He’s scrambling to get his story straight.
“I honestly hope you get well soon, Lincoln.” I recite it like it’s a script written for a more decent person than I am. What I want to tell him would melt the ears off a trucker. Even Ollie’s most screwed-up bassoon solo couldn’t dredge hateful words like the ones I’m biting my tongue to hold back. “Ollie sends her best wishes. I need to go.”
“Nes! Don’t you hang up on me! I love you! I want you back. Do you hear me? I can explain. Hear me out—”
I end the call and power off my phone, imagining his rage when he attempts to call again.
I lean my head back on the seat and wait for the tears that feel so close, but they never come. When Doyle taps on the glass next to my ear, I don’t even jump. He swings the door open and waits on me to speak first.
“I’m starving,” I announce.
“All quiet on the northern front?” He drops his eyes like he’s trying to let me know he isn’t prying.
“Mild concussion and a wrist sprain.” I don’t bite my tongue fast enough to keep the rest back. “That’s what you get when you’re sneaking out of some girl’s bedroom.”
Doyle’s eyes burn hot and wild, and his smile is unapologetic. “Sounds like he got exactly what was coming to him. Milady?”
NINE
“Okay, I have no idea why people worship grits down here. They taste like farina—”
“What’s farina?” Doyle flips a toothpick into his mouth.
“A breakfast food no one eats unless their mom says, ‘Eat your farina.’” I lean back and pat my full, happy gut. “But the biscuits and gravy? They were amazing.” I reach for the last bite of salty bacon on my plate, but I’m too stuffed. “In the DR we have a word for being this stuffed—jatura.”
“Jatura,” Doyle repeats. “Sounds like it means ‘stuffed.’”
“Exactly. Only my abuela’s tostones have ever made me feel this jatura before. I wish I could bring you some, or one of Lou’s bagels. Or a waffle from Five Star. Food of the gods.”
“Y’know—” Doyle arches one blond brow high on his forehead “—roads do head north, contrary to what most people in this county believe. I could make a trip to New York City sometime.”
I let the legs of my chair drop with a thud as loud as my surprise.
“You? Doyle Rahn in New York City?”
He flicks a balled-up straw wrapper at me. “I went to Hawaii. I’ve been places.”
“Can’t argue with that.”
Doyle grabs the bill with freakish quickness the nanosecond the waitress drops it. I insist on leaving a substantial tip before leaving. Our waitress was unsmiling but efficient, and I like to imagine her finally cracking a smile over the big wad of money on the table. Or shoving it in her tip bag and going on to the next customer. Whatever.
“Thanks for breakfast. I’m suitably nourished for Lovett’s Hemingway quiz. Do you think she’ll quiz on dates? I suck at dates.” I can’t read Doyle’s thoughts based on his facial expressions alone.
“You sure you wanna go back to school? We could skip,” he offers.
“Great idea. Since I got reamed for my tattoo, my nose ring, my hair, and my clothes after I flirted with the princess of Ebenezer High’s ex and told her to go scratch—skipping school seems like the logical next step. I don’t want to get expelled. Plus Lovett will never let us make up that quiz unless we can prove we were on our deathbeds or something. So…”
He turns the key in the ignition. “All righty, Miss Goody Two-shoes. We still on for baseball Friday?”
“Yep.” I poke him in the ribs across the seat. “Bring me a mitt, remember.”
“And four-wheeling next Saturday?” He pulls out and we bump onto the road to school. “Though I gotta warn you…coming to opening weekend at the mud pit basically baptizes you as a full-fledged Georgian. That mud gets in your soul.”
“Geez, Rahn, you’re clogging up my social calendar.” I roll the window down and breathe in the morning air, sweet in the golden light of the early sun. “Do I want this Georgian mud christening?”
“Of course you do. You can’t leave this place without getting your feet muddy.” He goes quiet for a few long seconds, then clears his throat. “I also might want to keep you busy so you stop thinking ’bout running away. I gotta say, when I heard your ex was in the hospital, I kinda expected you to up and bolt home. You know, nurse him back to health or whatever.” He drums his fingers all over the top of the steering wheel.
