I glanced at the painted soup cans and shrugged. “Jamie wants to make it the most epic first grade Halloween party of all time. I’m just her minion.”
His mouth split into a grin. “Do you mean you’re the only person still willing to help her?”
Shrugging, I wondered if that was true. Did all the other moms know better? Was it less about real friendship and more that I was the lone remaining sucker? “I had fun,” I admitted honestly.
“Looks like it,” he said, walking toward me. “You have some…” Reaching around me, he grabbed a paper towel from the counter and folded it over the side I’d used to clean the edges of my cans. He wiped it along my nose. His smile ticked wider. “It’s kind of everywhere.”
He stood close, his muscular thighs pushing into the side of my softer, squishier one. I decided I should do some squats this week. And maybe go for a run. Or take up yoga or something—anything. He should not get to look like that, while my tummy had never quite recovered from having a baby. I mean, what was that pooch? And how did I get it to go away? Besides doing sit-ups. What I meant was, how did I get it to go away without really sweating or putting in a strong effort?
Not that I was so much bigger than when I was in high school. Less gangly and more filled out for sure. But my hips had widened after Max. And the baby pooch that didn’t want to disappear. My thighs were thicker, but I blamed standing for hours on end at the diner. And my boobs were definitely bigger. Which would have been awesome if I hadn’t nursed Max. Now they were a voluptuous DD, but also weirdly flat on the top. And wrinkly. And stretch-marked.
Levi rested his hand on my shoulder to get a better grip on my paint-covered nose. “This reminds me of high school,” he chuckled. “I used to find you in the art room like this. Paint in your hair and on your face.” He brushed the back of his fingers against my cheek, demonstrating the exact spot I would habitually rest my paintbrush. “What I wouldn’t have given for you to let me do this back then.”
I rolled my eyes and yet remained completely still. “The only times you set foot in the art room were to torture me. Remember that one time you drew boobs on my self-portrait? Or the other time you replaced my art show entry with one of your originals?” It had been a ridiculous attempt at impressionism. Thankfully, Mrs. Perry had realized right away that it wasn’t mine and had given me time to track down my piece and replace it for the competition.
“I was flirting with you, Dawson.” I snorted and he added, “Okay, I admit, they were pretty bad attempts, but I was seventeen. I just wanted your attention.”
“You always had a girlfriend,” I pointed out.
His hand with the paper towel dropped to my other shoulder and he hit me with those serious, intense, sparkling green eyes of his. “Because you wanted nothing to do with me.”
I leaned forward, a teasing smile dancing in the corners of my mouth. “Maybe because you were always messing with my art.”
His smile was slower this time, wicked in the way it took its time lifting his mouth. “Maybe I still want your attention.” Just when my breath caught in my throat and I was convinced I would pass out before I remembered how to breathe again, he added, “Maybe I’m stilling messing with your art.”
His gaze moved to the counter and I followed it, noticing his poised fingers holding a paintbrush gloppy with black paint. His hand hovered near my freshly finished ghost.
“Levi…” I warned, my hand sliding down his warm forearm so as not to spook him. I circled his wrist with my hand, not able to touch my fingers together. “Don’t you dare.”
His rumbly chuckle vibrated through him. “Or what?”
“Or I’ll dump a can of paint over your head just like I did junior year.”
His gaze flashed back to mine. “You wouldn’t dare.”
I sat up straighter, letting him know I was serious. “Oh, I would.”
“You know I’m the one that got a detention for that paint stunt, right? You had the faculty wrapped around your finger back then.”
I rolled my eyes again. “I think they all felt sorry for me.” My words rang true, but I hated the way they sounded inside this wealthy home, across from this wealthy, spoiled rotten man. So, I quickly added, “Because I had to deal with your bullying.”
He shook his head, calling BS. “I wasn’t bullying you.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I groaned. “You were flirting with me.”
“Let’s be friends.”
