I eye Doyle from under the safety of my lashes. He’s looking edible in his dark, stiff blue jeans and crisp white button-down. “Do you feel like dancing tonight?”
“Do one-legged ducks swim in circles?”
My mom chokes on a laugh, and I roll my eyes.
“Okay, let me get a picture before you go, then I have to run. I’m meeting the girls for some Bunco. Make sure you text me when you get home, sweetie.” She herds us toward the fireplace, and I realize this is the first time in months she hasn’t hesitated and double-checked before she asked me to do something so basic and momish.
I am so done with angst. It’s nice to officially have my mom back.
“You don’t need to rush home. Last time you left when you were on a winning streak,” I tell her.
She rearranges us so she can snap a few thousand pictures. “Deidre did say I could crash in her guest room if it got too late. And Lori is making that sangria we all love…”
“Mom, it’s the twenty-first century. We have these devices called phones. Stay out and have fun, I’ll text you to let you know I’m home safe.”
“You’re sure?” she lowers the camera.
“In a few months I’ll be living in a dorm full-time, Mom,” I say, my tone both joking and gentle.
She presses her lips tight. “You’re right. Okay. A few more shots, and then you kids go have fun, and I’ll go win that Bunco pot if it takes me till dawn to do it.”
“I believe in you and your mad Bunco skills, Mom.”
Doyle slides an arm around me, his hand warm on the bare skin between my top and skirt. It makes my nipples go tight, half with memory, half with anticipation. We smile for a dozen pictures before I whisper, “We need to leave now, before she wants video.”
“Right. You and me on video would be a real bad thing.”
“Are you trying to get me all riled up?”
“Do frogs have watertight butt holes?” His smile is so huge, it’s ludicrous.
“Are you going to impress me with these charming Southern sayings all night?”
“Does Dolly Parton sleep on her back?”
“Jesus, Doyle!” I’m laughing as I lead him to my car.
Which brings us to an impasse, since he’s headed to his truck. “Where are you going?” I point to my car. “This is my date. We’re taking my car.”
“I love that you got all Yankee ballsy and asked me out, but I can’t ride in that hamster wheel.” He levels a look riddled with disgust at my ride.
I crook my finger. “My date. My rules. My car.”
“You know I’m an easy guy. But I gotta have a line in the sand and… This. Is. It.” He stands with his feet spread wide, and—though I admire how surprisingly sexy those cowboy boots are when I take in his stance—I’m not about to let Doyle Rahn boss me around.
“Cool. Well, I look hot, I have reservations for two… If not you, I’m sure I’ll find someone willing to go on this date with me.”
He’s jogging over by the time I tug down on my skirt and slide into the driver’s seat.
“Damn, girl, you’re cold as ice.” He manages to grab my door at the last second and shut it securely. He hurries to his side and buckles up, grinning like the fool he truly is. The fool I’m totally in love with. “It’s hot, watching you drive.”
“It’s not hot, listening to you be a caveman.” I let him see the full 360-degree roll of my eyes.
“You’re pretty when you’re a little fired up.”
“You’re handsome when you’re quiet.” I swat his hand away when he reaches toward the radio knobs. “Forget it. Then think about it for a second and forget it again. Life’s been depressing enough without the mournful wail of country music.”
“What do you wanna listen to?” Doyle turns in the seat so he’s looking right at me.
Usually the person who’s not driving becomes the default fidgeter in the car, but Doyle’s sitting in the passenger seat, chill as can be, while I thump my fingers on the steering wheel, readjust my skirt, and tap the toe of my left foot on the floorboard like I’m a six-year-old who drank an espresso. I love driving. Living in Brooklyn, I rarely got to drive, and these last few months have made me realize how much I enjoy it.
“Something loud. Something we can sing along to. Something angry.” I fish around for my iPod and toss it to him with the cord that connects it to the stereo. “I’ve got tons of playlists.”
“Juan Luis Guerra, Daddy Yankee, Shakira, Cuco Valoy…” He’s already scrolling through. “This mix is called ‘STFU and Riot.’” He raises his eyebrows.
