Sweet

by Tammara Webber

  “I would like that.” She went silent for a moment. “How does that feel, to be free of it?”

  Like I had a sense of purpose and a place in the world and it evaporated. Like I got cut loose on the ocean in a rowboat. “I don’t know yet,” I said, both fact and fib.

  “I’m going to open my box now. Okay?”

  “I feel like a dick making a big deal about it. It’s just… something I thought you’d like. I dunno. Hope it’s not too lame.”

  Through the phone, I heard the scrape as she pulled flaps of cardboard apart and the crumple of the old newspapers as she peeled them aside.

  “Oh, Boyce,” she said.

  Relief washed over me, and I pulled in a drawn-out dose of nicotine to prolong the high. “It’s not as big as the last one, but the day you moved in with me I noticed the spire was cracked on that shell. Been hunting for a new one ever since. I found one that was perfect but still inhabited. I knew how you’d feel about me evicting his ass, so I put him back in the water.” Her soft laugh confirmed I’d nailed that decision. “I almost gave up and bought one on eBay, but that would be like cheating. Anyhow, I found that one last week and Thompson polished it up at his mom’s shop. Glad you like it.”

  “I love it. I’ll always love the first one you gave me too, cracked or not.” She paused. “Mitchell broke it on purpose, you know.”

  “He what?” I should have kicked that douchebag’s ass when I had the chance.

  “During the last argument we had—the night we broke up. He was pissed when I told him I wasn’t going to Vanderbilt. He walked to my bookcase, grabbed the most important thing on it, and smashed it against the wall. That was the final straw for me.”

  “I knew that guy was an asshole. What business of his was it if you decided not to go to med school?” That shell was the most important thing on her bookcase?

  “We were going to go together, get an apartment, blah blah, and I changed my mind at the last minute. I kinda didn’t tell him for a month or so either.”

  I laughed, imagining that little prick throwing a tantrum, but I sobered up at the next thought. “Did he ever hurt you?” She was quiet a beat too long. “Pearl, goddammit—”

  “Once—which he swore was an accident and I—ugh. I was stupid—”

  “The fuck you were. You’ve never been stupid a day in your life. Trusting and sweet and too goddamned forgiving, maybe.” Well, there you go. Damnation.

  “Don’t think I’m a dumb girl anymore, huh?”

  I scrubbed a hand over my face and hung my head. “Jesus Christ I was a dick of a kid. I’d kinda hoped you’d long forgot that.”

  “You made up for it.” I heard the soft smile in her voice and took another deep drag to keep from telling her all the ways she could demand I make up for it and keep making up for it as long as she wanted.

  “About Friday. Why don’t I pick you up and be your designated driver so you can go wild and celebrate your fill? I’ll get you back home safe.” Fuck if I wouldn’t rather get you back to my bed safe.

  “Okay.”

  • • • • • • • • • •

  Thompson and I shuffled our Friday night supper to Thursday. “Maybe we can stop somewhere after, get in a game of pool?” I asked.

  “Let’s not go nuts, man. We’re responsible adults now,” he said, chuckling and sifting through the envelopes and flyers in his hand.

  “Hey there, Boyce,” his mom called, walking down to the mailbox at the end of their drive where we stood talking.

  Thompson handed her the mail. “Goin’ to supper with Wynn tonight instead of tomorrow night, Mom. That okay?”

  “Sure, hon,” she said, squeezing his arm. “Maybe your dad and I will go out too, and I’ll save that fried chicken for tomorrow.”

  He slid an arm around her and kissed the top of her head. “See, Wynn. This is why I’ll never marry, right here. Because I was both lucky and unlucky enough to have the perfect woman for a mom.”

  She shook her head and patted his chest, her lips fighting a smile. “Crazy boy of mine.” Towering a foot over her, Thompson was a skinny twenty-six-year-old ex-addict, ex-con who lived at home and worked for her, but you could hear in her voice that he was still the little boy she’d taught to tie his shoes. “I’ve hardly seen Ruthanne, Boyce. Y’all are sharing the place now that your daddy’s gone, I see.” The twist of her mouth said everything she thought about my father, and probably a bit about my mother as well. “How’s that going?”

