by Tay Marley
When it was dark, Leroy and I settled down on a rug with a blanket so we could watch the fireworks. We could hear music from other camping sites drifting toward us, we could hear the lap of the water hitting the shore, and stars were glittered across the cobalt-blue night. It was beautiful.
“How’s the evening been?” Leroy asked from behind me. He was sitting up and I was between his legs against his chest, his chin resting atop my head.
“The best,” I said. “Your family is . . . so warm.”
“Warm?”
“Yeah, warm. Inviting. I feel so comfortable and welcome here. It’s hard to describe but I feel like I belong.”
He held me a little tighter. “I’m glad that you feel that way. Because you do belong here.”
The first lot of fireworks were abrupt, and I jolted with fright. Leroy laughed behind me and we watched the bursts of beautiful color exploding above us. Red, blues, and whites, blooming like unfolding flowers. What Leroy said made me feel an inexplicable amount of joy. Because I meant what I said; I felt like I belonged here in a way that I didn’t even feel at home sometimes.
Noah was in a better mood the next morning. We were in Leroy’s room so that we could talk to him about our plan to have the house to ourselves tonight. As cheerful as he was, that did not translate to cooperative.
“Noah, come on.”
Noah leaned against the doorframe while Leroy attempted to coax him into agreement. I watched from the bed, legs crossed and hopes high.
“Let me get this straight,” Noah said. “You want me to tell Mom and Dad that I’ll be here tonight. But you actually want me to leave so that you two can have some alone time.”
“As if I haven’t made that clear,” Leroy sighed with frustration.
His smug stare darted between the two of us, silence settling while he deliberated his response. If he didn’t agree to tell his parents that he would be in for the night, it would be harder to get them out of the house. And then if he did spend the night in, we wouldn’t be alone. So, the success of the plan was on his shoulders.
“Nah,” he finally grinned. “I think I’ll stay in. Perhaps I’ll even have a few friends over, since Mom and Dad will be out and all.”
“I’ve been polite,” Leroy seethed. “I could just pummel you into submission.”
He engaged in a frightening stare-down with Noah. I had a feeling that physical fights weren’t all that uncommon between the two brothers. And from the way that Noah’s expression became less smug by the second, it was safe to assume that Leroy often won.
“Fine,” Noah said. “I’ll go and see Cass.”
Leroy’s nostrils flared. “Leave her alone, Noah.”
“Bite me.”
Noah left the room with his middle finger raised.
“That’s the first part of the plan settled,” Leroy said and rested his large hands on the curve of my waist. “I’ll talk to Mom; she’ll be home from church soon. Dad’s easy. He’ll just do what Mom tells him to.”
I gave him a quick kiss. I was excited to spend some proper time together. It felt like we had been struggling to make it happen since I’d arrived a week ago.
I told Leroy that I needed to shower and change before I went downstairs. I was still in my nightdress. He left me to it and I didn’t waste time, getting ready as fast as I could. My hair fell in its natural wave after I had showered, and I changed into a denim spaghetti strap dress and pulled a plaid flannel around my waist. We had plans to go to the grocery store to get tonight’s dinner ingredients, so I swiped on a little bit of gloss and mascara as well.
Downstairs it was quiet, save for the hum of the television in the living room. I peeked through the door and spotted Jacob in his recliner chair, a coffee in one hand, the remote in the other. He was watching the football highlights, still dressed in his Sunday best. I was about to continue in search of Leroy when he hollered out.
“Ellie,” he smiled. “How are ya this morning, darlin’?”
I skipped down the step and wandered over to the sofa. “I’m good, Jacob. How are you?”
“Not bad,” he scratched his head, and I noted what a full head of hair he had for his age. “Leroy’s helping his mother with something in the garage.”
“Oh, that’s fine,” I said, sitting down on the sofa.
“He’s a good boy,” he chuckled, almost more to himself than me. “Good thing about him going to Baylor, you’ll be close. Worked out nicely.”
He lifted his coffee and guzzled it back, lowering the cup with a content sigh. “Good school that school. I went there.”
“How come you moved to Colorado?”
“Eleanor,” he answered, his gaze moving between myself and the football. “She always wanted to raise kids in a smaller town, and she got a job offer nearby so it just sort of happened. Good place to retire.”
“Of course,” I nodded with understanding. I always imagined raising children in a small town myself. “It must be nice to have Leroy attending the same college you did.”
He let out a cheerful whistle. “Sure, makes me happy. He didn’t have to. He was free to do what he wanted. But I’m proud. Real proud.”
I could tell that he meant it in the way he smiled. His tone was bold and enthused. It was such a pure kind of pride and a splitting grin formed on my own face in response.
The sound of the back door opening and closing was followed by the chitchat of Leroy and Eleanor. They appeared at the living room entrance and the room became brighter when he looked at me.
“Honey,” Eleanor set down a box of old records and wiped her brow. “Leroy bought us tickets to the cinema tonight and he reserved us a table at Duke’s Steakhouse in Castle Pines.”
Jacob looked suspicious for a second. But he quickly smiled at his son. “What are the tickets for?”