“It’s gone platinum on 8-tracks,” I brag, singing along too loud to Siouxsie and the Banshees’s “Hong Kong Garden” when he pushes Play. “I remember dancing around to this with my mom while she mopped.”
Doyle’s eyeing the iPod warily. “You and your mama cleaned up to this noise?”
My laugh loosens something that’s been tied down too tight. “Stop looking so shocked. This mix starts out pretty tame. Wait till we get to Pussy Riot.”
We’re flying along the highway now, and we both roll our windows down and let the warm air rush in. Doyle is one of those people who catches on to lyrics incredibly fast, so we’re both singing along loud and strong to early Debbie Harry, Bikini Kill, L7—all the great punk my mother introduced me to and some stuff Ollie and I found on our own.
“So your mama—the lady who listens to Harry Connick Jr. while she cooks—really likes…” He grabs my iPod and flicks the screen on, reading the artist of the next song (which is freaking awesome, not that he’d acknowledge it). “The Cramps?”
“Who can resist punk-tinged rockabilly?” I pat his knee. “There, there. We’re almost to the restaurant, and I’m pretty sure they won’t be playing punk.”
“Pretty sure?” He sticks a finger in his ear like he’s trying to clean out the noise.
“I try to keep myself open to the possibility of pleasant surprises.” We pull up to what looks like a strip mall. I notice Doyle eyeing the Outback Steakhouse across the street as I turn off the ignition. “We’re not going to Outback.”
“I love me some bloomin’ onion,” Doyle mourns.
“Well, you can take some other girl to get one when I leave,” I snap, and we both still.
“Why do you keep doin’ that?” he asks, his voice low.
Traffic buzzes past in jolting, frenetic starts and stops that I watch in the rearview mirror. My voice sounds thicker than I expect when I answer with words that are simple and not enough. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. Tell me why,” he coaxes.
I grip the steering wheel too hard, pressing my arms straight and tensing back into the seat. “Dammit, Doyle! I don’t know.”
“You do too,” he baits.
“We’re going to be late for our reservation.”
“Screw the reservation, Nes. I want you to tell me why you use the fact that you’re leavin’ to slice at me like that. It’s dirty fightin’, and I expect better from you.”
“Really?” If it comes out a little sneered, so be it. “Dirty fighting like, oh, I don’t know…maybe screwing me then telling me it was the biggest mistake you made and we should forget it? You’ve been so damn busy running around, doing your ag class and prom crap and who knows what the hell else, you made it totally clear what’s important to you. So don’t start accusing me, Doyle. Don’t you dare point the finger at me when you’re just as big a coward as I am!”
I throw that down, but what I don’t have the cojones to admit, even to myself—especially to myself—is that if Doyle wants to forget, I only want to remember the version of us that I’m comfortable with. The version that’s temporary and uncomplicated. So how is that any better?
He gets out of the car and slams the door hard, then stops short on the sidewalk, like he doesn’t know what to do or where to go. The sound of that slamming door unleashes a hot, red fury in me, and I follow his lead, stalking onto the sidewalk in front o
f the restaurant in my ridiculously high heels, arms crossed, pissed as hell and not sure what to do about it. So I kick some gravel into the gorgeous little rock garden they have set up in front of the place. I pace back and forth, and one of my heels catches in the crack of the sidewalk.
Doyle rushes toward me as I’m righting myself.
“I’ve got it!” I yell, pushing him away. “I don’t need you!”
He catches my wrists in his hands and holds them tight as we both breathe hard. He stares at me like he wants to eat me alive. I stare back like I want to lay myself on a platter and let him.
“You think I don’t know that?” He relaxes his hold. His hands slip down, and just when I think he’s going to let me go, he yanks me into his arms. My face is crushed in the clean front of his shirt that smells like the old-fashioned starch my gram uses when she irons. There’s no closer to get than how close we already are, but it’s like I want to burrow into him. “You think that doesn’t kill me?” he grinds out, one tortured word at a time.