  “S’all right.” Not. At least our schedules were off enough that we barely crossed paths. She hadn’t even noticed yet that Pearl moved out yesterday. “I’m probably going to be leaving town soon… I haven’t rightly decided where to yet.”

  “So Randy said.” She looked up into my eyes.

  I hadn’t remarked the years on her until that moment. Her sons’ shenanigans had taken their toll, but she’d never lost the faith and optimism I remembered from my childhood, and the increased smile lines just served to make her look kinder.

  “You’ll do well in whatever you decide, Boyce. I see your brother in you.” Seeming to know she’d just knocked the breath out of me, she patted my arm and turned back to her son. “See you later then, Randy. Y’all boys have a good night. You both deserve some fun.”

  • • • • • • • • • •

  “So Pearl moved out and now you’re taking her on a date?” Thompson chalked his cue and sank two balls.

  I watched him line up his next shot and threw back half a Shiner. “Not exactly. Her group is taking her barhopping to celebrate her turning twenty-one. I’m just… tagging along. As her designated driver.”

  “Hell, man—twenty-one? Thought Pearl was in your and Rick’s year? She’s barely older’n Amber—and Amber’s still got two or three years left at A&M.” His little sister was the only Thompson kid to go to college. He sank one of my stripes and cussed.

  “Pearl moved up a year.” I lined up my shot and sank one ball in the far corner.

  “And the folks you’re tagging along with—they’re all grad students? Scientists? Fuck, Wynn. That setup would intimidate the shit outta me, and I’ve been to prison.”

  He’d nailed it. Not much unsettled me, but being the soon-to-be-jobless mechanic among a bunch of academics—got that word from Pearl—was fucking intimidating. But she’d never asked me to go out with her—in public—before. Hell if I was saying no.

  “Brit swears there’s wedding bells in your future.”

  Scratch. “Dammit, Thompson.” I glared, and he chuckled. Christ. Why couldn’t Brit limit spouting her damned ridiculous speculations to me? “Since when have you and Brit been getting cozy?” I asked, which shut him up right quick. They’d had a falling out when she’d defected to his little brother in high school. Brit went where the weed was back then. Meth wasn’t her poison, and she wanted nothing to do with it, which meant she’d stopped wanting anything to do with Randy.

  “She’s stopped by the shop a time or two since I got out.” He replaced the cue ball and sank his last two solids and then the eight ball. “Nice to know how I can finally beat you at pool, man. Mention the word wedding and you go down like I jerked a knot in your tail.”

  I grabbed the triangle to rack the balls. That word didn’t rattle me as it related to Pearl, except in the utter impossibility that I would ever be good enough to make her mine.

  Pearl

  “Most people are away at college when they turn twenty-one, Mama. I’m a college graduate.”

  She wrung her hands. “I understand that, mija. I’m only worried about your safety. You’re telling me you’re going to go out and drink excessively, on purpose… it’s just not like you.”

  I sighed. Getting wasted on a regular basis wasn’t something I’d ever done—that much was true—but I hadn’t abstained altogether. Even if alcohol hadn’t played a prominent part in my college experience, I’d done my share of partying and suffered the crappy hangovers to prove it. Not that
I was going to confess that.

  “Boyce will take care of me.” I raised my left hand and placed the other atop the Better Homes & Gardens on the coffee table. “No alcohol poisoning. No driving drunk.”

  Her jaw locked.

  “What?”

  “What about him? What good does it do for you not to drive drunk if he may do it?”

  Jeez. “He won’t. This was his idea, Mama—he promised to be my designated driver for the night, and there’s no one I trust more.”

  “I see.” She arched a brow, looking at me, but then she blinked, lips parted, dark eyes locked on my face. “What’s happened between you and that boy in the past few weeks, Pearl?”

  I was tired of denying his importance to me. There was no reason to hide it, not anymore. Not after living with him half the summer. Not when he was leaving, maybe forever. “It hasn’t been just the past few weeks, Mama. Boyce and I have been close friends for a very long time.” Close friends who’d shared moments in his bed that made my toes curl in my boots just thinking about them. “I trust him completely. You can trust him. I’ll probably be hammered when I get home, but I’ll get home.” Safe and sound, he’d said.