His words were so out of the blue, so from nowhere that it took me a second to fully process what he was asking. “Friends?”
He leaned closer and I inhaled him, whiskey and some kind of orange-scented body wash or deodorant or maybe he’d just eaten one or maybe I wanted to eat him or what was the question?
“Friends,” he repeated. “We’ve never tried it before. Could be fun?”
“This feels like a trap,” I murmured honestly.
“If it is, I’ll let you dump a can of paint on my head. Fair’s fair.”
I laughed, despite myself. “What reason would you have to trick me into being friends with you?” The smell of him and the feel of him so close and the utter enigma that was Levi Cole had me totally confused. But there were reasons, tickling the edges of my sanity.
Max, for one.
Did he suspect? Did he know? I wanted to believe that he couldn’t possibly have put the pieces together. He couldn’t suspect anything with zero information. Okay, fine. He could suspect if he wanted to. I mean, this was Levi we were talking about. Who knew what went on in that mysterious head of his? But my hopes remained. Max was still a secret. He and I were still safe.
He stood up, putting some space between us. “Exactly. No reason. Friends it is.”
My head cleared immediately. I sucked in a deep breath and took the paintbrush out of his hand. “We’ll see. We can be friends, but you’re on probation. I trust you about as far as I can throw you, Levi.”
He winked at me. “No funny business,” he promised. “We’ll be friends. It’ll be fun.”
Shaking my head at him, I couldn’t help the curling heat in my belly. Instinctively, I knew fun wasn’t what it would be. It might be a lot of things, but it would never be so innocent a thing to be called fun.
Jason and Jamie walked back into the kitchen laughing about something. Jason kissed his wife goodbye and then he headed back downstairs to the man cave with Levi.
Jamie watched them go. “I didn’t know you and Levi were such good friends,” she said.
“Me neither.” She raised her eyebrow curiously. I just shrugged. “We graduated together,” I finally explained. “I was always better friends with Logan though.”
“Jason and Logan were best friends in high school,” she said, suddenly somber. “Now… Levi and Jason… I think they just like to be around each other. They each remind the other of Logan.”
Sadness descended on our Halloween fun mood so quickly, I didn’t know how to navigate through it. Explaining my personal grief would only get me into trouble but dismissing the topic would be suspicious.
Thankfully, Jamie moved on before I had to. “Ready to put together the snacks? We’re going to make pumpkins out of mandarin oranges and bats out of pretzels and—”
Oh, god, I inwardly groaned. We were only halfway finished.
12
Tipping Point
I watched Levi Cole walk across the street five days later and wondered what he was up to. He’d been in the diner three other mornings this week and had played nice all three times.
He’d been consistently friendly and attentive, going out of his way to talk to me or say good morning. He hadn’t stayed long any of the times he’d visited yet, but he always made time for two cups of coffee and a healthy-ish breakfast.
After serving him egg whites and veggies all week, I was starting to feel guilty for the lack of greens in my diet. Clearly the man worked out. He had the muscles and Greek-god-like body to prove it. But did he also have to eat well?
“Ruby,” I customer called from down the line. Abandoning my lookout post, I grabbed the pot of coffee and made my way down the counter.
“What can I help you with?” I smiled at Billy, one of my regulars. He was a man in his late fifties, built like the semi-trucks he’d spent his life driving, with a handlebar mustache and a ten-gallon cowboy hat that he only removed when he was eating. His shiny bald head gleamed beneath the fluorescent lights of the diner and I had to wonder how a man of his size and stature had ever been mistaken as a Billy. Bill? Maybe. William? It was better. But Billy? I could never reconcile the long-haul driver with the sweet, childish nickname.
He also smelled like an ashtray.
“Can I get a piece of that apple pie I see in the display?” His deep, throaty voice remained gentle and polite. This was how I imagined a vegetarian grizzly bear made friends with chipmunks.
“It’s caramel apple, is that all right?”
