“Yeah, you can call again. I just— Never mind. I’ll talk to you soon. Okay.” He hung up without saying goodbye and pushed his phone back into his pocket. He looked over at me and flashed me a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Sorry about that.”
“No worries. You okay?”
He bit his bottom lip as he considered my question. “Honestly. I’m not sure.”
Don’t ask who it was. Don’t ask who it was. “Who was it?” Fuck it all to hell. “Sorry, that was rude,” I rushed to add. “It’s not my business.” Please make it my business. “You don’t have to tell me.” For the love of God, tell me already.
Though, maybe I didn’t want to know. If he was going to say it was the love of his life calling to get back together with him, well, I could do without that information, thanks very much. Though maybe having a girlfriend would be a blessing. It would make him less…available, and I could get over this ridiculous crush I had on him.
Wait… Crush? No, not a crush. He was nice and attractive, so of course I was drawn to him. As a person. Not anything…more.
Clearly oblivious to my inner freak-out, he turned fully toward me. “It was my mom. Well, my bio mom. It’s a long story. I mean, it’s not a secret, but you probably don’t want to hear it.”
He pulled my door open, but I didn’t get in right away. Instead, I studied him for a moment, trying to figure out what he wanted? Did he want someone to talk to? Did I want to be that someone?
Staring at him was awkward, so I slid into my seat, and he closed my door. As he walked around the truck, I wondered what the best thing to do was. Learning more about Ransom, opening us up to knowing each other better, was a bad idea for so many reasons. It was better to keep the wall between us that I’d erected. We were acquaintances. Tangential friends. We didn’t need to be anything more.
He climbed in behind the wheel and started his truck.
I chanced a look at him.
He gripped the wheel tightly, his jaw hard-set.
“Maybe you could tell me about it over dinner?” Why do I even have an inner monologue if I’m never going to listen to it?
His eyes flew to mine, and he looked…surprised. Surprised but also pleased.
“Yeah. That would be great.”
Great was definitely one word for it.
Chapter Twelve
R A N S O M
“How do you feel about diner food?” I asked Taylor.
Neither of us had spoken in the few minutes that had passed since she’d agreed to go to dinner. I was almost afraid to speak—worried I’d say something stupid to remind her why she’d declined in the first place. But prolonged silence made me antsy, and no matter how many times I told myself to stay chill, I always rushed to fill it.
I saw her glance over at me in my periphery. “I don’t really feel anything about it one way or the other. Isn’t that kind of the point of diner food? To be…inconspicuous?”
I wrinkled my brow as I processed her words. “That seems like a bad marketing strategy.”
“How much marketing do you see for diners? No TV ads, no billboards. They’re just…there. Like crabs without the anxiety.”
I couldn’t resist facing her in my horror. “Was your goal to ruin diners for me?”
She shrugged. “I wouldn’t say a goal as much as a pleasant byproduct.”
“You’re a monster.”
“Eh, I’ve been called worse.”
I turned into a parking lot, pulled into an empty spot, and killed the engine. “Well, your punishment is to eat at the Greasy Spoon.”
She bent her head so she could look up at the brick building with faded canopies over the windows. “Oh God, that’s the name and not just a description.” She turned toward me. “I’m going to get food poisoning and die, aren’t I?”
I nodded solemnly. “After the crabs comment, this is just the way it has to be.”
She sighed heavily before throwing her door open. “That’s fair.”
We walked up the stone steps side by side and our hands brushed, causing her to mutter a “sorry.”
I wished, not for the first time, we’d met at a different time under different circumstances. Circumstances that could’ve led to me gripping her hand and twining her fingers in mine.
When we got inside, I stepped ahead of her to approach the hostess station.
“Hi. Just two?” the young girl at the station asked.
“Yes.”
“Right this way,” she said before grabbing menus the size of a poster and leading us toward a table. As we sat, she handed us the menus and said, “Helen will be right with you.”
Taylor looked around before turning her eyes on me. “This wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. Either it goes or I do.”
I spun my head around quickly to take in the wallpaper. It was a floral pattern that had yellowed with age and was peeling in places, but it didn’t seem that offensive. “That’s…an odd comment.”
She laughed. “Those were Oscar Wilde’s last words. Seemed appropriate.”
“And you just happen to know his last words because…”
She shifted a bit in her seat, and if I didn’t know her better, I’d say she was embarrassed. “I have a bit of an obsession with people’s last words.” A blush creeped up her neck and highlighted her cheeks.
Definitely embarrassed. And because I was who I was, I couldn’t resist poking fun at her. “Kinda morbid, don’t ya think?”
Her eyes flashed, and it was as if I were watching her don her armor as she prepared for battle. Her shoulders straightened, her jaw hardened, and all motion ceased. It was incredible. Taylor, my little warrior. Well, not mine, unfortunately, but whatever.
“You’re awfully judgmental sometimes,” she accused.
My brow furrowed. “Me? You and Sophia were literally ranking men by their taste in footwear a couple weeks ago.”