  “He seems like a decent young man,” Thomas said. “Been running that garage alone, hasn’t he, since his father died?”

  “He’s been running it alone since his father got sick a few years ago. He was half-running it when we were in high school.”

  “So Wynn’s belongs to him now?” he asked. Thomas drove Mama’s Mercedes and his Nissan pickup to the dealership in Corpus when they needed maintenance. He’d never used a mechanic on the island.

  “No. His parents never divorced, and there was a will leaving everything to his mother. The garage, the trailer, everything belongs to her now. She abandoned Boyce and his brother—who died in Iraq right before Boyce started high school—to fend for themselves with an abusive, alcoholic father. I don’t blame her for running from him—Boyce doesn’t blame her—but he was seven! How could she leave him there?”

  Mama said nothing, but her lips pressed so tight they’d lost color and her hands were tight fists. She’d left her home and everything she’d known to protect herself and me before I was even born. I’d watched her refuse everything Thomas offered until he extended his proposal to adopting me, until he swore to love and care for me as if I’d been his natural-born child.

  Thomas frowned. “I remember when his brother died. Brent Wynn. True hometown hero—decorated for bravery postmortem, I think. I had no idea about their father. Will Boyce remain at Wynn’s working for his mama, then?”

  I shook my head. “We think she just wants whatever cash she can get for it now. He built that place up to what it is now, thinking it would be his. He’s proud and strong, and he’s survived things I can’t even let myself think about. Now he’s losing the one thing that mattered to him—that garage. He’ll probably find a job as a mechanic, but not here. He can’t stay and watch her dismantle everything he’s done.”

  I pulled at a loose thread on my skirt to hide the desolation I felt at the thought of his departure. Once he put down roots elsewhere, a rift would begin to form between us. It was inevitable. There would be nothing for him here anymore.

  • • • • • • • • • •

  La Playa was always packed wall-to-wall, but on Fridays it was overrun. There were usually as many people waiting for a table as there were people eating, but the owner was one of Boyce’s numerous satisfied customers. We’d been seated at a pieced-together table for ten in less than twenty minutes.

  I had introduced Boyce as my best friend. “He’s generously volunteered to be my DD for the night and get me home safe, so none of y’all are stuck with that job,” I added. Everyone chuckled and a few people said Thanks, man. “First round of margaritas are on me! And your iced tea too, Mr. Wynn,” I said, nudging his solid arm with my shoulder.

  As soon as the drinks, baskets of chips, and bowls of salsa arrived, someone posed the inescapable question: “So Boyce, what do you do?” Kyle wasn’t a total jackhole, but he could be an intellectual elitist. He was still learning not to make discriminatory remarks about the locals around me.

  “I’m a mechanic,” Boyce answered. His right hand lay fisted on his thigh. Otherwise, he looked wholly unruffled.

  “Ah,” Kyle said, flicking a glance my way. “Cool.” His tone didn’t imply cool so much as a sense of superiority. Boyce didn’t give two figs about that and never had.

  “Where do you work?” Shanice asked, blinking big dark eyes at him while curling a springy coil of hair around her finger, a thing I’d assumed studious doctoral students were incapable of doing. Wrong. “I’m sure my hand-me-down Pontiac will need some work over the next few years. I’d love to know someone who could keep it running.”

  “Yeah, me too!” Milla said, her blue eyes skipping over Boyce’s torso and arms.

  His dark green T-shirt was just snug enough to show off the muscularity of his broad chest and defined arms. I prayed the low growl in my throat would remain there, unheard. There was no good reason for me to be territorial. Oh, yeah? my brain snarled, flashing images of Boyce hovering over me in the darkness, that chest and those arms bare under my appreciative hands. Dammit.

  Gustavo slid an arm over the back of Milla’s chair with a perturbed scowl. They’d been an item for about two weeks, and the rest of us had wagers going on how that would end. Prediction: messy.

  Battling the desire to stake a claim on the beautiful man next to me in all manner of unacceptable ways, I sympathized with Gustavo. I had nothing against Shanice or Milla… but I wanted to knock their brilliant heads together at the moment.