“Why?” I wrap my arms around his body and ball my hands in the fabric at the back of his shirt, tugging him tighter, closer.
“Because if you need me, I actually got a chance. I got the slimmest chance you might not leave.” He kisses me, just at my temple. “But you don’t need me. You don’t need anyone. The only chance I’d have to keep you is gettin’ you to want me. And I got a feeling I’m gonna fail at that pretty bad.”
“Stop,” I beg in a whisper. “I do want you. And I do need you.” I pull him tighter, twist harder at his shirt and blink like a maniac to beat the tears back. “Not to save me. To hold me. To tell me it’ll be okay, that we’ll be okay. Because I don’t always know anymore.”
He pulls back just enough so his eyes can meet mine. “We’re gonna be okay, you and me. We’re fighters.”
I laugh around a wet hiccup. “Okay. I guess we might as well keep fighting then, since it’s what we do best. But maybe we should stop fighting each other? It would make a lot more sense if we were on the same team.”
“We’re good at that.” We both laugh, first quietly, then so hysterically, people walking past give us a wide berth as they head into the restaurant. We clutch each other and scream with laughter until our sides ache and we’re gasping. “You still wanna go in?” he asks once we calm down. “We don’t have to.”
I stand up, press my hands on his now-wrinkled shirtfront, adjust his collar, and smooth his hair back into place. “You look handsome.”
“Thank ya.” He blushes.
He’s so beautiful. And warm and funny. He’s also the only person I’ve ever been so afraid to love and so afraid to lose at the same time.
“You got all dressed up, and I promised you a date. Let’s go.” I push back all the crazy feelings running unleashed through me and tug his hand. We walk through the foyer and peer nervously into the dining area, which is romantically dim. The zen music adds to the mellow, adult ambiance I try to pretend I’m used to.
Doyle follows stiffly as a hostess leads us to a cozy corner table draped in heavy white linens. He opens the menu and says, “I don’t think I’ve ever even noticed this place drivin’ by here.”
“It’s kind of unexpected, right?” I glance around. “Mom told me she and her coworkers come here for dinner sometimes, but I didn’t expect it to be so…” Adult? Intimidating? “Nice.”
It’s a little out of our league, I guess, but we’re old pros at doing things that make us uncomfortable. The waitress is friendly, and Doyle looks super impressed when I ask for her recommendation. We wind up getting Kobe beef appetizers, pad thai, and sea scallops with basil sauce.
“This place is real nice.” Doyle makes an extra effort to sit up very straight and keep his elbows off the table.
“Hey.” He gives me a startled look. I smile and his face lights up. “Relax,” I whisper. “It’s just a restaurant.”
“I guess I’m jest used to the kinda places where I can order through the window and eat in my truck.”
“Doyle, Savannah has some of the country’s most amazing restaurants. It’s insane you haven’t gone to more of them.”
“You musta gone to some fancy places in New York. With your ex.” He bats his lashes and tries pass it off as an innocent observation.
Right. Except I didn’t just fall off the turnip cart, as my grandmother would say.
“Not exactly. We hung out all the time and did fun things when we were first dating, but the longer we were together, the more he wanted to party. And that’s not exactly my scene.” Before the night devolves into me reminiscing about everything that went wrong with my ex, I switch gears. “But Ollie and me? We had a column in our school paper called ‘Besties’ Best Bites in Brooklyn.’ We’d pick some random food—cupcakes, spring rolls, hot dogs, bizcocho dominicano—and we’d spend the week hunting down the best places and rating them together. Then Ollie made our reviews into YouTube videos, and we became these minor celebrities.” I wink at him. “I don’t wanna brag, but if you’re ever in Brooklyn, drop my name at a couple bagel shops or bakeries and you’ll probably wind up with free food.”
“She sounds real cool, your friend Ollie.” Doyle starts to say something else, but stalls when the waitress drops off our appetizers—which are so mouthwatering, I wish Ollie was here to rate them with me. They’d earn five glitter-polish thumbs-up, no question.
“She is really cool,” I say after we’ve each had a few bites. “It would be amazing if…if you two could meet.”