“The Truman Show,” Leroy said.
“Oh, that looks good.”
“I would have liked to have seen Out of Sight,” Eleanor mentioned as she sat on the floor, whipping a dish towel out of her dress pants pocket. She wiped down the old records, clearing them of dust.
“You can go and see that next weekend,” Leroy suggested.
He and his father locked eye contact as he offered me his hand and pulled me into his side. It would appear as though Jacob could see through our sweet gesture. But he didn’t call us out.
“Ready to go to the store?” Leroy asked, taking my hand. I gave him a confirming nod and we started out of the living room. He watched his mother with a curious stare, stopping at the entrance threshold before we rounded into the foyer.
“Mom, what are you doing with those?”
She peered up and waved a record. “I’m donating some of our collection. I’ve kept the best, of course.”
“Let me know if you need me to run them into the thrift store.”
“Thank you, sweetheart,” Eleanor said.
“We’ll be back in an hour or so,” Leroy called from beside the front door while he shoved his feet into his Vans. “Need anything from the store?”
“Get me a six-pack,” Jacob shouted.
Eleanor frowned. “He isn’t twenty-one.”
“Never mind then.”
I laughed as Leroy held the door open for me. The closer we got to our time alone, the more excited I grew. We slid into the car and wound down the windows as soon as the engine was fired up.
“Steakhouse is always a win,” Leroy grinned as he reversed out of the driveway. “I knew that’d get them out of the house.”
“Where’s Castle Pines?” I asked.
“An hour out of town,” he said, leaning across the center console once we were on the road, his hand settling on my thigh. “Finally, a bit of time to our damn selves.”
“I can’t wait.”
There’s literally nothing Leroy did that he di
dn’t look gorgeous doing. Somehow, he looked like perfection as he pushed a cart around the store. I wasn’t subtle in my admiration, watching as he reached the top shelves to collect various ingredients, his sun-kissed skin pulling taut around his firm muscles.
“What kind of sauces do you want, Els?” he asked as he glanced over a piece of paper in his hand. His lips moved as he murmured to himself and then he shoved the list back in his pocket.
I stared at the shelf that housed a huge selection of sauces and spreads. “Mayo? Peri Peri? Barbecue?”
“What kind of burritos do you eat?” he laughed.
“Peri Peri is good with chicken. We could have chicken burritos?”
Leroy shrugged with a thoughtful look on his face. “Could be good. I usually do ground beef. But that sounds tasty as well.”
“We should do a little bit of butter chicken. That could be super tasty in a soft wrap?”
“You’re the chef tonight,” he swiped a jar of sauce from the shelf. “What else?”
“Mmmm, hummus and sour cream, and we should get some lemon pepper seasoning.”
“Are you sure you’ve never cooked before?” he asked, reaching for the items and dropping them into the cart.
“I’m looking at things that sound like they might taste good with chicken,” I confessed.
We decided that we’d do a little side of ground beef too, so that we had options. When we got to the end of the aisle, Leroy suggested that I go and pick an ice cream for dessert while he went and got the meat from the fridge. We split off and I went in search of some cookies and cream.
It turned out to be harder than I thought to pick a flavor. I thought I knew what I wanted. But when faced with the ample options, I stared into the freezer and chewed my thumb. Passion fruit sounded good. But, chocolate. Peaches and cream sounds freaking delicious.
“Sorry, excuse me a moment.” I jumped a little at the unexpected voice beside me.
A man reached into the freezer and pulled out a tub of vanilla, dropping it into his basket. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” he apologized. “You were off in a daze and I didn’t want to be rude.”
“Oh, no, that’s my fault.” I was well aware of my habit to internally drift.
“You’re not from here, right?” he said.
“Um—”
“I work here,” he shifted his basket to the other hand. “I’m familiar with the regulars, and I’d definitely remember a face like yours.”
I blushed. Not because I was flattered or wanted to be flirtatious. It was just a reaction to being admired, and while he didn’t seem rude or arrogant, I still wasn’t that keen on being approached so casually. Of course, I didn’t want to seem like a bitch by telling him to shut up, so I stood there with red cheeks while I shifted nervously on the spot.
“I’m David,” he filled in the silence and offered me his hand.
“Babe,” Leroy’s voice pulled my attention to the end of the aisle, where he stood with the cart and a packet of diapers in each hand. “Is Abby in junior- or toddler-sized diapers? I forget. I know, worst dad ever.”
My jaw dropped and it took every single ounce of self-control that I could muster not to burst into a side-splitting laughter. He just stood there with a dead serious expression. I didn’t know how he was doing it because I was about three seconds from snorting like an animal.
“Oh, uh, toddler,” I answered and turned back to David, who looked a little disappointed. “Sorry, better get back to it. The baby’s waiting with the sitter.”
“Of course.” He gave me a brief nod and went on his way as Leroy wheeled the cart up beside me with a satisfied smile on his face.
“Who is Abby?” I laughed.
“I have no idea. It was just the first name that I thought of when I saw that slut of a cashier chatting you up.”