  “I’m at Wynn’s Garage,” Boyce answered.

  “But your surname is Wynn—correct?” Kaameh asked. “You are the owner, then?”

  I rarely saw Kaameh because she was working on her dissertation. She was also the research assistant for Dr. Kent—the professor whose grant-funded research focused on oil spills and their effects on the biodiverse marine habitats of the Gulf Coast. I hoped to take her place when I returned from Austin.

  Boyce’s jaw twitched, but he produced a thin smile. “Actually, my mother is the owner.”

  Her eyebrows arched high and she returned the smile. “Your mother is a mechanic too?”

  He shifted in his seat, and I wished my colleagues would stop giving him the third degree. “No. My father died recently and ownership passed to her. I do all the repairs and run the day-to-day operations.”

  “Oh—I’m so sorry for your loss. Please excuse my prying. Your mother is fortunate to have a responsible son looking after her business.”

  He nodded but said nothing.

  “So you’ve known Pearl her whole life?” Mahlik asked him from my opposite side.

  Boyce gave me a lazy smile. “Close to.”

  “Yo, man—has she always been clumsy?” he asked. Everyone laughed and I hid my face in my hands—knocking over my half-full margarita in the process.

  “Pearl, clumsy?” Boyce chuckled, quickly mopping up the spill with his napkin before it left the tabletop and dribbled all over my lap. “Naw, man. Not at all.”

  • • • • • • • • • •

  I felt the bed beneath my back, but the room was spinning around it. Boyce removed my boots and sat next to me in the dark, brushing the hair from my face. “Stay,” I whined, reaching for him, clenching and unclenching my hands like a toddler begging to be held. “I’m not sleepy.”

  He chuckled softly. “Pretty sure you’re gonna be asleep any second, sweetheart. You’re pretty well hammered.”

  “You calling me a cheap drunk, Boyce Wynn?”

  “No ma’am. I’d never call you a cheap anything.”

  I puckered my lips and tried to look sexy, and he bit down on his lower lip, which he did when he wanted to laugh and was trying not to. I loved that full lower lip and wanted to lick it.

  “That’s nice,” I said. “You’re nice.
No, better than nice. You’re sweet.”

  By the moonlight streaming through my big, open window, I could make out the shape of his generous mouth—the white of his teeth and slight upturn of his lips. The chuckle he’d tried to stifle escaped. “Sweet? Me? Now I know you’re trashed.” He leaned over me, hands on either side of my shoulders, imprisoning me between them.

  “No, no, no, you are! You are. You’re so, so sweet. That’s why I love you.”

  • • • • • • • • • •

  My head throbbed like a rowdy neighbor resided on the opposite side of my headboard, bass thumping through the wall. Unlikely, as the room next door was an unused guest room. That pulsing beat was all internal. Ugh.

  I was grateful someone had pulled the drapes closed because my retinas couldn’t tolerate the bright light of a summer day just yet. They would burst into flames. Turning toward the wall, I eased onto my side in slow motion, but half of me was slower to follow—limbs rubbery and brain loose inside my skull, sloshing side-to-side before settling into the new position.

  I remembered now. Boyce had shut the drapes before he left. He’d taken care of me as promised—drove me home. Carried me upstairs. Put me to bed. He was so, so sweet.

  My aching eyes flew open. Oh no. Oh no. Breathing slowly, I shut my eyes and concentrated hard enough to hurt, fighting to remember.

  That’s why I love you.

  chapter

  Twenty-three

  Boyce

  Earlier in the week, I’d changed Wynn’s hours of operation on the door and the website. No more official Saturday hours, though there I was at nine a.m. the very next Saturday, replacing an engine. One of my regular customers had assumed his compact sedan could make it through some water on a low road that turned out to be two or three feet deeper than he’d assumed.

  When he had it towed into the shop on Tuesday, I put it up on the lift so Sam could get a look at the damage a little bit of water could do when it got sucked through the air intake.

  “Whoa,” she said. “That dumbass is screwed.” Sam had no patience for stupid, not that I could blame her.