I'll Be Yours

by Jenny B. Jones

  “Do you have an attorney?”

  “My uncle’s helping me.”

  “So let’s say you get your charges dropped and your suspension ends. You could play for another college.”

  Ridley leaned his head back, his hands covering his face. “It has to be the University of Southern Kentucky. That’s my only option.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they’re the best.”

  “Maybe not if my dad leaves. What if they get an interim coach next year? Or hire some loser?”

  Ridley angled his head toward me, his eyes searching mine. “That’s not going to happen.”

  I had the strangest urge to reach out and brush the worry lines away from his forehead. “You don’t know that.”

  “I don’t have a choice.” From the kitchen came the giggles of two little girls. “I’ve got to get that offer.”

  There was nothing else I could do for him. He could want the USK jersey with everything he had. We could work until he pulled an A in his class. And it still was probably too little, too late.

  He tapped his pinkie to mine. “The second you hear anything, you call me.” Then his finger wrapped around mine. “Promise me.”

  Somehow my face was within inches of his. Surely I hadn’t been the one to lean in. “I promise.”

  Ridley’s chest rose and fell with each breath, and I thought if I listened hard enough, I might be able to hear the steady tempo of his heart. His gaze remained steady on mine, and in those eyes I saw a Kentucky storm rolling, a hint of fear, desperation, and something I couldn’t quite define.

  “Ridley—” I didn’t know what I was going to say. But it didn’t matter. Because the front door flung open, and Ridley stiffened beside me.

  A man and woman walked inside, arms around one another, laughing at some delirious punch line we’d just missed.

  “Mom.”

  The woman straightened and sobered, the man pulling her against his side.

  Ridley stood to his feet, his hands balled into fists at his sides. “What’s Dwayne doing here?”

  The tension lit up like dynamite in the house, and I shrunk into the couch, afraid the walls would explode. This scene could’ve been ripped from the pages of my own past, and I desperately didn’t want to be around to witness how this confrontation would end.

  “I should go.” I hated how meek my voice sounded.

  Ridley drew himself up to his full six feet and walked up to the man leering right back at him. “The only one that’s leaving . . . is him.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  A tornado had been unleashed right in the living room, as Ridley and his mother’s houseguest sized up one another like snarling dogs.

  “You calm down right now!” His mom’s angry words were slurred, as if her date with Dwayne had included a third party of liquor.

  “Where’ve you been?” Ridley asked. “I had to leave practice early when the day care called. Said you hadn’t picked up Emmie.”

  “You better watch your tone with your mama.”

  Ridley pretended like he hadn’t heard the vine-thin man with the shiny bald head and torn snakeskin boots. The man had poison in his gaze, and I wanted Ridley to move out of his path.

  “Dwayne and I are back together.” His mom gave a half smile. “He came into the bar last night and—”

  “You could’ve called. You could’ve picked up the phone and told me you weren’t coming home. Do you have any idea how worried I was? What am I supposed to say to the girls when you just take off?”

  “Shannon don’t have to answer to you.” Dwayne stepped in front of Ridley’s mom and squared his shoulders. “You better back off before I wipe that look off your face, boy.”

  “Was last time not enough for you?” Ridley’s voice boomed with a force that had Emmie crying in the kitchen. “I wiped the floor with you, and I’ll do it again. You’re a worthless drunk who gets his kicks out of beating women.” I sucked in a breath as Ridley grabbed a wad of Dwayne’s shirt and lifted him to his tiptoes. “Get out of my house before I call the cops.”

  “You go ahead,” Dwayne hissed. “We’ll just add those to your other charges.”

  “There won’t be anything left of you when they get here.”

  “Stop! Stop it!” Shannon grabbed at Ridley’s hands and tugged, tears streaming down her overly made-up face. “Let him go right now.”

  Ridley didn’t budge. “You gonna let him hit you again? All that for nothing. I drag you out of that mess, and you just go back to it. I’m sick of it.”

  Dwayne swung his right fist, and it smashed into Ridley’s face.