“Aww, is someone jealous?” I teased.
He stopped the cart and stared at me with an expression that left no room to mistake how serious he was. “That would suggest that I want what isn’t mine,” he shrugged. “I’d like to think we’ve established exclusiveness and I will always protect that.”
And after he pressed a quick kiss on my lips, he carried on pushing the cart, leaving me reeling with an abundance of emotions. It’s an amazing thing when the same man who makes you feel as though the earth is spinning is also the one who can take you by the hand and keep you from falling over.
He made me feel things I’d never felt before—special, protected—because he chose me. He cared enough to make me the center of his world. He was always making sure I felt comfortable and happy. He was showing me what it felt like to fall in love, and I was loving every moment of it.
The stolen kisses while no one was looking. The heated gazes across the room. The excitement when we discovered something new about each other. Because despite the hours of phone conversations, there were still things we had yet to learn, and it was a beautiful thing. I had never been so excited to find out how dark someone liked their toast. Or which side of the bed they preferred. Or if they liked their OJ with or without pulp. Or if they favored sweet or savory. It was all of the small things that made a person who they were, and I wanted to know it all.
We stood at the checkout and started placing our items on the belt while the woman in front of us paid for her groceries. I realized it was one of the moms from the kids’ football practice, Maxi Bryan. She hadn’t seen us, so we let her continue without bothering her. She chatted with the cashier while her son tossed his football in the air. “Not in the supermarket, Nathan,” she playfully scolded. She received her change and the two of them left hand in hand.
We loaded everything onto the belt and then Leroy stood behind me with his arms clasped in front of my stomach. The cashier packed the groceries into the plastic bags.
“That’ll be eighty-two dollars and thirty-six cents,” she said when she was done.
“Oh, jimmy shoo!” I broke free from Leroy, heading straight for the bags. “We’ll put something back. We can just do one meal. Ground meat or chicken? And the ice cream, we don’t need—”
“Els,” Leroy laughed, and when I glanced at him, my hand still in the bag, he shook his head in dismissal. “I’ve got it.”
“But it’s so exp—”
“Ellie,” he gave me a sideways glance and ran his card through the machine. “I’ve got it.”
The cashier gave me an amused smile and I stepped back so that he could finish the transaction. I wasn’t used to dropping that kind of cash on a whimsical trip to the store. We spent that in a month of groceries at home. The amount of money he spent made me feel a little terrible, made me question whether or not I needed to earn it or do something to deserve such an amount being spent on me.
What if I seemed like a burden? What if he realized I couldn’t keep up with his lifestyle? I worked for what I had, and I liked to work hard, but that didn’t mean we were in the same league. We weren’t even in the same game.
“You’re overthinking things,” Leroy whispered as his lips brushed my temple. It stirred me from my thoughts and I skipped into step beside him as he pushed the cart full of groceries toward the exit.
“How do you do that?”
“You have a tell,” he grinned, staring straight ahead as though he was picturing something. “Your eyebrows pull together and your bottom lip juts out. You do it whenever you’re thinking. Usually you follow it up with a question or a statement that bothers you.”
“You’re very observant,” I noted as we wandered through the parking lot, the sweltering sun beaming straight down on us.
“I am when it comes to you,” he turned to me with a breathtaking smile. And I do mean breathtaking. “You’re important to me.”
“You’re important to me too.”
Ellie
When we got back to the house and headed into th
e kitchen to unload the groceries, we found Noah sitting just outside of the sliding door on the deck. He was bouncing a handball up and down as music came from the windowsill speaker, and he turned to look at us with a mild frown when he noticed that we’d come back with our ingredients for the meal tonight.
“Is there enough for three?” Noah asked with a robotically loud voice for the sake of their parents outside, “since I will definitely be here for dinner and all.”
Leroy paused with the fridge door open and gave him a bored stare. He looked as if he wanted to say something, but in the end, he shook his head and carried on putting stuff away. Noah scoffed and picked up a Game Boy from the deck beside him. The little beeps and pings filled the quiet air while Leroy moved around the kitchen, opening and closing cupboards.
Eleanor popped her head through the sliding door wearing a sun hat and gardening gloves. She looked between the three of us before her attention fell on me.
“Can I have a quick chat, sweetheart?”
Instant panic. “Ye—sure.”
Noah cackled. “Someone’s in trouble.”
Leroy leaned his palms on the countertop and looked at his mom. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, for goodness’ sake, I want to chat with Ellie for a moment.”
Outside, I followed her down the deck, across the grass, and toward a foam mat that was stretched out in front of fresh soil and a couple of colorful flowers that were in plastic pots to be planted. She kneeled on the mat and started digging some little holes.
“Honey, I know that this may be unfair of me to ask because you’re here in Castle Rock for Leroy, but I can tell that Noah is itching to spend some time with his big brother. I was wondering if there was something we could do about that?”
“Oh,” I turned and looked at Noah sitting on the deck, sulking with his Game Boy. It was sort of awkward because what else was I supposed to do? But he was doing us a favor tonight, so making myself scarce for a few hours was the least I could do. “Yes, I can—”
