I rolled my eyes and chuckled. “Come on. You have to try it.”
“Oh yeah?” She quirked an eyebrow. “Says who?”
“Me.” I moved it closer to her face.
“You’re not going to convince me to eat it.”
“Come on. Try it for me.”
“For you? Why should I?” The curiosity in her voice wasn’t innocent. There was something else there. Something bitter.
“Because it’s good.” I wouldn’t let her take this there. To the past.
“I don’t trust you.”
I blinked. People moved around our table in the small ice cream shop with black and white tile floors. The playful moment was gone. I couldn’t get it back now.
I set the spoon down in her bowl and leaned back in my chair. “You know why I like coming here?”
She looked uncertain. “Why?”
“It smells like sugar.” I chuckled at how ridiculous I sounded. “It’s so sweet, it’s almost too much.”
“That’s why you like coming here?”
I shrugged. Where am I going with this? “It’s like you know it, the moment you walk through the door. The ice cream is full of sugar. You can smell in the air, it saturates everything. But you still come in. You still buy the ice cream, even though it’s bad for you. Even though there’s too much sugar.”
“So—”
“So sometimes it’s okay to indulge. It’s okay to let go, just for a little bit, even if you know it’ll be bad for you in the end.” I didn’t know what this was. Why we were here, but I knew I didn’t want it to end. But it would end, of that I was certain. It would be bad. It would ruin me, and I didn’t know if I would survive it. But I didn’t want to think about that now. I didn’t want to go back to that place, that lonely place I’d been in for six years.
I stared into her eyes, those deep brown eyes. Eyes that had plagued every second since the moment I forced her into the back of my car all those years ago. She knew what it was like to indulge. We’d done it last night. We’d let it all go in exchange for sex. For those vibrant moments where nothing else mattered but our bodies moving together as one. Fucking. That’s what she had called it. And that was fine. I would take her any way I could have her. But I didn’t want her to hide like she was now. I wouldn’t let the past tarnish these moments we were having.
She sucked her bottom lip into her mouth, her eyes never leaving mine. She picked up the spoon. Two drops of pink liquid dripped onto the wooden table before she slipped the bite into her mouth.
I sat with bated breath as she swallowed.
A smile crept over her lips. “That tastes awful.”
Something between a bark and a laugh escaped my mouth as I stared at her in disbelief. My heart beat rapidly in my chest.
“You really don’t like it?”
She shook her head slowly, still smiling. “I like survival shows.”
I tilted my head. “What do you mean?”
She scooted the bowl away. “You wanted me to tell you something. I like those shows like ‘Jim and the Great Outdoors,’ have you seen that one?”
I shook my head.
“What about ‘Man vs. Wild’?” she asked. “That one is pretty good too, but not as good as ‘Jim and the Great Outdoors’. They basically send this guy out who has no survival experience just to see how long he can do it. It’s kind of awful, but it’s so funny.” She ran a hand through her hair. “I can’t believe you haven’t seen it.”
And just like that, things were different. The gloom that had been hanging over us all day was gone. It disappeared with that bite of ice cream.
We sat inside Beth Marie’s talking for hours about television, books, even politics. I shouldn’t have been surprised she was so well versed on the world. But I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t help but be completely baffled with the woman before me.
She was different. Someone else. Not that girl I had once known.
We stayed at the ice cream shop until they kicked us out at closing time.
“This is a beautiful place,” Faye said as we walked down the sidewalk from Beth Marie’s. Denton’s late nineteenth century courthouse loomed over us, the center of the square where Beth Marie’s was just one of many businesses. Big oak trees covered the courthouse lawn, lit up with sparkling white lights.
“Come on.” I led her across the street to the lawn. There were other people there. A hippie couple playing a guitar and tambourine, a group of teenagers climbing on the courthouse steps, a couple kissing on a nearby bench.
“Are the trees lit up like this all the time?” She stared up at them, her hair rustling in the breeze. The glitter of the lights reflected in her eyes. The sight of her took my breath away. Seeing her here. This was my thinking place. My escape. Sometimes I wouldn’t be able to sleep and I would drive here and sit on the square and watch the other wandering souls. I’d never brought anyone else.
Not until now.
I had dreamed about her all these years, but my dreams were a pathetic comparison to how she was under the glowing lights in her tiny blue jeans shorts and black t-shirt. She was like a goddess.
“Yes,” The word came out almost as a whisper as I dug in my pocket for my phone and hit the camera icon. It was probably inappropriate, but I wanted to remember this. I wanted to have it on my phone forever. Faye staring up at the trees like this, her face smooth of worry, light dancing in her eyes.
“Did you just take my picture?” she asked as I dropped my phone back in my pocket.
“Maybe.” I smiled.
“I never agreed to any pictures.” She shook her finger at me playfully.
“You never disagreed with me taking pictures.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Hmm, fair point, I suppose.”
“You suppose?” I quirked a brow at her. “I just had to listen to you talk about some guy named Jim surviving in the outdoors for over and hour, and you suppose I make a fair point at wanting to take your picture?”