He grinned at me. “Now why on earth wouldn’t it be, honey? Caramel apple’s even better.”
I nodded toward the kitchen. “Reggie really outdid himself with it too. It’s perfection. Would you like it for here or to go?”
“I’ll take it to go,” he said. “I gotta get on the road. But it’ll be nice to have a little piece of home later.”
“Sure thing,” I told him, spinning around to cut a piece of the pie and pack it up for him.
An aggressively clearing throat had me looking over my shoulder immediately. Billy’s eyes lifted quickly from where he’d been staring at my ass. I pretended not to notice. Levi stood a few feet down, not pretending not to notice.
His entire body had gone stiff and he stood there staring at Billy like he was seconds away from launching himself at the poor man. Billy felt his stare and flicked a glance Levi’s way before turning back to me.
“You okay, Ruby? Is this man bothering you?” Levi asked in a gruff tone.
I smiled at Billy and then at Levi. “Who, Billy? Billy’s one of my favorites,” I told him. “I can count on him to always buy a piece of pie.”
Billy chuckled, not the least bit worried about Levi. “Yeah, me and the whole damn town. If I don’t grab a piece first thing in the morning, I’ll never get one.”
“I’ll always save one for you,” I told him honestly. “You let me know if you want one and can’t make it in and I’ll set one aside, yeah?”
His eyes glazed over with adoration. “Thanks, darlin’.”
“Anytime.” I handed him his pie and took his money.
“Keep the change,” he told me.
I winked at him and watched him leave, a smile never leaving my face. As soon as the bells had finished jingling and Billy was safely beyond hearing range, I leaned in front of Levi and snapped. “Don’t you ever get in the way of one of my tips again.”
God, it felt good to have a reason to be angry with him. The whole trying to be friends and polite and nice and normal between us didn’t feel right. I’d been unbalanced all week because of it.
I knew how to fight with Levi. And I knew how to ignore him. I had no clue how to be friends with him. So, no matter how hard I tried to treat him like I treated everyone else, I could never fully settle into this new role.
To be honest though, on a self-respect level, I appreciated Levi’s righteous anger. I did not love having my ass ogled for hours on end. And I really didn’t love sucking up to old men that thought they had the right to undress me with their eyes just because I was their waitress and happened to be female.
But it came with the territory. More than I wanted these old men to respect me, I wanted them to pay me well for the job I worked hard at. I wanted to be able to afford groceries and gas and the other hundred things Max needed daily.
I wasn’t super proud of that set of beliefs, but I also knew my place in life. I was the girl from the trailer park. The girl from the wrong side of the tracks. I was the single mom barely surviving paycheck to paycheck. I didn’t get to stand up for myself at the expense of losing money.
“He was staring at your ass, Ruby. That’s not okay,” Levi shot back, not even an ounce repentant.
Leaning closer, I dropped my voice, so the rest of the itchy-eared customers couldn’t hear. “He always stares at my ass, Levi.” I opened the black booklet, holding his payment. Flashing the twenty-dollar bill at him, I said, “But he’s a hell of a good tipper. And he’s not doing any real harm. You on the other hand are messing with things you have no business messing with. Billy could squish you. Next time stay out of it.”
His jaw flexed, a muscle popping near his ear. “You really think that overweight old man could take me?”
I leveled him with an annoyed look. “He’d crush that pretty face of yours and then you’d have to rely on your brains to get you through life. And we both know that would end in tragedy.”
The corner of his mouth twitched, but he managed to keep a straight face. “You don’t have to take that. No matter what he tips. You’re worth so much more than a good tip.”
A lump that came out of nowhere lodged itself right in my throat and I struggled to swallow around it. Levi’s gaze was so intense, so sincere. His green eyes were ablaze with his conviction. He believed that. He truly believed I was better than sitting there, letting a man ogle my ass, just because he was going to give me a good tip.
