Sweet

by Tammara Webber

  “They’re making me tell you, so consider yourself told,” she’d said, hands fisted at her hips. “But you’re a child, and a child can’t raise a child. I’m done, Mateo.” Her voice shook. “I’m just done.” She walked out the door crying. He mobilized two minutes later and ran out the door after her—they’d lived two houses down from each other all their lives.

  He quit the band and got a job the next weekend—manned up like no one I knew had ever done. When they found out she was having twins, I asked him why he hadn’t taken that free pass. He said, “Those babies and fatherhood scared the fuck out of me, but I kept thinking how scared she probably was too because she’s in it, you know? And I just want to be in it with her.”

  I asked myself now if anything could happen with Pearl that would scare me—waiting another fifteen years, or her name with doctor in front of it and PhD after it, or a baby, or promising to love and cherish her, or her needing me for any damned thing ever.

  Nothing. Nothing scared me like the thought of losing her. Which just meant I had to do everything in my power to see that didn’t happen.

  Pearl

  I’d barely sat down in class Monday before Shanice, Milla, and Chase clustered around me.

  “So. Boyce,” Shanice said.

  I’d always sucked at concealing my emotions when confronted with something I hadn’t sorted out, and where Boyce was concerned I was disastrously unsorted. I felt the longing scuttle across my face before I could quash it. Accustomed to seeing him daily, I had been back home a week and had only seen him once—which had taken place in the company of eight colleagues… three of whom were scrutinizing my raised eyebrows (I lowered them), my fidgeting hands (I shoved them under the table), and my shrill, innocent-but-not-really voice (I vowed to remain silent after squeaking, “What about him?”).

  They exchanged the shrewd glances. “Told you,” Chase said. If I remembered correctly, he’d picked up a guy at the karaoke bar who followed us to the next place. So had Shanice. My colleagues were making the most of pursuing graduate degrees in a place lots of people came for vacation. “She’s definitely into him. You said his name and I swear her pupils dilated.”

  Pupils! Dammit. I pressed my lips together and hastily jerked my game face into position. “He’ll be leaving town soon.”

  “But he said he runs that garage for his mom,” Shanice said. “I wasn’t kidding about my POS Pontiac. That thing is not happy about the humidity here. It’s been sputtering every time I start it. Besides, you’re here, and he didn’t look like he wanted to go anywhere.”

  “His mother is going to sell the garage. And he’s… going to leave.” As the words fell from my mouth, they became real. They tugged until they pulled that pretense of I’m fine and unscathed and it’s no big deal right off. I couldn’t break my fall, and for the first time, I didn’t want to.

  “That sucks,” Chase said. “He looked really into you.”

  “Are you going to be okay?” Milla asked, a tiny crease between her brows.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  No, I thought. No, I’m not.

  chapter

  Twenty-five

  Boyce

  On Wednesday, Sam told me she needed to leave early for an appointment with her therapist, which she swore up and down was a complete waste of time and energy. “Dad won’t even fucking listen to what I want,” she said, crossing her arms and scowling like Vega’s boys did when they were confronted with something green on their plates.

  “Get any good drugs outta the deal, at least?”

  More sheltered than her rough-and-tumble attitude implied, she went slack-jawed, eyes bulging. When I laughed at the utter disbelief on her face, her expression sank right back into its routine glower. “I only take drugs when I need them,” she said, hints dropping from that statement like shrapnel shells.

  I’d looked up spina bifida on the Internet—she’d told Pearl her diagnosis during one of their Here’s how I change a spark plug interactions. I was more impressed with Sam’s tenacity in the face of that shit than I would ever let on, mostly because she’d probably hurl one of my own tools at my head and say she didn’t need any damn pity.

  “Do you do drugs?” she snapped.

  I lifted the battery she’d just detached out of the hatchback. “I did when I was your age.” I decided against telling her I wasn’t just doing them at her age, or that I smoked the occasional joint now.

  “So you think I’m a pussy because I think drugs are medication and not for recreational dumbassery?”