“I think you have some serious misconceptions about me. Let me educate you. If you get rocked in the head by a baseball or choke on some beef jerky, I’ll administer emergency lifesaving procedures. And then hand you over to the people who are trained to care for you. I’d be a useless nurse. Unless you need someone to play with the controls on your hospital bed and eat all your Jell-O.” I like the way he’s smiling, like he’s thinking something he shouldn’t be. “What?”
“Nothing.” The word filters out through a huge-ass grin, which clearly tells me that his nothing means nothing about as much as my mother’s fine means fine.
“Not nothing. You’re smiling about something. Spill.”
His shrug rocks his shoulders. “I was jest thinking of you in a little nurse’s uniform, playing in my bed and eating my Jell-O.” He doesn’t look the least repentant about his dirty thoughts.
Which make me bubble over with laughter. “You’re pushing your luck, Rahn.”
“You make me wanna live on the wild side, Agnes.” He lets his arm graze my stomach as he pushes my door open once we park. “Positive you don’t wanna skip?”
“I want to,” I assure him. “I’m just not dumb enough to go through with it. C’mon. We’ve got an authoritarian establishment to stick it to. Speaking of which, do you have a rubber band?” Doyle shakes his head. “Binder clip? Two pencils?”
He roots through his pocket. “Two pieces of gum, a marble, and a bootlace.”
I pop one piece of gum in my mouth, toss my hair over to tie it up with the bootlace, and eye the marble. “What do you have a marble in your pocket for?”
He rolls it back and forth on his palm. “My granddaddy’s been collecting them since he was a kid, and this one was jest rolling around like a death trap, so I scooped it up. I guess I pocketed it because it reminds me of the color of your eyes.” His ears burn red and he laughs at himself. “You know, I can be pretty romantic when I put my mind to it.”
“Let me see.” Doyle drops it, cool and heavy, into the curve of my fingers. The green and gold twists at the center of the glass ball look nothing like my dull, hazelish eyes. “I’m unconvinced.”
He takes back the marble, throws it, and catches it backhand. “You see your eyes every day, so you’re used to how gorgeous they are.” Just when I’m melting right around the edges, he adds, “Also, you don’t get to see them when you look at me. Isn’t there a thing about how your eyes change color when you’re looking at something you want real bad?”
“Does your neck hurt from holding that big, fat head up all day?”
We waltz into school so early, the halls are empty except for a few eager beaver students mingling around debate club notes. Doyle skids to a stop in front of a sparkly vote-for-me poster for some random high school contest, squinting like it’s one of those 3-D pictures that pop out when you relax your eyes.
“What’s this for?” Context clues aren’t getting me anywhere. There’s a big red glittery rose encircled by a glittery crown. The school logo is done in—guess what? Glitter!—along with Khabria Scott’s name and “Ebenezer’s Next Rose Queen” written in fancy cursive.
“‘Rose Queen’?” I read aloud. “Wasn’t that what Ansley was getting all ‘let them eat cake’ about? Do I even want to know?”
Doyle’s eyebrows press all the way up to his hairline. I’m not sure if that facial expression communicates shock or admiration. “Holy hell. Khabria Scott is running for Rose Queen.”
“Again—do I even want to know?”
This time when Doyle looks at me, he seems almost embarrassed. “Naw. You really don’t. C’mon. We’re wasting time talking when you could be soaking up my good looks.”
“No, seriously, are you not even a little worried that your arrogance has crossed some kind of sociopathic line? I think you may be full-blown delusional.”
He heads to the courtyard where we sat yesterday, and I follow like a pull-toy on a string. “A healthy dose of confidence is a good thing. Around a girl like you, I’d say it’s pretty damn essential.” He flops onto the grass and pulls his cap low over his eyes.
I sit cross-legged and resist the urge to pull his brim up and look into those purple-blue eyes. Violet eyes, especially on a guy, sound ridiculous, but, in reality they’re a blink of soft, hidden beauty that reminds me not to assume I ever know everything about anyone. And especially not to assume I know nearly enough about Doyle Rahn.
As if he can read my thoughts, he crooks a finger, trying to lure me closer. I shake my head.
