?” I whispered. “I can’t go.”
    “This isn’t about the gig,” he whispered back. “This is about a date. I told your granddad I met you today and found out you were living with him, so I happened by, wondering if you wanted to go see a band with me tonight.” He reached over to the bed again, opened his case, and looped his guitar around his neck. He placed my fiddle case in the empty space and buckled the guitar case shut. “I said it was a band I know really well.” He