All That Really Matters

by Nicole Deese

  For some unexplainable reason, his answer delighted me.

  “You passed. Let’s go.” I tossed him the keys, and he stared down at his palm as if I’d just given him the deed to a private island. The corner of his mouth ticked into a sly grin.

  Silas didn’t say much as he opened the driver’s door and listened to the voice prompts from the talking computer that was, in fact, my car. He buckled his seatbelt and shot me a glance I couldn’t quite decipher as it rattled off current statistics—mileage total, battery charge, road conditions, weather conditions, the current time.

  “What?” I asked. “What are you thinking?”

  “That I’m about to drive a brand-new Tesla, and Jake’s not even here to witness it.”

  “It’s just a car,” I offered nonchalantly.

  He laughed and pressed a button to adjust the mirrors to his height. “Right, and you’re just a woman.”

  Though I wasn’t entirely sure what he meant, if the way he accelerated was any indication, his comment had been anything but negative. Silas wove through his neighborhood, fiddling with every button and testing out the brakes several times.

  “Mind if I take a more scenic route through Spokane?”

  “Of course not.”

  Neither of us spoke as we passed fir trees, streetlights, residential neighborhoods, farms, and then eventually the more industrial districts of downtown.

  For some unknown reason, it didn’t feel odd in the least to hand over the driver’s seat to Silas. In fact, it felt just the opposite. Like I could close my eyes and relax my head against the back of the passenger seat as he grinned like a teenage boy who’d been let loose with a brand-new license.

  “I can’t get over how smooth the acceleration is. It’s incredible.”

  “Yeah,” I said a bit dully. “It’s great.”

  “I take it you’re not much of a car specs gal?”

  I chuckled. “Not at all. The specs weren’t why I bought it.” A painful admission I rarely shared. I hadn’t bought it for the cool tricks or the fuel economy–saving statistics. I bought for status, a shiny symbol of my success. I bought it because Ethan had pointed to an image on a magazine with a quote that read, “This year’s most coveted car for under a hundred grand!” The memory of it caused shame to swirl in my lower abdomen. What could a program like The Bridge do with money like that? I knew the answer, of course. It’s the reason I agreed to work so hard on the fundraiser, so that Silas’s vision could be made into a reality. So that more kids like Wren could sleep in a safe home and be given a hope for their future outside the disheartening statistics.

  “So why did you buy it?” Silas asked.

  The story seemed too unreal to retell, like it was connected to another life outside of mine. And yet, somehow, I often told Silas the things I usually reserved for my brother—and sometimes not even him.

  “I’d just hit a big milestone on my platforms. Five hundred thousand followers. I celebrated by buying a new car.” With Ethan was what I left out. “To be totally honest, I probably spent more time deciding what to wear to the car lot than I did on this purchase.” The admission soured in my mouth as I waited for Silas to say something about the wastefulness of it all, of the poor financial decision I’d made when there were thousands of better options for me to invest that money in. And yet his face remained pensive as he drove on without comment.

  As we neared the mall, I changed the subject to one we both had stock in. “Have you heard anything from Wren today?”

  He glanced at me before looking back at the road. “No, you?”

  “Not yet. But I just keep thinking about how happy she was when I dropped her off last night. The Coles seem like a great family.”

  “They are,” Silas said, turning into a parking garage. “I’ve known them a long time. They attend my parents’ church, actually.”

  “Really?”

  He nodded, which I used as the only encouragement I needed to ask something I’d been burning to know since hearing Wren’s story. “Why wouldn’t they take Wren in, Silas? I know she’s nineteen, but she’s such a sweet girl, and she adores her brother so much. Why can’t she just live with him there? It would make everything so much better for her.”

  Silas pulled into a spot and parked, and the computer once again told him all the updated statistics. He muted the volume and swiped to the display image of the engine.

  “Silas?”

  He twisted to focus on me fully, and I could almost see the neurons firing in his brain, pondering my question. “They have three young sons. Taking on an older teen comes with more responsibility and more liability than another boy who stairsteps their biological children.”