She rolled her eyes at me. “So? We didn’t know them. And they couldn’t hear us. It was harmless.”
I cocked my head. “So knowing someone makes a difference?”
“Yes. Because when you know someone, you’re making a judgment based on what you’ve learned. The attack is personal, not objective.”
“Hmm, interesting. Okay, so tell me this…”
She looked at me expectantly.
I smiled. “What if I was just giving you shit and don’t really think it’s morbid? Is it still personal?”
“No, then it’s just really freaking annoying.”
“Ah, good. Glad that’s settled, then.” I leaned back into my seat and opened my menu. I didn’t even know why I bothered to look. I always got the same thing at diners.
After setting my menu back down, I looked up to see an older woman—probably in her sixties—approaching. She had white hair that was haphazardly bundled on top of her head with a pencil sticking through it, a collared pink dress that was so shapeless it should be a crime, and a black apron tied around her waist with straws hanging out of it. She’d be the picture of a stereotypical diner server except for the fact that she also wore a pair of black sunglasses with lenses so dark, I couldn’t even tell if she had eyes.
She came to a stop at our table, but she didn’t fully face us. Instead, she stood slightly catty-corner to us. “Evening. I’m Helen. Can I get ya drinks?”
I ventured a look at Taylor, whose eyes had gone a little wide. “Uh, just a water for me,” she said.
“Same,” I added.
“Great. Be right back.”
I watched Helen leave. She moved around tables easily, but there was also a stiffness to her.
“Oh my God, is she blind?” Taylor asked once Helen was out of earshot.
“No, she can’t be.” Could she?
“We’re in a place called the Greasy Spoon. Anything’s possible,” Taylor retorted.
“This place isn’t that bad,” I said, sounding defensive.
“Whatever. Leave me to pick out my final meal in peace.” Tayl
or pulled her menu up so it blocked my view of her face.
I reached across and pushed it down to be irritating. “What do you want your last words to be?”
Her lips twitched as if she wanted to smile but refused to allow it. “I’ll probably be throwing up and unable to talk.”
I laughed. “Why would you be doing that?”
“Because there’s no way my death will be anything other than mortifying.”
“All the more reason to tell me what you want them to be. I’ll lie and say you said them.”
“How sweet,” she said dryly.
“I know. You don’t deserve me.”
“For fuck’s sake,” she muttered and turned her attention back to her menu.
Which I was having none of. I pushed her menu down again. “You gotta tell me.”
She slapped her menu down on the table and glared at me. “They’ll be ‘I murdered Ransom, and I’m not sorry.’”
My smile grew. Who knew getting on someone’s nerves could be such a thrill? “You may have to write those down.”
“Why?”
“Because if I’m dead too, I can’t tell anyone you said them.”
She shot me an exasperated look, so I decided to take mercy on her. “Okay, tell me your favorite last words, and I’ll leave you alone.”
“Alone, like forever, or…?”
I pretended to think about it. “At least ten minutes.”
She sighed. “Beggars can’t be choosers. Fine, my favorite words were from Voltaire. On his deathbed, a priest asked him if he wanted to denounce Satan. And Voltaire replied, ‘Now is not the time for making new enemies.’”
I laughed. “You are so dark.”
“Shut up. You promised me ten minutes.”
I paused for a beat, letting her sink into a false sense of security before leaning over the table slightly. “You wanna know what my final words are gonna be?”
“No,” she said simply.
“They’re gonna be, ‘I’m sorry I lied about leaving Taylor alone for ten minutes.’”
She sat back in her seat and looked at the ceiling. “Was I a serial killer in a past life or something? Is that why I’m being punished?”
I laughed a little too loudly, but I couldn’t help it. I’d been wound tight after my short conversation with my mom, but annoying Taylor made me feel so…light. Carefree in a way I rarely felt. Maybe it was because she fought back with such well-placed snark. Or maybe because it was fun to have her attention. Whatever it was, I was quickly becoming addicted to it.
Helen reappeared with two waters on a black tray. Instead of putting them on our table, she held them out, not really toward either of us, but rather in the general direction of our table. I took the first, put it in front of Taylor, and then took mine.
“You ready to order?”
“I think so,” I answered. “You ready?” I asked Taylor.
“Yeah. Can I get the turkey club?”
“Mayonnaise okay?” Helen asked as she stood there, not writing anything down.
“Yeah, that’s fine.”
Helen turned in my general direction, which I took to mean it was my turn to order.
“Can I get the hot open-faced turkey with mashed potatoes and corn?”
“That comes with a soup or salad,” Helen informed me.
“I’ll have a salad. Do you have a raspberry vinaigrette?”
“Sure do. I’ll take your menus.” She stuck her hand out, and I hurried to pick up our menus and put them in her outstretched fingers. “Be right back with your salad and some bread for the table.”
“Thank you,” we both replied in unison.
We both watched her walk toward the kitchen and disappear behind a swinging door that another server had to grab so it didn’t smack Helen in the face.