“Jim is awesome and that show is the bomb! You know you’re going to go home and watch it!” She giggled and made to move around me, but I snagged her by her waist, tickling her sides. She burst into laughter and tried to get away, but I didn’t let her go. I tickled her until she was breathless and we both tumbled to the ground.
“You can—” she paused sucking in a deep breath, “—tickle me all you want. But the show is still fucking amazing. You’re just jealous you haven’t seen it.”
“Maybe.” I leaned up on one elbow, looking down at her. Leaves were stuck in her hair from the fall and I plucked them out, tossing them aside. “I tell you what, I’ll watch that show, if you watch it with me.”
She stared up at me. I expected her to laugh, giggle, make another joke and then I would tickle her again. But she didn’t. She stared up me, her eyes covering every inch of my face like I was a riddle she couldn’t figure out.
“Tell me something, now.” She pushed up on her elbows, putting her face only inches away from mine.
“I—”
“Tell me about your tattoo.” She touched my chest, where the Old English lettering of the name Josh was concealed.
“Well…” I let the word trail off. I hadn’t talked about it in a long time.
“Please,” she whispered the word and hung there between us.
I let out a rush of air. “It was a car accident. My friend Josh was driving.” I shrugged my shoulders blinking away that night. “He didn’t survive.”
Her brows creased in the center. “That’s awful.” She paused. “Tell me the rest.”
Her words surprised me. Anyone who had ever asked took my story at that and let it go.
“I don’t remember when that happened.” She ran her fingers over her lips in thought, her fingertips lingering on the faint pink scar in the corner of one of her mouth.
“It was after you left.” I paused “The first time.”
She nodded slowly. “You were in the car with him?”
“My mother was there?”
“Yes.” I thought hard about that day when I woke up. Jessica was the only one in the room when I came to. She was so concerned, so worried about me. Hate bubbled beneath my skin. Jessica had fooled me with her lies, going to her grave with the truth about what happened to Faye.
I wanted to say more, but I didn’t. I didn’t know what to say.
“You don’t remember anything at all?” Faye relaxed next to me, lying flat on her back, surprising me.
“I don’t.”
“That seems very fortunate,” she said quietly.
The teenagers chuckled in the distance while the breeze swirled around us.
“I always wonder if he said anything.” I glanced over at her. She was looking up at the trees, her dark eyes like clear glass. “If he reached for me in those last moments, or cried out for me to help him.” I looked away from her and back up at the trees. “Maybe he had something to say. Maybe he told me something important that I never heard.” I sucked in a deep breath. “That’s why I got the tattoo. So everyday I would be reminded of the things I couldn’t remember.”
Faye’s thin fingers slipped between mine. They were warm, soft against my palm. “Maybe he didn’t say anything. Maybe the reality of what really happened at the scene wasn’t important at all. Maybe it’s a blessing you don’t remember.”
I thought of all the things Faye had lived through, the years of abuse inflicted on her by my father. The drugs, the prostitution, the men who raped her. All those things she would remember. She would carry those burdens for the rest of her life and here we were lying on the courtyard lawn staring up oak trees with me wishing for a burden I would never have to have.
“You’re right.”
“I usually am these days.”
A smile tugged at my lips. I wanted to say more. I wanted to tell her all the things I’d held inside for so many years. I wanted to tell her that I was sorry for lying. For not telling her I loved her. I wanted to tell her that I wasn’t him. My father. I wanted her to know that I had changed. That I wasn’t all bad. That a day hadn’t passed without her being there in my thoughts.
But I didn’t.
Instead we laid there on the courthouse lawn in silence, the breeze swirling around us with the glowing lights as our theatre.
“I’m happy we’re here,” I said sometime later.
She was quiet for a moment, so long that I glanced at her to make sure she was still there. That I wasn’t dreaming. That the last twenty-four hours weren’t just a figment of my fucked up imagination.
“I’m happy we’re here too,” she whispered.
ELEVEN
Faye.
I spent the night with him. Rhett. After our night under the sprawling Oak trees on the square in Denton, we walked to his car holding hands. We drove home in silence. But it wasn’t that uncomfortable silence, the kind that was stale and stifling. It was comfortable, peaceful. The kind you hear people talk about, but never really believe it actually exists.
It was real. Rhett’s hand in mine in between the seats was real. The soft hum of his car as he drove through the dark. There was something honest about that silence. Something comforting and forgiving. It was the kind of silence I had waited for my whole life, and I couldn’t explain why.
Rhett didn’t ask me if I wanted to come in when we pulled back into his red brick home and I didn’t ask if he still wanted me to. In the silence, I pulled my bag from the backseat and followed him inside, our fingers still entwined. He didn’t waste his breath on a tour, but led me straight to his bedroom, where the poster hung above his bed. The one of him swimming with the manatee. The one I nearly destroyed all those years ago. We cuddled together in his soft sheets, his hand combing through my hair and my fingers a whisper on his chest.