  Whoa, Nellie. “Nope.” I lifted a shoulder, unpacking the new battery. “I was a dumbass at sixteen. I laughed because you sorta look like an anime hamster when you’re shocked. Also, full props for recreational dumbassery.”

  She smirked, so I guess the anime hamster analogy was acceptable. Christ.

  I set the new battery in place. “You’ve got a few minutes before your dad gets here. Hook ’er up.”

  After Mr. Adams picked Sam up, I turned the Closed sign, locked up, and went inside to shower, ignoring Mom and Riley—who had decided he didn’t have to abide by my no smoking inside rule since I didn’t “own the place.” Saying horseshit like that amused the fuck out of him, so I’d quit speaking or listening to him altogether. For five days running they’d rolled outta the bed I’d bought for Pearl around noon, stumbled out of the room I’d painted for Pearl, and parked their asses on the sofa watching daytime television, drinking my beer, and picking redneck fights with each other.

  I hadn’t seen Pearl since Friday night—or Saturday morning. We’d texted a few times and talked a couple. She had let me know earlier in the week that everything was cool regarding our no-condom fuckup.

  “Oh good. Phew,” I said. What I was thinking: Damn, which I sure as shit kept to my fool self because she would not have shared that reaction.

  I knew she was confused when I begged off seeing her, but I blamed Riley’s appearance and the need to get a few things at the shop settled. Both were true—no way I was allowing her to cross paths with that jackass, and I had some serious shit to nail down before I saw her again.

  “You won’t leave without seeing me, right?” she’d asked last night.

  “No way.”

  I heard her answering sigh and almost caved. I wanted to talk to her about her stepfather’s offer, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t going to tell her until I had something to fucking say. Until I’d removed the obstacle that stood between us. Until then, I was spinning my wheels, scrambling for enough solid ground to pull myself out, and I’d be damned before I’d drag her into the mud with me.

  “Where’re you going?” Mom asked as I crossed the living room. “Ain’t the garage still open?”

  “Not today.”

  She said something else I ignored, then came to the door and hollered at me as I fired up the TA and cranked the stereo like I didn’t see or hear her. She hadn’t been around for my teenage years. I reckoned she had it coming to her.

  • • • • • • • • • •

  Dr. Frank closed his office door behind him and reached to shake my hand. “Boyce, good to see you. Have some questions for me, or have you reached a decision?” He sat behind the desk, and I took one of the chairs facing him. The positions were familiar enough that all sorts of smartass comments were pouring into my head. But this wasn’t school and I wasn’t in hot water. I was a businessman speaking to a potential investor.

  I sat straight as a rod, pressing a fist to my thigh to pin down my leg, which wanted to judder a mile a minute. “You’ve made me a real fair offer, Dr. Frank, and I’ve got no reason to turn it down. But—and I’m sure I’m going about this all wrong—I have a proposition of my own.”

  He nodded and sat forward. “All right.”

  “I started working for my father ten years ago. He was an asshole, pardon my language, but he knew cars and he passed that know-how down to me. If I told you I’d thought that garage would be mine since then, that w
ould be a lie. Truth is, I didn’t have any kinda goals or plans when I was a kid. I just… did what was easiest.”

  What was easiest was surviving the loss of Mom and Brent and ducking my dad’s fist, but by seventeen I could’ve shaped up. I could’ve followed Maxfield’s lead and got the hell out. I chose not to, because staying required nothing. It was so fucking easy.

  I’d dug my own hole, and it was time to dig myself out.

  “A couple years ago, my dad was diagnosed with liver disease. He never quit drinking, so he was ineligible for a transplant. He was going to die fast and ugly and we both knew it. Once I knew—or thought I knew—Wynn’s was going to be mine, everything shifted in my head. How I saw the place, the customers, my work, my connection to this town—everything changed. So the thing is—I know I can do the work. I can run the place for someone else.” I swallowed. “But what I want is to own it.”