Taylor turned to me. “Is there a hidden camera around here somewhere?”
“I’d like to say no, but the way our lives are going, anything is possible.”
Taylor took a sip of her water and played with the straw. “Speaking of our lives…”
I took a deep breath. I’d almost allowed myself to forget the reason she’d agreed to come with me. “I, uh, I’m not sure where to start.”
“Wherever you’re comfortable starting. But, and this honestly pains me to say because I really want to know, if you don’t want to talk about it, I’ll understand. It’s not really any of my business.”
I want it to be your business. The thought popped unbidden into my mind, but I couldn’t debate the veracity of it. “My birth mom was…not a good mom. Or person, really. She was an addict and couldn’t be bothered with me most of the time. Child welfare took me away the first time after my mom had taken me to the hospital for a burn. She’d left the stove on to try to heat up the shithole apartment we were living in, and I’d touched it. I was four.” I’d let the words flow quickly, wanting to get them out before I could stumble over how embarrassed they made me.
“Not to sound…callous, but I’m surprised you were taken away for that. It seems more like an accident than neglect.”
“She let the burn go for almost a week. It got infected, and they almost had to amputate my hand.”
“Oh,” she said sheepishly. “Sorry.”
Shaking my head, I tried to not let my brain remember what it had been like in the hospital. I’d been young, but I could still recall snippets of that day.
“Honestly, they probably wouldn’t have taken me away for just that. But I was also borderline malnourished, and I told them she routinely left me alone in the apartment. I didn’t understand why they were asking me those questions, so I didn’t know to be anything other than honest.”
“If you could go back, would you have lied? I mean, if she wasn’t treating you well, wasn’t it better to be honest and get out of that situation?”
I almost smiled at how naïve Taylor was. And I didn’t mean that in a negative way. Part of me was glad she didn’t have firsthand knowledge to know that entering foster care came with a whole new set of challenges. It made me want to temper how I described my experiences in the system. “Foster care can be…difficult. At least with my mom, I knew what to expect. But I got bounced around a lot, and one family was so different from the next. It was unsettling to say the least.” Traumatizing would be more accurate. “But that first time, she actually made a solid attempt to get me back. Cleaned herself up, got a job, things were looking up. A judge let me go home, and things were okay for a while. They just didn’t stay that way.”
I was momentarily interrupted by Helen dropping silverware rolled in napkins on our table. It was hard to tell if she’d misjudged how high above the table the silverware had been when she’d dropped it or if she just didn’t give a fuck. Or the third option: she was blind.
When she left, I continued. “I don’t want to get into too much detail. Suffice it to say, I bounced back and forth from my mom to foster care. Things got a little better when my sister, Hudson, was born, but my mom just couldn’t handle being responsible for other people. When Blink was two, she went to live with my mom’s sister—”
“Wait… Blink?”
“Oh, that’s my nickname for her. That’s a story for another day.” At least that one’s funny.
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have interrupted you. Continue.”
“So Hudson—Blink—went to my aunt’s, and I went back into foster care—for good that time.”
“Why didn’t your aunt take you too?”
As I picked apart a piece of bread, I thought of how best to answer. Finally, I decided to be honest and hope for the best. “I was a difficult kid. I had…have…ADHD, and I’m dyslexic. I got in trouble at school a lot, and my aunt didn’t want the hassle.”
“What a bitch,” Taylor said, though it was clear she hadn’t meant to blurt it out, because her eyes widened comically. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”
A smile split across my face. It felt good to have some
one sound so outraged on my behalf. “It’s an accurate description. She’s horrible. I feel bad Hudson had to grow up with her.”
“Well, I feel bad you went into foster care again.”
“To be honest, I’m not. I had my fair share of rough placements over the years, but when I was taken that last time, I ended up with the Holts.”
I watched realization dawn on her, probably as she processed that I’d taken their last name at some point. “While I was staying with my mom, I’d started escaping to an after-school program every day.”
She smiled. “Like Safe Haven?”
“Similar in some ways. Though they didn’t have a Harry Gillette. They had a Melissa Holt. When I stopped showing up because my caseworker had put me back into foster care, Melissa supposedly moved heaven and earth to find me. She and her husband became foster parents so they could take me in, and the rest is history. I lived with them until I turned eighteen and went away to college.”
There was more to that story, but I could only be flayed open so wide. Telling Taylor about Emily would have to wait for another day.
Taylor looked at me intently. Her eyes glistened slightly, and I wondered if it was the light or if she’d been moved by my story in some way. The last thing I wanted was anyone’s pity, but the idea of someone having compassion about what I had gone through was unexpectedly moving.
“I’m glad you had them,” she said after a moment, her voice sounding a bit raspy.
“Me too.”
“Do you see them often?”
“Not as much as I should. They’re down in Georgia, and I moved north for school and don’t make my way back home too much.” As much as I loved them, there was a lot of pain split between us. Staying away was better for all of us, no matter how much I wished it wasn’t true.
Ready or Not (The Love Game Book 4) Page 11