  I leaped to my feet, the panic screaming in my head. The walls inched closer, and the air left my lungs as fear tried to smother me. No matter how similar, this wasn’t my past. Wasn’t another one of my nightmares. I had to pull it together and help.

  Ridley dropped his hold on Dwayne and pulled back a fist. He delivered an uppercut to the man’s gut that doubled him over. Dwayne collapsed to the ground, wheezing and spitting on the carpet.

  I slid sideways off the couch and backed into the doorway of the kitchen. Faith was huddled in a corner, Emmie on her hip. I stretched out my arms, and Faith heaved herself into me. “It’s okay.” I held them both, moving my body in front to block them from seeing this. Or to block anything that came our way.

  “Get out of this house.” Ridley’s voice was low and lethal. He didn’t have to yell at Dwayne to intimidate. “Get out now.”

  “I love him.” Shannon’s mascara left watery tracks down her red cheeks. “I forgave him!”

  “Nice of you to pick him over us.” Ridley glanced back at me and the girls, as if to assure himself we were safe.

  His mom dropped to the floor and ran her hands over Dwayne’s sweating head. “It’s okay, baby. It’s all right.”

  “Get off me.” Dwayne threw off her fussy ministrations, then rolled to his feet, rising in pained increments. “Screw this. I don’t need this.”

  “Don’t go!” Shannon yelled, attaching herself to his back. “He didn’t mean it.”

  “If he’s not gone in thirty seconds, I’m calling the police.” Ridley’s words clipped out like bullets. “I’m pretty sure there’s a thick file there with Dwayne’s name on it already.”

  Dwayne was too stupid to know he was sticking his hand in the lion’s cage. “I’ll just press charges right back, sissy boy. Your big college gonna take you with a record? How’s that suspension going, huh? You gonna send ’em your mug shot with your ACT?”

  Ridley pressed his fingers to the gash over his brow, then pulled his phone from his back pocket. “Ten seconds.”

  “This ain’t over,” Dwayne threatened in a roar before slamming the door, shaking the house with the force of an earthquake.

  “I gotta go after him,” Shannon cried.

  But Ridley beat her to the door. He stood there, arms out, ready to tackle his own mother to the ground. His eyes caught sight of me, then his sisters, shivering in my grip. “Don’t do this, Mom.” His voice softened, as if coaxing a feral dog. “Think of the girls. They need you here. Every day.”

  Shannon’s shoulders shook as the sobs overtook her. “I hate you for doing that. For running him out. He was sorry. He said he was sorry.”

  “How many times you gonna believe that? You like getting beat up? You like your face all bruised?”

  “He didn’t mean to.”

  Ridley shook his head in disgust. “Listen to yourself.”

  “He’s all I have!”

  “You have us.” Ridley wiped some blood from his cheek. “You know what, never mind. As long as you’re back together, just get him to drop the charges.”

  “It’ll just make him angry if I ask.”

  The way Ridley looked at his mom—I knew that look. You stared at this person who was supposed to love you, protect you. And didn’t recognize them at all.

  I felt moisture on my shirt, and I looked down to see Faith crying into her h
ands. “It’s okay.” I hugged her tighter. “It’s gonna be okay.”

  But it wasn’t. Ridley watched his sisters, and his face tore me apart. Hopeless. Dead end. A cycle of sick. I’d lived it. I knew it.

  And so did he.

  “Tell Mama good night, girls,” Ridley said. “She’s going to bed.”

  In silence sharp as a razor blade, Shannon looked around the room, taking in her daughters, her son, then finally me. “You want to date him?” Her laugh cackled like a Halloween witch. “His father was a worthless loser, and so is he.” She snatched her purse that had fallen to the carpet and threw it over her shoulder. “Get out of my way.”

  Tired of the fight, Ridley eased to the left, held open the door, and watched his mother run into the night. Leaving him alone.

  Ridley walked to us in the kitchen, first picking up Faith, who wrapped her legs around his waist. Then he took Emmie from my hip. “It’s over.” He pressed a kiss to each girl’s head. “You know I wouldn’t let anything happen to you, right?”