  “But she’s not a risk at all. She’s wonderful.” His answer had done nothing to assuage my heartache. “And she still needs a family, parents who will guide and love her. Nineteen shouldn’t even be considered a legal adult in my opinion. I made all kinds of foolish mistakes at her age, and I grew up with both my parents and a brother.” I cupped my hands as if holding an invisible flower. “She’s like a delicate little daisy, and I just want to protect her.”

  The smile Silas offered me was of a different breed this time. It wasn’t amused or enchanted or driven by the dry wit that often separated our two worlds. It was, in fact, an expression of empathy that seemed to say I get it. I understand.

  “And that’s exactly why The Bridge exists,” he remarked softly. “Because age doesn’t replace the need for a hand up from someone who cares where you are or where you’re going. It’s why this expansion project to allow more kids to have a home after they age out of the system should matter more to our community, to our state and nation as a whole. We’re failing our youth every time we have to turn them away due to lack of funding.”

  His words took root inside me, under layers of soil I once believed were too shallow for planting. I was wrong. “I wish I could do more to help.”

  A twitch in his cheek drew my eyes to his lips. “You’re doing more than you realize.”

  “It doesn’t feel like enough.”

  “It never will.”

  My eyes flicked to his again. “And what if I can’t accept that?”

  His grin spread slowly as his gaze roved my face. “Then let’s hope The Event and the Murphey Grant will do more than either of us can imagine.”

  25

  Molly

  By two in the afternoon, we’d been to three party rental stores. The first for linens—tablecloths, napkins, and chair coverings. All easy decisions, given the swatches and available stock they had for our chosen date at the end of August. Silas had stood beside me without complaint, patiently nodding as I asked the associate questions and compared sheens and combinations of fabrics to my notes and swatches. But the next two stores were not nearly as successful. Due to the high demand with summer weddings, the place settings we had to choose from were few and far between. And none of them matched the vision I’d sketched in my notebook.

  Silas had made some phone calls in the parking lot while I’d begged the manager at Bridal Bliss to rush their backorder supply of the china I wanted in time for our event. Apparently, short of an act of God, it could not be done. Not even for the sake of the children. Which was exactly how we’d ended up here: a random rental store in a deserted strip mall in a town I’d never heard of.

  A heavyset midsixties woman in a lavender maxi dress clasped her hands together at the sight of us walking into her tiny store. To be fair, Silas hadn’t said it was in a prime location, just that my plates were available for the coveted August twenty-ninth date. The woman greeted Silas by name, somehow knowing he was the man who’d called in.

  “Aww, and you must be the bride-to-be. You’re positively glowing. I can always spot a young face in love, and you most certainly have been shot by Cupid’s arrow.” She laughed and rushed to shake my hand. “I’m Bea, like the bumble and buzzing kind.” Her grip nearly knocked me off my feet.

  “Nice to meet
you. I’m Molly, but we’re actually not—”

  “Oh, Molly, your fiancé is an absolute sweetheart. Such a chivalrous man to call and check up on the place setting you’ve been searching for.” She grinned up at Silas, showing all her teeth as she did. “It’s so rare that I get to speak to anyone but the bride or her bouncer these days.” She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “That’s what I call the coordinators. A bride acting like a bridezilla is mild in comparison to the nicknames I’ve made up to describe some of the ‘wedding planners’ I’ve been subjected to over the years.” Bea used air quotes around the words wedding planners, and if not for the too-snug store, and Silas at my back, I would have taken a step back. Maybe two.

  With one hand planted firmly on my shoulder, Silas reached around me and offered his other hand to Bea. Shockingly, the first words out of his mouth were not a correction on the whole fiancé bit. “It’s good to meet you in person, Bea. Thanks for putting a hold on those plates for us.”

  “Wouldn’t you know, but I’ve had two calls for that same place setting since I hung up with you. It’s like the whole wedding world’s gone mad over blush pinks and rose golds. We’re a little shop, but our footprint is growing with each wedding season.” Bea had a bit of an infomercial presence about her: the constant tilt of her head as she spoke, the smile that never seemed to dim.

