“Shit,” Riley muttered, lowering his hands but leaving them where I could see them. I didn’t lower the bat. “When do we get the fuckin’ money, Ruthanne?”
“As soon as I sell this dump, that’s when—just like I told you.” She spread her hands. “You shoulda kept your damn job and stayed in Amarillo—”
“I don’t need you tellin’ me what to do, woman!” He jabbed a finger at her and started toward her but halted when I stepped forward too, bat at the ready to knock him into next week. Wide-eyed, he twitched and pointed that finger at me. “Goddammit, junior, you best step off.”
Christ on a fucking cracker, my mother had picked another winner.
I arched a brow. “Or else what? I’m the one holdin’ the bat, asshole.”
I did not need this shit. Nothing was stopping me from backing across this trailer, throwing everything I owned in my TA and leaving town in a cloud of dust. There was something to be said for a future wiped blank and laid bare, unhooked from the past. But what if I didn’t want to be unhooked from my past? If I took off, the opportunity Dr. Frank had dangled in front of me would dissolve, and I would never know if Pearl meant those words she’d said.
“I’m going back to bed. I have work tomorrow—starting in about five hours. So if y’all are planning on killing each other, shut the fuck up about it.”
I had Bobby’s waterlogged engine pulled by noon. I hadn’t heard from Pearl, but I was pretty sure she’d spent most of the day cussing the existence of alcohol. She’d probably never remember what she’d said to me, but I would never forget it.
Pearl
Brain still sloshing inside my head and stomach heaving with any sudden movement, I lay in bed until noon, calculating my chances that Boyce would interpret my drunken admission as inebriated hogwash. And whether I wanted him to.
After wrestling out of my outfit—not quite as cute smelling like stale cigarettes, beer, and sweat—I pulled on a big T-shirt, brushed my teeth to offset the I-just-licked-a-carpet taste in my mouth, and wound my riotous hair into a knot before descending the staircase one slow step at a time, gripping the handrail until my feet touched the cool marble of the ground floor. Mama had left me a note next to a basket of still-warm blueberry muffins—she and Thomas had gone into Corpus for lunch and errands.
Tux purred, winding around my legs until I gave him a fat blueberry, which he ate. Mama always said he was so pampered he’d be toast in the wild. I wasn’t so sure, because that cat would eat anything. On the other hand, macaroni and cheese didn’t grow on low-hanging trees.
Picking at my muffin and waiting for coffee to brew, I scrolled through my colleagues’ Instagram posts from last night. Boyce was in several and Lord almighty, he looked good. I’d always thought he was hot, but lately my eyes loved everything about him—every single thing—as if I no longer saw him through the same lens.
Kaameh had posted a pic of us dancing: Boyce laughing down at me—one hand at my waist, fingers grazing the tie that kept my shirt wrapped tight, and me on my toes—smiling up at him, hair falling in waves down my back.
At one point last night, he’d leaned in close and asked, “So what happens if I pull this little string in back and spin you around?”
High on the delicious punch of his hot breath in my ear and the scrape of stubble grazing my cheek, I bit my lip to stifle an impending giggle. I was under the influence of both alcohol and Boyce Wynn—a dangerous combination. “You’ll find out what I’m not wearing under this shirt.”
His eyes burned like green fire, and I knew if we’d been alone I would’ve been spinning like a whirligig. “Mmm-hmm,” he said.
I stared at that picture, and a snapped undercurrent zinged straight to my core as if he were standing in my kitchen, his hands on me, urging me to come undone under the influence of his firm touch.
Me: Thank you for taking care of me last night. I’m alive. Mostly.
Boyce: You’re welcome. Feeling the effects today are ya?
Me: GAH. My brain hasn’t stopped sobbing and asking if we’re gonna die. So glad I asked for today off work. I’d have been facedown on the keyboard all day. I rang in 21 good and hard.
Me: Well that came out wrong. :-/
Boyce: I’m biting back so many witty comments right now out of pity for your incapacity to retaliate…
Me: Gee, thanks.
Boyce: Any regrets?
Me: No. No regrets.
Boyce: Good.
No regrets.
Not a lie, applied to last night. Not the whole truth, applied to the length and breadth of the relationship Boyce and I shared. Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote, The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone. That night on the beach years ago—when I caught sight of that girl sprawled on Boyce’s lap—all I felt was quick, hard betrayal. And on the heels of that blow, I just felt stupid. I had never questioned whether I should have stood my ground. Whether I should have demanded to be more to him than just another hookup. Whether I was more.
Pearl Torres Frank always did the smart thing, and accepting the way things were instead of railing against that all-too-predictable conclusion and exposing my naïve heart for what it was seemed the smart thing. But leaving those words unsaid—I wanted to be your only—was also the cowardly thing. My one moment of regret in my twenty-one years.
Chapter Twenty-four
Boyce
For the first time in a long time, I was trying to sort out a concern I couldn’t discuss with Pearl. After Sunday supper at Mateo and Yvette’s place, Yvette locked herself in their bathroom to take a bubble bath and read a book with a near-naked dude on the cover whose ripped chest and abs said, I got all this by spending most of my time at the gym. I don’t actually have time to run a billion-dollar corporation or screw anyone for longer than maybe fifteen minutes.