Even saying it in my head shed light on how stupid it was. I knew I was better than that. Deep down. And it would be one thing if I didn’t know Billy was doing it. The man was free to let his eyes roam wherever they pleased.
But it wasn’t just the ogling. It was the occasional hand settled too low on my back when I refilled his coffee. And the disrespectful comments he’d offer as compliments. Billy and a dozen other men that came in regularly got away with a lot because nobody that worked here could afford to tell them to stop.
Me included.
Especially me.
Levi’s outrage felt good. And it also felt awful. Because I didn’t get the luxury of self-respect. All of humanity could cry out against how unfairly women were treated. But whistle blowing was an upper-class privilege. Speaking out was for people who could afford to lose their job, who didn’t have little mouths to feed. Standing up for what was right was for women with a safety net.
I was in the class of people that had to eat shit and smile.
“Thanks for your kind words, Levi.” I reached for a bussing rag and started scrubbing at nonexistent spots on the counter. “But my paychecks say differently.”
“Ruby—”
“Go find a seat, please. I’ll bring you some coffee in a minute.”
“Ruby—” he snapped more firmly.
I lifted my eyes and glared at him. “Levi, I am working. Please sit down and I will be over in a minute.”
His jaw moved back and forth, his teeth grinding together. For Christmas I was going to buy him a bite guard. His teeth were too perfect to crack.
As he gave me his back and stalked off to a corner booth, I had the strongest memory of him in middle school, a mouth full of braces and his arms and legs too long for his body.
“I get my braces off next week,” he’d said to me when we were emptying our trays after lunch one day. I was on the free-lunch program provided by the state. He’d gotten three extra pieces of pizza, a luxury I would never know.
Not just because of how expensive it was to order extra, but because I didn’t have the room to fit half a pizza.
“Good for you,” I’d mumbled, lifting my head to see if I could find Logan somewhere in the large lunchroom.
“Then my mouth will be normal again,” Levi had persisted.
“You’ll look really good, Levi.” My face flushed at the words I’d accidentally said out loud. The worst part was that they were true. He was the cutest boy in our class. By far. Even with braces. But I couldn’t let him know I thought
that. So, I’d turned to face him, wrinkling my nose. “Too bad the rest of you never will ever be normal.”
His eyes had narrowed, and the planes of his cheeks had turned pink. I’d almost felt bad, except he’d hidden my backpack yesterday after school and I’d missed the bus trying to find it. He’d offered to give me a ride home on his bike, but I’d been too mad to care about his kindness.
“I’ll be able to eat popcorn again.”
Popcorn was my favorite food of all time. I ran my tongue over my front teeth, thankful they were straight. Not just so I didn’t have to give up popcorn, but also because I knew my mom would never pay for me to have braces like Levi had. If my teeth had been crooked, they would have stayed crooked.
“There’s a new movie,” I told him, deciding I could be nice about this one thing. “At the theater. It looked good. They have the best popcorn.”
“We should go,” he suggested. “My mom could pick you up.”
My cheeks heated just thinking about Levi Cole’s mom driving to my side of town. Levi’s family had money. His mom had a new Suburban. I felt sick at the idea of Levi seeing where I lived, at his mom driving her shiny car on our pot hole ridden roads. Still it might be worth it… “Is Logan going to go?”
“Logan?” Levi asked, his entire face falling at the mention of his brother.
I blushed harder, feeling like he could see straight through me. “Yeah, he’s always nice to me,” I said defensively.
Suddenly, he burst into laughter. “Did you really think I was asking you to the movies?” He laughed harder. “Get over yourself, Ruby.” Then he turned around and laughed all the way back to his table. I’d run to the bathroom and tried not to cry.
I shook my head free of that memory. It felt different now that I could look at it through the lens of an adult… now that I knew a little more about what Levi had been thinking back then.
Propelled by belated guilt and some ridiculous feeling that we really were starting to become friends, I walked over to his booth with two cups of coffee.
Trailer Park Heart Page 15