The second I say my private wish out loud, I’m covered in goose bumps up and down my arms and over my neck.
“Meet?” Doyle stares at his plate. “Like me come to visit? New York?”
“Doesn’t have to be New York.” I poke his foot with mine under the table, then wiggle out of my heel and draw my bare toes down his calf, shocked at how quickly a friendly poke is turning into full-blown footsie. His cool eyes burn with a fire that’s as exciting as it is unnerving. I yank my foot back. “I think she’s going to college in Ohio. If she does, I’ll go see her on winter break from college. If I drive, company would be rad.”
Ugh, it’s shameless baiting but, as usual, I can’t help myself.
“Winter break. From college.” He rolls the words on his tongue, and I realize the whole thing—snow, cold, winter, college—is an alien world compared to the reality of our senior year in Georgia’s blazing subtropical version of spring.
“Yeah.” Our unspoken future yawns wide-open between us. I’ve been so focused on living in the moment—surviving in the moment actually—that I don’t broach the future much. But, whether either one of us is ready or not, it’s barreling at us full steam, and no amount of ignoring it can change that fact. “Both sets of our grandparents set up funds for my brother and me when we were babies that they put some money into every month, plus our parents are professors, so we have some ins.” I cringe a little announcing this to Doyle. I have to imagine that, with raising four grandsons, his grandparents don’t have a trust set up for him. “So. Have you given college any more thought?”
“Actually I got some letters from the schools on the list you gave me. Some calls. After the night those assholes lit the cross in your yard and the story kinda blew up, must’ve put me on their radars.” He runs his hand through his hair. “A school in Connecticut. One in New Jersey. They wanted to talk about scholarships, mebbe. One asked about me joinin’ their student equity club. They both have solid ag programs. I Googled ’em,” he admits with this adorable sheepishness.
“Doyle, that’s incredible. Congratulations! New Jersey? Connecticut?” I swallow hard. Neither one is New York, but they’re both a short train ride. Or a drive.
Doyle Rahn on my home turf.
I wish we’d done a better job navigating all the tough stuff over these past months, so that I could be mildly confident about a future that involves me and Doyle—together. But, damn, we’ve messed everything up six ways till Sunday, and I’m not sur
e we’ll be able to stop screwing up in the long run, if we stay together.
Who would Doyle be outside Georgia? Would he be as different a version of himself as the version of me is outside Brooklyn? We’ve both been so defined by where we grew up, our communities, the people who we love and don’t want to leave.
The fact is, my geographical transplant changed me, but it also made me more eager than ever to get back to what I know, the place where I belong. At least for now.
So what’s the use bothering to get excited about the possibility of having Doyle close to me, if there’s a good chance he’d wind up as homesick as I’ve been?
“It’s probably stupid.” He runs his palms up and down the stiff denim of his jeans.
“No, it isn’t.” But I don’t sound sure, even to myself. “You won’t know unless you try. Plus it’s not like this place will ever go away. No matter how much I may want it to,” I joke.
His smile is stilted. “Has it been that bad?”
My throat goes tight. I shake my head hard. “No. That was a bad joke. It’s been one of the best things I ever hated doing, actually.”
I rub the back of his calf, and he reaches down, sets my foot in his lap and slides my shoe off again. Under the white linen, he runs his thumbs along my arch, and I sit up straight, shocked at how good it feels.
“Stop,” I whisper.
“Are you sure?” he asks, his voice normal volume, like he’s not touching me in a way that’s perfectly innocent, but feels so freaking amazing.
“Don’t stop yet,” I decide, melting against his touch. “But you’ll have to when dinner comes.”
“We can pick up later.” He keeps rubbing, and I clamp my bottom lip between my teeth to stop myself from moaning.
“Don’t do that.” He finally drops his voice.
“What?” I ask at normal volume.
“Bite that lip.” His thumb slides over my arch with slow, sweet pressure. “You have no idea how beautiful you are, Nes.”
It’s not even the words so much as the way he says them, like he’s in a little bit of pain.
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