His words smoothed over me like a balm. I allowed myself to feel his words, and then I got irritated at myself. What did I care what Dak thought of me? We’d broken up long ago and had had nothing to say to each other until now. So why had I allowed that small flame that flickered for him to surge up? Especially when I had the handsome Ty waiting in the wings for me? Ty liked me. Thought I was cool. Didn’t have to deliver false praise because he already thought I was worthy. Maybe. At least I tried to convince myself of this.
I knew my weaknesses. And it wasn’t the hunk next to me humming to an Alan Jackson song. My past had made me defensive, had dragged me down so that I was embarrassed of who I had been and what I had done. And some of that was okay to own. Spending two years in a correctional facility where I folded laundry and cleaned toilets as the high points of my day, always looking over my shoulder for trouble, trying to keep my head down and merely survive had stamped itself on me. The impossible shame of being a convict cloaked me in despair. Many days I wondered how I could overcome my past. How could I knock off the chip on my shoulder? Brush away the prickling that I wasn’t good enough to deserve happiness?
So to his words about overcoming my mistakes, I said nothing. Instead I looked out the window at the ragtag houses passing by, at the occasional flattened opossum on the shoulder of the road, and at the faded white line that boxed the truck within the asphalt. Gone was any spark of agreeableness. That’s what shame did to a person.
And Dak knew my shame.
“I know you live on Cross Lake. If you don’t want to take me all the way into town, I can call someone.” But I didn’t know who. Jade was holding down the afternoon shift so Cricket could get her hair done. I had a few friends I could try. And my grandmother was probably eating a piece of her birthday cake.
“Don’t mind dropping you off. Bar is covered for the afternoon. Where to?”
“You know where the old El Chico was in Madison Park? I live in a duplex over that way. Querbes’ golf course is in my backyard.”
“So you have a collection, huh?”
“What?”
“Of golf balls? Probably get a lot in your yard.” Dak maneuvered his truck onto I-49, and I thought how surreal it was that I was sitting beside my ex-boyfriend talking about golf balls . . . and that in a few hours I would be going to a gala in a ball gown. How weird had my world gotten?
“You still play? I can pay you for the ride with a bucket of practice balls,” I said.
Dak looked over at me. “You don’t have to pay me to help you, Ruby.”
Again, something in his words both soothed and irritated me. I didn’t want to need anyone. That was the point of everything that I had been doing. Relying on my family’s regard for me had landed me in prison, relying on friends had always proven disappointing (or maybe I had always chosen the wrong kind of friends), and relying on something good to come my way had always shown me that nothing was as good as I thought it would be. Was I cynical?
Um, you think?
I liked the idea of determining my own direction, so, again, I said nothing, even though his tone was as inviting as worn flannel. I wanted to curl up in it and assure myself that he was right. I was worthy, I could overcome, I could accept help.
For the remainder of the ride, I hummed along with some Reba McEntire song that reminded me of days I didn’t want to remember and tried to beat back the way I used to feel when he held me in his arms and hold tight to my intention to remain unaffected by him. I directed him to “take a left” or “hang a right” until we arrived at my modest duplex with the double porch swings and planters of tulips. I rented the space, but I had taken ownership of making it pretty with a spring wreath and a few hanging ferns. The elderly lady next door had contributed some money toward my efforts to spruce up the rental. I liked the results.
“Here I am,” I said, gesturing to my place. I did a double take when I saw the bouquet of flowers on the doorstep.
“Looks like you have a delivery,” Dak said, turning into the driveway. “I’m guessing they’re from your boyfriend.”
“I don’t have a boyfriend.”
He looked at me and lifted a shoulder. I knew he was remembering Ty and judging him. Okay, so Ty dressed in circa-eighties douchebag, but he’d been cool to Dak when he’d acted like an ass. My date that night wasn’t necessarily a guy Dak would hang with, but that didn’t mean Ty wasn’t a good guy.
“Well, thanks again, Dak,” I said, dropping my hand and feeling for the crossbody I had dropped onto the floorboard when we’d first left Mooringsport. My actions shifted me closer to Dak, and I felt his hand tug my hair.
I grabbed my bag and looked up.
“It’s been good seeing you, Ruby.”
He could have said many things—I could see that in his eyes. Maybe something inane, like Way to finally get your shit together, or encouraging, like You’re doing good, kiddo, or perhaps even sentimental, as in I wish things hadn’t ended the way they had. But Dak wasn’t prone to needless words. Never had been. So by telling me it was good to see me, I knew what he meant because I felt the same roller-coaster emotions, that vacillation between regret and acceptance, that small question of what if, that whiff of attraction, of longing, or wanting something that probably could never exist again because we were no longer those stupid kids who believed in white picket fences and staring off into the sunset side by side.
I lifted my body and looked him right in his pretty eyes and said, “Yeah, you too.”
My right hand groped for the door handle just as he leaned toward me.
My stomach tightened in expectation because I wanted to feel his mouth against mine. Part of me needed to taste what once was, revel in the desire I had always felt for this man. Part of me knew it would be bad because I could slide right down that slippery slope. But he bypassed my lips, instead brushing a kiss on my cheek. “Be well, Ruby. You deserve happiness.”
His words were like the swish of a hand over a fevered brow—desperately wanted but, at the same time, useless to do any good.
So I opened the door and climbed out. When he backed out of my driveway, I didn’t look back at him. Instead I took the bouquet of red roses nestled in baby’s breath and lifted it to my nose. They smelled of waxy nothingness. The card attached read, “Looking forward to tonight.”
I unlocked my door and took the flowers inside.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CRICKET