The silence continued and it was perfect. And when I slept, it was like the dead.
“Are you okay?” I glanced up at Rhett from where I sat in the window seat. I had watched Badger, who turned out to be a little pug dog, chase a grasshopper in the yard.
“Yes, just watching Badger.”
Rhett sat down next to me. “That dog.” He shook his head. His hair was damp from his shower and curling against his forehead, the strands darker than when they were dry. It had been two days since our night under the Oak trees. Two days of Rhett and I. Days filled with talking, laughing, meeting each other, it seemed almost for the first time. I learned that Cayden had bought Badger for him a few years ago. Rhett hadn’t wanted him, but he felt too guilty, he couldn’t just give him back, so he’d kept the little guy. He pretended he didn’t like him, like he was now. Shaking his head at the little dog bouncing around the backyard, but I could tell he did. He had a soft spot for him. I could see it when he looked at him, when he talked to him when I wasn’t looking.
I didn’t want to see it. In spite of everything, how nice the last two days had been, how well we had gotten along, I still kept everything in perspective. This would end. Soon. And I didn’t want to see him care for his dog. That humanized him. It made him real. It made the kindness, the compassion he showed me seem more genuine, instead of an act.
“What were you thinking about?” His voice drew my attention back to him. I noticed now that he was shirtless, the smooth muscles of his chest and arms bulged. I chewed the inside of my lip. We hadn’t fucked since the first night in my bed. We hadn’t even kissed, but we’d slept in bed together. We’d cuddled, touched, talked until I couldn’t hold my eyes open for another second. We talked about everything but the past.
“You.” The word slipped from my lips.
A smile quirked on his lips making my heart pound faster. “What about me?” He turned his back to the window and leaned against it. The red basketball shorts he wore were low on his waist.
“That you should say nicer things about Badger.”
He rolled his eyes and chuckled. “Oh, come on, Faye. We both know that’s not what you were thinking about.”
“Oh, do we now?” I crossed my arms over my chest in mock anger.
“Yes. I saw the way you just looked at my chest.”
I tilted my chin up. “Is that so?” A small part of me cringed internally that he had been able to tell.
“Yes.” He leaned toward me, his green eyes sparkling. “Like you want to devour it.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re imagining things.”
“Come on, Faye. You know me well enough to know that I have a poor excuse of an imagination.” He was only an inch away now, his face so close to mine I could smell the spearmint on his breath.
“You’re—”
But I didn’t get to finish my sentence because he pressed his lips against mine. Our first kiss in days. I couldn’t lie, I’d been anticipating it, waiting for it. I wasn’t going to instigate it though. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. My reasoning for that wasn’t completely clear in my head, especially now with Rhett’s lips against mine.
I pulled back. “You can’t just kiss me and assume that you’re right.” I giggled, and stood up. Could he tell I was nervous?
Why am I nervous?
“It’s not assuming,” He stood and followed me. “If I know I’m right.”
“I don’t think that’s what it is.” I gave him my back, trying to act casual as I moved away from him.
“I’m right.” He grabbed my shoulders and spun me aro
und. “Just admit it.” There was this cocky, playful expression on his face that stole my breath away. I had never seen him like this before, not until the past few days. It made me feel lost, more lost than I had ever felt in my life.
“What’s the matter?” His face fell, that smile disappearing into a concerned expression.
Even though it made me feel lost I wasn’t ready for it to be gone, not for good. Not yet. The nervousness left me.
I crooked an eyebrow. “So what if you are right? What are you gonna do about it?”
“What am I gonna do about it?” He leaned an arm against the wall, the muscles in his chest flexing, sending a shiver through my body. That cocky expression spread across his face slowly. “That sounds like a challenge.”
“Maybe it is.” I bit down on my lip suggestively. Rhett’s reaction was immediate, his body seeming to coil like a snake ready to strike.
I took a step back, playing with the hem of my shirt. His eyes zeroed in on the movement.
“So you want to play like that, huh?” He took a step, mirroring mine.
“Who said I was playing anything?” I tugged my t-shirt over my head. I wasn’t wearing a bra.
His gaze locked onto my breasts and I nearly came right then. Just his eyes on my bare skin set me on fire, making my blood boil and my cunt drip. I wanted to run to him, to climb up that sexy body of his and worship every inch of him.
I didn’t.
Instead I turned around and gave him my backside while I shimmied out of my shorts. He groaned and I smiled at the sound. He started to move toward me, but I darted out of his reach.
“You’re serious about playing, huh?”
“I’m serious about everything, Rhett. You should know that by now.” I hadn’t intended the double meaning, but it was there, just as it was in everything we seemed to say to one another. But he ignored it, following me as I dashed away from him. “You know I’m going to catch you.”
“I know.” I giggled as I darted to the other side of the couch. He reached for me, but his fingers passed through the loose ends of my hair.
“So why are you running?” We faced each other, only his brown leather couch separating us.
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