  “Well, thank you again,” Silas said. “Would you mind if we took a look at them to make sure it’s what Molly wants before we sign the rental agreement?”

  “Not at all. I went ahead and set it all up for you both to see. It’s in the back here, next to a few other choices.” Bea bustled to the back of the store, where a few display tables covered by white linens were set up. And there, sitting right on top of the center table, was my vision in physical form. All of it, even down to the stem and flatware.

  “It’s perfect,” I said, fingering the rose gold rim, mesmerized by the glamour of it. “They’re even prettier in person.”

  Bea’s voice broke through the spell I was under. “By the expression on your fiancé’s face, I’d say he’s thinking the same thing about you.” Her tinkling laugh vibrated the sparkling wine glass I’d reached to inspect. “Gotta love a man who adores making his woman happy.”

  I glanced up to find Silas’s eyes not on the gorgeous table setting before us, but on me. Once again, I struggled for breath, and for the reality check I so desperately needed. Because this was perhaps the biggest fantasy moment I’d created on record. And I’d once stood beneath a clear umbrella as a thousand cherry blossoms tumbled over me from two stories up—all for the sake of the ideal image.

  But this moment at the bridal shop was even less real.

  There was no upcoming wedding, no fiancé, no lovestruck man admiring his soon-to-be bride. All of this was the by-product of a marketing guru so practiced at playing pretend that she often missed the cues for reality. I stared down at the pretty porcelain. How many times had I created the perfect image in hopes of procuring a future happiness that never came? Didn’t I own a shiny expensive car for that very reason?

  Bea gripped Silas’s arm and gave it a squeeze. “You two take your time. I’ll be at the register with the paperwork when you’re ready.”

  “Thank you,” I heard myself say. “We’ll be up in just a minute.”

  I worked to exhale the building static in my chest.

  “Is this what you want?” Silas asked the loaded question while I picked up a plate to study the microscopic print on the bottom, as if that had any reflection on the decision at hand. But squinting at the words hand wash only was easier than facing the truth pumping through my veins with every squeeze of my heart.

  I set the plate down and glanced at the classic settings to the right and left. Both beautiful in their own right. Both sturdy and sophisticated and wholly suitable in every way. And both half the price and a quarter of the demand.

  I slipped around the table and picked up the setting to my right—an all-cream number with a single watermarked flourish in the center of the salad dish. A far more practical option with far less pretense. I thought back to the highlighted figure on the budget sheet Clara had shown me. No matter how many sponsors I secured or how much money was pledged, whatever I didn’t spend on the showy extras would go straight to the house. To the future residents. To Silas’s off-the-page goals that would ultimately be matched one-to-one when we secured the Murphey Grant.

  And suddenly, that’s what I wanted most.

  I smiled up at Silas. “Actually, I’ll take these ones.”

  Silas stared at me, unblinking. “Those ones? Are you sure?”

  I nodded, a bit exhilarated at the thought of telling Clara I’d come in under budget for our party rentals. “Yes, I’m sure. I appreciate you calling on these, though, and for taking me out here so I could see them in person. It helped me process through a few things.”

  By the confused expression Silas wore, I could tell he hadn’t a clue what had just happened. Fair enough, since I wasn’t totally sure myself.

  “Okay,” he said with a nod. “I’ll go let Bea know.”

  “Thank you.”

  As soon as he left for the lobby, I touched the fantasy wedding plates one last time, admiring their beauty and feel, and whispered, “I’ll be back for you someday” as I walked out of the room to meet Silas and Bea.

  After the plate decision was made, it was only fair that Silas get to choose the restaurant, a point that I argued for going on five minutes in the parking lot of Bea’s Bridal. Finally, he acquiesced and consulted his phone, as neither of us knew the area. When he tried one last time for me to at least give him a food genre, I simply reclined the passenger seat and closed my eyes as the last of the day’s sun warmed my face. “You choose, Silas.”

