His hand dragged up my side until his thumb rested just beneath my breast. His fingers splayed over my ribs and reached to my back and somehow in that simple touch, I felt like he held all of me.
His free hand dropped to my hip, tugging me against him, pressing my body into his and reminding me of how very female I was compared to his overwhelming maleness.
“He’s a creep,” Levi growled.
I let out a shaky laugh. “I know.”
“Then why are you still with him?”
“I-I’m not. I just… we just danced. That’s all.”
His head lowered and I felt his breath on my lips. “I can help, you know?”
I thought he meant with Ajax at first, but his thumb started rubbing circles on my hip bone and my thoughts tangled together. “Help with what?”
His lips brushed against mine and I shivered. “The loneliness,” he whispered right before his mouth took possession of mine.
Just like the first time, we exploded with carnal need. His mouth demanded control, hungry, devouring. There were lips and teeth and tongue and all I could do was wrap my arms around his neck and hold on.
We skipped whatever soft, sweetness was supposed to be in a first kiss and went straight to the lust-curling, butterfly-blinding desperation.
Our mouths moved in sync, as if we’d always kissed, as if we instinctively knew exactly what the other person wanted—needed. His tongue dragged over my bottom lip and I retaliated by nipping at his with my teeth. He made a low rumble in the back of his throat and pushed me against the wall.
My breath whooshed out of me in surprise, but he didn’t relent. We kissed and kissed and kissed until my lips were swollen and I had to press my thighs together to survive the building need.
His lips moved against my mouth with an intimate knowledge of what I liked… what I needed. Our tongues tangled together in a dance that was so much better than anything that had happened on the dance floor tonight. He was my perfect other half in this. He was the one good kiss I could remember being totally lost in and now, seven years in the future, it was like he’d picked up exactly where we’d left off.
I wanted to kiss him forever. There wasn’t any reason to stop what we were doing. He was making me dizzy with the things he did with his tongue and the way his teeth scraped over my bottom lip, sending shivers trembling through me. His hands held onto me with such firm possession that I believed they belonged like that, believed that he should never let go.
“God, Levi,” I panted, clutching his t-shirt with two fists.
He pulled back slowly, resting his forehead against mine. “Better than I remembered,” he murmured. “Which is pretty fucking hard to top.” His hand cupped my jaw and he pressed another kiss to my lips, sweeter this time, infinitely gentler. When he pulled back a soft laugh escaped him. “I’d started to think I’d made the whole thing up. Or at least built it up in my head. I couldn’t figure out how one kiss could stay with a man for seven fucking years. Now I know. It’s you, Ruby. You’re black magic.”
I shivered again, a full body vibration that rocked me from head to toe. It was better than our first kiss. So much more intense. Filled with life and growing up and all the spaces that separated us since that night.
Son of a bitch. That night.
Was I really repeating all my mistakes from seven years ago?
What the hell was I doing kissing Levi? This was only asking for trouble.
And not just because I wanted to keep Max’s father a secret. I couldn’t tell Levi because it would mess him up to know I slept with his brother—and then had Logan’s baby.
He’d been thinking about our one kiss for seven years? What was I supposed to do with that?
I rarely even thought about losing my virginity that night. And it had led to me having a baby!
“I-I’m just—”
He pressed his thumb to my bottom lip and I bit it instinctively. “Witchcraft,” he whispered.
“Levi, we need to talk—”
“Ruby?” Ajax called from the other end of the hallway.
“Shit,” I whispered.
Levi stepped in front of me, covering me with his body. “Ruby’s not back here,” he barked.
I hid my face in my hands and waited for the blowout. Ajax would lose his shit if he knew I was kissing someone else—especially after I’d been dancing all night with him.
“He’s gone,” Levi soothed. “It’s too dark for anyone to see anything.” He peppered kisses along my cheek and jawline, down the column of my neck. He wanted more. He thought… he thought because of how good our kiss was that it meant more.
And in normal circumstances, with a normal girl, it probably would have. But I wasn’t normal.
We weren’t normal.
Our circumstances definitely weren’t normal.
“I have to go,” I told him quickly, suddenly desperate to get out of here.
His head popped up. “Are you okay?”
“No, yeah, I mean, I just need to get home. My mom is watching Max and I told her I wouldn’t be out late.” More importantly I told her I wouldn’t get pregnant and I couldn’t make any promises where Levi Cole was involved.
“O-okay. Are you all right to drive?” Concern drew his eyebrows together and he still hadn’t stepped back.
“I just had two drinks. And that was at least an hour ago. I’m fine.”
“When can I see—”
“I’m sorry, Levi. I need to go.”