  “Oh?” His brows rose and he steepled his hands on his desk. Dr. Frank seemed like a good-humored, plainspoken sorta guy. He’d gotten his MD from Baylor in 1986—diploma on the wall behind him—which meant he and my dad had been of an age. But whereas my dad had been a hard-living son of a bitch who believed a man taking care of himself was for pussies, Thomas Frank had a George Clooney thing going on. I could see how his sexploits got to be part of local folklore before I was even born.

  And then he met Pearl’s mom.

  “There are two paths to owning Wynn’s: purchasing it—cash on the barrel—or financing it,” he said. “I assume you don’t have the funds on hand to buy your mama out.” I shook my head, as he knew I would. “So that leaves financing a business loan. How might you feel making payments on something you thought was yours?”

  “Well, I reckon that’d depend on the terms of the loan.” Thank Christ I’d looked this shit up last night.

  He smiled. “My initial assumption was that your mama would sell Wynn’s to me at a fair price and I would pay you to run it. If you were to take on a loan for that property, you’d have to make that payment every month, as well as support the business and yourself. That’s a lot to ask of a young man with marketable skills who could command a steady salary and undertake no risk instead.”

  Working for him was the easier path, and it should have been tempting, but it wasn’t. “I’m probably shooting myself in the foot to say this to the guy offering me a job, but I’m not sure I’d bring the same amount of dedication to something that isn’t mine.”

  He eyed me more closely. “All right. Just a moment.” He pulled up some software on his computer and entered numbers and turned the monitor toward me. “My CPA sent over property and business valuations yesterday—both asset-based and income-to-value. Here’s the possible range of the loan payment amount—high to low—depending on what she’ll sell it for, at a typical rate of interest.”

  I braced myself for something between barely doable and hopeless.

  “That’s—less than a grand per month? For—uh, principal and interest? That’s all? I could do either of those.”

  He nodded. “You’d have to pay taxes and insurance separately, but I’m sure you have a good idea what those will be since you’ve already been keeping up with them. I’m glad the upper limit looks doable, but why don’t we see how close we can get her to the lesser amount?”

  “Are you… are you saying you would be willing to loan me the money?”

  “Confession—I looked into your credit history as well.”

  “Ain’t much there,” I said. “No car loans or rent paid. One credit card I don’t much use.”

  “What I see is that you live within your means when a lot of people your age don’t. You took responsibility for a business and built it up instead of squeezing what you could get out of it or abandoning it. I’d be proud to invest in you, Mr. Wynn.”

  My throat squeezed tight. I couldn’t swallow, and I sure couldn’t trust my damned self to answer. I nodded and stuck out my hand and we shook.

  Pearl

  By the time I was at work Thursday night, I couldn’t take it anymore. Almost a week had passed since I’d seen Boyce. He’d told me not to come over, and I knew he had his hands full running Wynn’s, watching over Sam, and dealing with his mother and her boyfriend. But my heart only knew I missed him.

  I had my excuse when I remembered that his birthday was six days away—exactly two weeks after mine—or exactly one year and fifty weeks before mine. He’d flunked third grade and I’d skipped ninth, throwing us into the same forty-three person graduating class in high school.

  Some people might have called that destiny, but I wasn’t one of them. I’d never believed in the illogical concept of fate—owing an A on an exam to a lucky hat or attributing a touchdown to a preordained miracle. Fortunate outcomes were the result of hard work or happy accidents. There was no correlation between wearing a hat and earning an A. It was coincidence.

  Like Boyce spotting me in the water seconds before I would have drowned. Or the two of us ending up in the same biology class in tenth grade because Mel and I made the dance squad and we had to switch out of last-period biology and into Boyce and Landon’s section. In life, bad things happen, good things happen, and we do what we can to encourage one and prevent the other. Boyce was one of the good things in my life. One of the best things. I wanted to be one of his best things, even if someday all I’d be was a memory.

  I decided to give Boyce a birthday gift that would make amends for those he’d never gotten. Something he’d have loved as a boy but would still love as a man. It didn’t take much deliberation to know what that thing was. A lifelong supporter of Houston’s exasperatingly subpar baseball team, he’d once told me that he’d never actually been to a major league game.