  And choose he did. The most un-Silas-like place I could have imagined.

  “A bar?” I asked as he parked and unlocked our doors.

  “And grill. A bar and grill,” he repeated, as if that made it any less bar-like.

  “You do know what goes on in an establishment like this, right?” I lowered my voice in a mock whisper. “I hear they serve forbidden beverages here. Aren’t you worried this might break my volunteer contract at The Bridge?”

  “Not as long as you promise to refrain from all Jell-O shot table-dancing endeavors,” he deadpanned.

  I rolled my eyes but couldn’t help but smile at his reference to the worst interview in history. “I promise to be on my best behavior.”

  “Good. Because we’re here for a very specific reason.”

  I looked from him to the entrance of the most stereotypical small-town bar in America. “And what’s that? The sticky floors? The anti-nutritional dinner menu?”

  “Neither.” He pushed out his door and came around the car to open mine. “We’re here for the darts.”

  “Ooh, really?” A thrill of excitement rushed through me. “I approve of this plan one-hundred-percent. I was hoping I’d get to see you play ever since I first laid eyes on that dart board in your house this morning.” I tucked my clutch purse under my arm, and Silas lent me his elbow as if it were the most natural gesture in the world for the two of us. “Also, just so you’re aware, I’m a secret bar nachos fan. So no judgment when you hear me order extra cheese.”

  He chuckled. “Noted.”

  Like every bar scene ever captured on the big screen, this one was no different. Dark, dank, a bit too loud and echoey around the billiards table, and yet somehow it was the most perfect place to be on a Saturday evening with Silas.

  He was on his third iced tea, and I was on my second club soda with a twist of lime. Yet despite my sober mind and good intentions, throwing darts was not nearly as easy as Silas made it look.

  “Okay, okay. This is getting ridiculous. What’s your trick?” Hands on my hips, I stared him down. “Because unless you cursed my darts ahead of time, I have no clue why mine are bouncing off the board, while every one of yours is sticking in the cent
er of the bull’s-eye.”

  “My trick is twenty years of practice.”

  I huffed and reached in the front pocket of my purse for a hair tie. Time to get serious. I pulled my mane away from my face and off my neck. “Call me crazy, but that’s not exactly helpful advice.”

  He watched as I wrangled my hair into a messy bun and then plucked his last thrown dart out from the center, ruining our current game, which was pathetic at best. “Would you like me to give you a few pointers?”

  “About thirty minutes ago, yes.”

  Silas laughed, and so did I.

  He was different tonight. Less authority figure, more dart-throwing, nacho-cheese eating, everyday man. And I honestly couldn’t decide which version I liked more. Although dart-throwing Silas was gaining on the sexier of the two versions.

  “What? What’s that look for?” Silas asked, studying my face with a bit of a smirk.

  I shrugged. “Nothing, I was just thinking.” I reached for a dart, but he moved his hand away.

  “About?”

  “About how I expected we’d spend the whole day talking about the house and the residents and the current drama issues between Monica and Sasha. Kind of like parents who go out for a night on the town and can’t stop talking about their kids even though they promise not to.”

  An incredulous laugh boomed from his chest. “That’s really what you were thinking?”

  “Pretty much.” I swiped a dart from his hand. “And how I have excellent reflexes.”

  “A distracting mouth is more like it.”

  I gaped at him, certain he hadn’t meant it the way it sounded, but . . . that half grin of his would disagree.

  “First thing,” he said, after setting his iced tea back on the table. “Your throw is abysmal.”

  “What? My throw is not abysmal.”

  “Do you want pointers, or do you want to keep collecting your darts off the floor?”

  Touché. I pinched my lips together as he angled my right arm with his hand, slipping the dart between my fingers in a different configuration than my previous abysmal grip. “Okay, so this time, when you step forward, make sure your weight is completely on your right foot before you pull your arm back. Keep your wrist level. And don’t drop it until after you release. It should feel fluid and balanced. Go ahead. Try.”