  His sisters cried all over their brother, and I stood there and watched him rub backs, right ponytails, and swipe away tears. His intense focus landed on me. “You need to go, Harper. You should’ve left as soon as my mom showed up.”

  I rested my hand on his shoulder, the action tugging my sleeve high enough to reveal a flash of mottled skin. “Leaving isn’t what friends do.”

  An hour later, I sat at the end of Faith’s bed as Ridley lounged back with both girls and read them the last pages of a story of a stuffed bunny trying to get back home.

  “The end.” He hugged Emmie first, then Faith, then climbed over them and stood to his feet. “Love you, girls.”

  They would be sleeping in one bed tonight, the night-light plugged in and standing ready.

  “I’m sorry,” he said as we walked back into the kitchen, plates with the remnants of unfinished dinners still where the girls had left them. “I’m really sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize.” I rummaged around in drawers until I found a clean rag, then ran it under warm water. “Sit down.”

  “You should’ve escaped out the back door.” He eased into a seat.

  “I couldn’t leave your sisters.” Couldn’t have left him.

  “Thank you.” He looked up at me, his eyes capturing mine. “I owe you.”

  I was frozen in this moment, captivated by the raw intensity of his gaze, the soft caress of his voice. “I’m . . . I’m glad I could help.”

  “You probably don’t see a lot of that in your golf course community.”

  I pressed the rag to the wound over his cheek. The blood had mostly dried, but it still looked angry. “Actually I’ve seen a lot of it.”

  “Are you telling me Coach O’Malley—?”

  “My mom. My biological mother.” I stood between Ridley’s long legs and dabbed at his skin, gently trying to clean it up. “I went into foster care when I was nine. The O’Malleys adopted me when I was eleven.”

  Ridley didn’t look surprised. My dad’s bio was pretty well-known, so it was no secret I wasn’t their biological child.

  “Was your mom a drunk?” Ridley asked.

  “Alcohol, drugs. Kind of a powder keg of insanity. And those were the good days.”

  “What happened? I mean, what led you to getting removed from the home?”

  I lightened my pressure on his wound when Ridley winced. “It was a long time ago.”

  “You just saw my family at its worst, and you’re not gonna give me your story?”

  I couldn’t. Not yet. “I don’t really talk about it.”

  “Where’s your mom now?”

  “A prison in Mississippi.”

  “Is she in there for hurting you?” Ridley waited two, three beats for me to answer before he moved on. “I guess the important thing is you have two parents who love you now. Two people who take care of you, who you can depend on. I mean, no matter what Coach O’Malley did, he’s still your father. He’s still a safe place, right?”

  That was the ultimate question, wasn’t it? Was my dad still the dad I knew? Did an affair make him less of a father?

  “My mom was pretty wasted,” Ridley said. “She’s not always like that. She does so well, then she gets hooked up with guys like that.”

  “So that’s why USK is your only choice.” The picture was so much clearer now. “You don’t want to leave Faith and Emmie.”

  “Nobody’s ever seen that.” Ridley pulled his dark gaze from the floor to my face, holding me in place. “All these years I was so careful to make sure nobody saw our crazy.”

  My hand slipped into his hair, and I brushed it back, as if I had a right to touch him. When had he made it to my safe list? “When you got arrested—that was Dwayne.”

  “I couldn’t find my mom. When I finally did, she was at his place, and he was using her as a punching bag.”

  “And you came to her rescue.”

  “For all the good that did.”

  “So she saw it all?” I asked.

  “And yet backed up Dwayne’s story. Or at least wouldn’t defend mine.”

  “Maybe she’ll change her mind.”

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do next year. How I’m going to take care of the girls.”

  I didn’t know either. I wouldn’t insult him with hollow attempts at encouragement.

  I held the damp cloth away from his face and gave him a final assessment. “A butterfly bandage ought to do the trick. Maybe some of that antiseptic that stings enough to make grown men cry.”

  “Later I’m gonna lie awake regretting anyone had to see what went on tonight.” Ridley pulled my sleeve over my wrist before bringing my hand to his heart. “But for some reason, O’Malley, I’m glad it was you.”

