“Is everything okay?” I asked.
“I don’t know about okay, but everything’s normal.” Boone rubbed the bridge of his nose a few times before setting his jaw and jogging down the front steps. “Having to pick up my mom from her favorite dive bar has pretty much been a weekly occurrence since I turned twelve and my feet could reach the pedals and I could see over the steering wheel.” Boone dug my dad’s Chrysler keys out of his pocket and tossed them at me. “I’ve got to go get her before Hank calls the cops and, in addition to picking her up, I have to post her bail. Do you think you can make it back to your dad’s car okay?” Boone was flying around the house, throwing his duffel into the bed of the truck before I’d made it all the way down the steps.
“I’ll go with you,” I said, no room for negotiation in my voice.
“You’ve gone on these excursions before. Once you’ve seen one, you’ve pretty much seen them all.” He threw open the driver’s side door and leapt inside the cab. “The only difference is that she’s added another seven years of liver spots to her skin.”
I broke into a run when I heard him fire up the engine. Before I’d come to a complete stop, I’d thrown open the door and tossed myself inside the cab.
He gave me a look that would have shriveled a lesser woman into nothing. “Get out.”
“No.” I buckled the seatbelt around me and sat up straight.
“Now, Clara.”
“Stop bossing me around, you big jerk.” I crossed my arms.
“Stop forcing me to boss you around. Listen, for once.” Boone reached across my lap, trying to shove open my door.
At the last second, I jabbed my elbow into the lock and lowered it. “Drive.”
Boone’s mouth snapped open, but nothing spewed out. I had enough experience with the two of us going at each other in the past that I could imagine what words were on the tip of his tongue, but they didn’t come. Somewhere along his seven-years’ journey, he’d picked up a little self-control.
Something I was still struggling to grasp.
“Why can’t you ever listen to me? Ever?” he said at last, peeling out of the driveway.
“Because if I listened to you back then, we never would have gotten anywhere. Because if anyone listened to what you asked them to do, no one would ever get close to you.” I uncrossed my arms and relaxed, despite Boone barreling down the dirt road at close to fifty miles per hour. He’d always been a crazy driver. I’d gotten used to it. “That’s why.”
“You’re the very reminder of why I don’t let people get close to me, so be careful how you’re lecturing me, got it?” Boone glanced at me. “Now is not the moment to be preaching to me about opening myself up to people because I’ve been burned, by you, and I’m not going to let anyone do that to me again.”
“Me included?”
“You especially.”
I stared out the window at the trees blurring by, and I stayed quiet when the last thing I wanted to do was stay still and silent. Maybe Boone wasn’t the only one who’d picked up some self-restraint. The longer I stared out the window, concentrating on calming down, the more I found it actually worked.
Boone hadn’t said where we were going, but I didn’t need two guesses to figure it out. Dolly Cavanaugh had been frequenting the same bar since the night Boone and Wren’s daddy left them when Boone was four and Wren was still a baby. I couldn’t begin to count the number of times I’d camped out inside Boone’s quiet cab while parked outside The Bar—yeah, the owner really was that creative—waiting for him to escort or carry his mother out. How they exited depended on the night and how many painful memories Dolly hadn’t been able to keep repressed.
I mostly remembered Boone carrying her over one shoulder, his head held high but his eyes cast downward. He didn’t want anyone to see his shame, but to anyone who looked closely enough, it was unmistakable in those blue eyes of his.
“Why are you being so quiet over there?” Boone asked a minute later, his voice back to normal.
I continued to stare out the window. “I don’t have anything to say.”
“You might not have anything to say, but God knows you’ve got something to argue.” There was enough doubt creeping into Boone’s voice that I could tell he was as surprised as I was that I’d chosen the more peaceful resolution to our spat.
“I don’t.” I lifted my shoulders. “You’re right.”