  I pulled up the Astros’ schedule on the inn’s antiquated computer.

  Me: Someone has a birthday coming up... but I have a little problem with your gift.

  Boyce: Oh?

  Me: It would intrude on one of your Sundays.

  Boyce: But my birthday is on Wednesday...

  Me: Yes, but your *gift* isn’t on Wednesday.

  Boyce: Okay...???

  Me: You said no one has influence over your Sundays.

  Boyce: That has nothing to do with you.

  Me: You sure?

  Boyce: Yep. Positive. So what is this gift??

  Me: I’ll tell you more on your birthday. If you’re still here and want to see me?

  Boyce: Let’s get something straight that I should have already said. I’m not leaving. I’m busy as hell right now and I know you are too with classes and the inn, but I’m here. I don’t want you coming over because of my mom’s shit-for-brains BF hanging around. That’s the ONLY reason.

  Me: I miss you. ☹

  Boyce: Same. Yes I want to see you Wednesday. That’s all I want for my birthday. Let me take you out.

  Me: You taking me out wouldn’t be much of a birthday – besides, I asked you. I’ll pay.

  Boyce: Like hell you will. I’ll pick you up at 7.

  Me: Stubborn man.

  Boyce: Yep. ;)

  • • • • • • • • • •

  The frosted cupcake the waitress set in front of Boyce was almost the size of a salad plate and boasted one lit candle standing in the center, weeping wax from top to base.

  “You gonna sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to me all sexy like you sang that Lady Antebellum song?” He leaned over the candle from across the table, one brow cocked, mouth drawn up on one side. Lord have mercy, he was mischief incarnate.

  “I think you endured enough of my singing on my birthday-celebration night.” I crossed and uncrossed my legs under the table, half-embarrassed, half-itching to blow that candle out and climb into his lap. Or run down to the rapidly darkening beach and hurl myself in the water because it was suddenly beyond warm in the burger joint we’d chosen.

  “Naw, baby—you can carry a tune.”

  The way I’d sung that song that night—right to him, hips swaying and lips puckere
d—oh. My. God. No wonder all my colleagues thought we were hooking up. “Psssh! If by carry you mean mangle ruthlessly.”

  He laughed, that tiny flame from the candle dancing in his green eyes. “Sounded just perfect to me.”

  “Then you are clearly tone-deaf, thank God. Now blow that candle out and make your wish.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he drawled, extinguishing the flame in one short burst. Another naughty smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. “Am I gonna get my wish?”

  He was in a wicked mood, and God help me, I loved everything about it. I leaned an elbow on the table, my chin cupped in my hand, and batted my lashes twice. “I suppose that depends on your wish.”

  The waitress arrived with the check and Boyce shoved three twenties in her hands without looking at it. “Keep the change,” he said, grabbing my hand and stalking to the door.

  “Boyce—our bill was only like thirty-four dollars—”

  “Worth it,” he said, not slowing. He shoved the door open and pulled me into the twilight-purple evening. The temperature had cooled from roasting to sweltering with the sun’s departure.

  I stumbled over a rock in the gravel-strewn parking lot—flip-flops and I had a shaky relationship lately—and Boyce immediately turned and swung me into his arms. I slid my arms around his neck and stared up at his taut profile. “Are you mad? Did I say someth—”

  “Not mad. Not mad at all.” He stared down at me, turning to thread through the haphazardly parked cars without slowing. “I have to kiss you. I have to touch you in very publicly inappropriate ways. Right now.” He leaned closer as I went molten from the center out, breath quickening, every individual part of my body pulsing fiercely all at once. “I wanna fuck you, sweetheart,” he murmured, setting me down against the passenger door of his TA and absorbing my shocked gasp with his mouth, his hands cupping my face as he kissed me. When his lips released mine, we panted, eyes locked, inches apart. “I’m afraid none of that made sitting in the Lodge in full view of a few dozen people a good idea.”