“You’re sittin’ on an anthill. Come sit here. I’ll protect you from them little bastards.” He pats his lap, right over his thigh, where the denim of his jeans is worn so thin it’s fraying.
“I’ll put up with the ant bites, thank you very much.”
Then an ant crawls down my ankle and clamps its jaws into my skin. At first the pain doesn’t register. We had our share of gross bugs in New York, but ants? Since I got here, everyone from the real-estate lady to the pest control company that won’t stop calling has been making way too big a deal over them.
Or so I thought, until the pinch and burn radiates along the lower portion of my calf. I hop up and swat at my ankle, brushing my legs frantically because I’m positive an entire army of these deranged mutant monsters are scampering all over my skin with their poison jaws.
I’m screeching and dancing around and flailing my arms, but Doyle comes to my rescue, hoisting me up, one hand on each side of my rib cage. He wraps an arm around my waist and runs me to a picnic table with green paint peeled back from the blistering heat. He pulls my leg straight and tries hard not to laugh.
“I told you you were sitting on an anthill.” He uncaps his water bottle and douses the tiny bites swelling up like an ugly anklet.
“You didn’t tell me they were killer mutant monster ants!” I try to collect the shreds of my tattered dignity.
“Or fire ants, as they’re called ’round here.” He reaches into his backpack pocket and pulls out a tin. “Lucky for you, you got bit while I was around. This is something my gram makes for us. You get bit by all sorts of crazy things in the wild, and this? Magic.” He dips two fingers to collect a scoop of waxy yellow stuff that smells like old herbs and whiskey.
“What’s in it?” My ankle twitches with pain as the bites swell.
“I know better than to ask my gram ’bout her secret recipes. I’m not as dumb as I look.” He rubs a thumb over my ankle and massages his finger along my calf.
The shallowest thought flits across my brain: I’m so glad I shaved my legs yesterday.
“So this will help? Because it feels like I have hot coals around my ankle. I can’t believe ants did this.” Doyle smears the salve on as I whine. As soon as it touches my skin, I breathe a sigh of relief. “Oh, this is definitely working. I can feel it already.”
“It don’t work that fast.” He twists the lid back on the tin. “It’s probably my nursing skills.”
“So you’d do more than eat my Jell-O and play with my bed settings?” My heart attempts to dance a messy merengue.
“Hell yeah. I make a mean chicken noodle soup. I’m not squeamish ’bout changin’ bandages or cleanin’ wounds. And I give an amazin’ sponge bath.” He waggles his eyebrows, and I laugh so hard the pain shrinks to a distant echo.
“Holster your sponge bath fantasies, my friend. I’m good as new and perfectly capable of bathing myself.” I turn my ankle back and forth and scoot over when he jumps up to sit next to me.
“Totally unrelated to seein’ ya naked, but I was thinkin’ you should mebbe bring that little bikini when we go four-wheeling.” The way his eyes crinkle lets me know he’s aware he’s playing with fire, and he doesn’t care.
“You just keep pulling me deeper into these plans of yours. First it’s baseball, then you get me to agree to breakfast. I say yes to four-wheeling, now you want to swim?” I tap the sole of my sneaker on the toe of his boot, and he looks totally happy to have me playing featherweight footsie with him.
“Do you have any idea how much mud we’re gonna be coated in after we four-wheel? We’re gonna need to rinse off. My uncle’s got this little house on the river with a rope you can swing off over the water.”
“Won’t it be cold?” It’s been hot as Mordor here, but it’s still January. The water must be freezing.
“You scared of a couple chill bumps?” He leans back on his arms and grins.
“Is it even safe to do that? Swing into a river?”
His jaw drops. “You never jumped off a rope into a river?” When I shake my head, he rubs a hand over his face like he’s barely able to process this information. “It’s safe as can be. And I’ll be there to nurse ya back to health if anything happens.”
“Hmm. Not sure if that makes me feel any safer.” I jump up when I notice the halls filling with students. “Thank you for breakfast. I need to get my butt to class.”
“Let me walk you.”
It doesn’t feel like a sweaty-palmed, thundering-hearted endeavor. So why are my hands slick and my cardiovascular system in overdrive?