  Chapter Twenty

  I sat in my car in my driveway Tuesday morning before school, my phone pressed to my ear, and listened to Mavis rattle on. While my boss yammered, I checked my pale face in the mirror. Molly and just about everyone else I knew liked to use their driver’s seats to take selfies to post on social media. I personally found nothing about getting behind the wheel that made me think, I should capture this moment with a photo. Especially today. When I looked less like a high schooler and more like an extra from a zombie movie.

  “Are you listening to me, girl?” Mavis said, interrupting my thoughts.

  “Uh-huh.”

  When I walked into Washington High today, I would enter that building a different person—with a revised version of my friendship with Ridley. After witnessing the dysfunctional showdown at his house, then staying afterward to help with the fallout, I’d stepped into a new portal, taking me to a place where few had gone. Last night we had been unified by the ugly drama of life, and it was a strange bond. Not one I was totally comfortable with, but I was now tied to Ridley by this invisible, tattered cord all the same.

  “You can’t just throw away Angela Smith’s application for a pet,” said Mavis’s Marlboro voice in my ear, pulling me back to the present. “She’s a good home, O’Malley. I read the home visit notes.”

  “Did you?” I brushed gloss over my lips, hoping that would improve the corpse look I had going on. “Because it sounds like you skipped some of my comments. Like the ones that said ‘neurotic and uptight with nervous tendencies’?”

  “I thought that comment was a description of you.”

  “She’s a no, Mavis. You’ve never doubted my instincts before, so why now?”

  She coughed into the phone. “Because this is a conflict of interest. You want Trudy. She wants Trudy.”

  “Who saved Trudy? Me.” And Ridley, of course. “Who does she belong to? Me.”

  “Have your parents heard that joyous news?”

  “That’s an irrelevant detail.” I ignored her raspy laugh. “You don’t think it’s odd this Angela Smith suddenly dropped her need for a pedigreed dog and now wants a scruffy mess like my Trudy?”

  “The heart wants what the heart wants.”

&nb
sp; I started my car. “Are you reading poetry again?”

  “Frozen-dinner fortune cookies. Let us now move on to topic number two.”

  “Because the adoption status of Trudy is settled.”

  “Because you’re boring me, and I’ve got two Great Danes playing WWE SmackDown in my lobby. Item number two, we have a Mrs. Henrietta Tucker, age eighty-five, who will not leave her home and move to Peach Tree Assisted Living because she can’t take her beloved and likewise elderly schnauzer. Her son from Atlanta is coming in next week, and he’d like her to leave voluntarily rather than by force.”

  “He sounds like a jewel.”

  “He’s actually a decent sort. Mrs. Tucker had her fifth fall in a month yesterday, can’t drive, can’t see, and routinely points the TV remote at the oven to turn it off. He wants his mother taken care of, but he knows her heart is breaking over her dog.”

  And now mine was too. “And how do you have this intel?”

  “My neighbor’s son’s cousin told Frankie, the owner of the Easy Street Bakery, who told Joe, who works at the lumberyard, who mentioned it to Joe’s mama Ruth Anne, who owns the salon where I get my upper lip waxed.”

  Ugh. “And what do you want me to do?”

  “This calls for some subterfuge, some shenanigans.”

  “Some lying?”

  “Exactly.”

  “You know how I feel about that.”

  “I’ve got a great home lined up for her dog.”

  “Angela Smith?”

  “No, you know she won’t take a geriatric dog. The schnauzer’s going to the Sacred Heart Convent off Highway 12.”

  “For last rites?”

  “For a home with the sisters, sassy. Sister Mary Francis is a personal friend and has requested an older dog. It’s a match made in heaven.” She laughed, and I could hear her slap the counter. “Did you catch that pun?”

  “Amazing. So why the deception? Why can’t I just go retrieve the dog and tell Mrs. Tucker her dog is going to a good home?”

  “Because she has a thing against nuns. Grew up in a Catholic school, taught by nuns. It didn’t go well. Anyway, I’ll send you more info. The point is, you’re on the job, and I expect a flawless dog extraction. Today would be nice.”