It may just be my sensitivity to being new here, but I swear people everywhere stop and stare at us, before whispering behind their cupped hands.
“Am I being crazy, or are we all anyone here wants to talk about this fine morning?” I crane my neck and find people looking away before they meet my gaze, pretending to trade notes or adjust their backpacks. Something is definitely up.
“It’s jest that some people can’t keep from yappin’ ’bout what ain’t their concern!” Doyle announces loudly enough that he sends a few of the gossipers scurrying. His scowl is fierce. “It’s leftover from when I was with Ansley. She was always broadcasting our business like she wanted people stickin’ their damn noses in it. Irritatin’ as hell.”
“That sucks.” We’re near my classroom and I want to stall. I also want to get to class on time, but I don’t like losing the few minutes I get alone with Doyle at school. “My ex was big into PDA, but I was never a fan.”
“Ansley considered making out a spectator sport.” He leans against the lockers outside the classroom, tall and lanky, arms crossed. “It wasn’t all the PDA so much as the girl. Now, if there was a girl I had a mind to kiss, I’d kiss her wherever she’d let me.”
“Or maybe you have the attention span of a gnat. I don’t think any hot-blooded male would have a hard time paying attention if they were doing anything physical with your ex.” I sound cucumber cool, mansa even, but I’m gripping the edge of my binder to avoid tearing it in half. “Anyway, I thought gentlemen didn’t kiss and tell.”
“I’m as much a gentleman as you are a nurse.” He leans so close, I can see the spatter of freckles next to his ear. “Trust me, I got plenty of hot blood. Jest takes a fiery sort of girl to turn me on.”
I suddenly can’t wait to see what kind of sparks Doyle and I can make fly when we get together.
TEN
“Headed out?” Mom’s voice rings with hope, like I’ll echo friendliness back to her if she projects cheerfully enough.
Too bad we’re too far in for those kinds of charlatan tricks.
“I’m going to play ball.” Just to be an asshole, I grab the back of my T-shirt and knot it tight halfway up my back, the way she says looks trashy.
“Basketball?” She’s delicately sipping Perrier with a twist of lime through a striped paper straw while she reads an issue of The New Yorker.
&nb
sp; I should ignore my mother and the whole little ridiculous tableau, but it makes me burn so hot, my blood feels ashy.
“No. We’re not in Brooklyn anymore, though I see you’re doing an admirable job pretending nothing in our life has changed at all.”
My mother blinks slowly like she’s coming out of her hoity-toity daze, then follows my glare to her pretentious drink and magazine.
“Do you reckon I should get myself some sweet tea and a copy of Better Homes and Gardens?” she faux-drawls.
The sneer in her voice is a garnish—like the lime in her drink—and it helps settle my irritation. Here’s the feisty mother I remember: the one who actually functioned as an in-control parent instead of a lame character in some erotica cheating scandal. Here’s the woman who would have smashed the DVR in a fit of hot temper if her jerk of a daughter spoiled eight seasons of loyal television show devotion.
“Maybe you should stop pretending our lives haven’t been screwed beyond recognition.” I sound more melodramatic than I mean to. Her smirk alerts me to the fact that she agrees.
“Sweetheart, I have tried everything to make up for this, okay? Let it be known—your mother screwed up. I’m only human. I was lonely. I was more open than I should have been to—”
I slap my hands over my ears, but it only muffles her words.
“—people and situations that weren’t in my best interest. And now here I am. Here we are.” She waits until I take my hands down. I keep waiting for one of us to do something überirritating to tip the scales either way, so I can decide if I should leave now or stay for another minute. “I have self-flagellated long enough—”
“Really? A bottle of pinot a night is suddenly the equivalent of beating yourself up over everything that happened?” I dare her to hold my stare, but she can’t.
“I know what you think you know. But trust me…” Her voice cracks. “It’s infinitely more complicated than that. I know you understand what a broken heart feels like. Let me tell you a sad truth. It gets harder the older you are. The longer you love someone.”
“Are you talking about Dad?” My parents have a strict policy of never, ever talking crap about each other in front of me and Jasper.
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