He took a step back, finally getting the hint. “Sure. Fine.” I felt him shut down like it was a physical thing, like a wall had slammed between us, an invisible wall seven years high and a lifetime of being at each other’s throats wide.
I peered at him through the darkness in the hall, trying to figure out if this moment would cause irreparable damage. If this was the time I finally ruined whatever there was between us for good. I felt cold and hollow, broken and wrong. There was something damaged inside of me, something that wouldn’t let good things happen.
Levi and I could have happened once upon a time, but I’d been too focused on telling him no, on not letting anything slow me down from leaving this town. And so I’d sabotaged whatever good thing was between us in the worst way possible.
And even though it gave me Max, it had ruined so many other things.
“Why do you keep bothering me?” I’d asked him once during our senior year.
“I don’t know how to leave you alone,” he’d said. Then he’d asked, “Do you want me to leave you alone?”
I had turned my head, so he couldn’t see my eyes and whispered, “I don’t know how to want that either.”
I still didn’t know. I still couldn’t let him just be, just find happiness with someone else. The same poisonous thing that got in my way, would eventually ruin him too. If I didn’t cut the tether between us, he would meet the monster that always destroyed.
My body turned cold with dread as I looked at him now, defenses raised, prepared for battle. “I’ll see you later,” I told him.
“Maybe,” was his reply.
I pushed through the back door and ran through the gravel parking lot to my Corolla. I sped home, desperate to get back to my side of town, to what I knew and expected and had resigned myself to.
I pulled into Meadowbrooks, the life I had built for myself. I could leave the trailer park and pretend I belonged in normal society, but the truth was this would always be my home. I would always be the daughter of a strip club manager, the single mom struggling to make ends meet, the girl from the trailer park.
Max had fallen asleep on my bed and I was thankful my mom had let him. He looked like a little cherub with his unruly dark hair and his glasses placed carefully on the nightstand.
After changing into yoga pants and a tank top and washing my face clean of all the makeup I had been so excited to wear, I curled up next to him and pressed my nose onto his pillow. A minute later it was soaking wet from my tears.
Max stir
red, partially waking up at the sound of my stifled sobbing.
“Mommy?” he mumbled with his sleep-roughened voice.
“I’m right here,” I told him, thankful for the excuse to pull him into my arms. “I’m sorry I woke you.”
“Are you okay?” he asked groggily.
“I just missed you. I’m glad to be home.” True statements.
He snuggled closer, rubbing his hand on my back. “It’s going to be okay, mommy,” he promised. “Whatever made you sad is going to be okay.”
I should have just let it be. He didn’t even really know what he was saying and at six he could hardly give me solid life advice. But instead, I sniffled another sob and asked, “How do you know?”
He blinked up at me, sudden clarity brightening his green, green eyes. “Because you’re the bravest person I know. You can do anything.”
He fell back asleep just a minute later and I clung to him and his words and the promise that things would feel better in the morning.
15
Gossip Girls
I left work early so I could help setup for Max’s Halloween party while the kids were at recess. Rosie had been happy to let me go, even though it meant she would have to cover for me.
Rosie was good about letting me take time off for Max, but it was a privilege I didn’t want to abuse. I missed a lot of his field trips and extracurricular things in case I needed to take time off if he was sick or heaven forbid, I got sick.
I was a push-through-it kind of girl, but I worked in food service. My customers didn’t appreciate me handling their food while I puked my guts out in the bathroom.
Becky Calvin leaned out of her window when I walked through the school doors. “Hey, pretty lady!”
“Hey!” I smiled at her, sidling up to the window ledge. “You look cute.” She was dressed as a cat in the most minimal way possible. She wore adorable cat ears and a fuzzy black sweater, and she’d painted a kitten nose and whiskers on her face. She was the cutest.
She laughed and rolled her eyes. “Would you believe I get excited for school parties? Growing up, my dad never let my brother or me dress up. This is like living out a missing part of my childhood.”
“Your dad didn’t let you celebrate Halloween?”
She shrugged. “Baptist preacher, remember? When I was a kid, Halloween was the day that all the sadists came out to kidnap children.”
I snorted a laugh. “I didn’t know we had so many sadists in Clark City.”
“The funny thing is now that my brother is married with kids, my dad is all about the holiday. He dresses up with my nieces and nephews and takes them all by himself.”
“Does that make you mad?” I laughed.
Shaking her head, she said, “Not really. I’m happy he’s a better grandpa than he was a dad.”
“I feel the same way about my mom,” I sympathized. Only for totally opposite reasons. Becky’s dad was too involved in her life. My mom encouraged me to go trick-or-treating, albeit by myself, but that way she felt like I had enough snacks to last me a while. It was basically free grocery shopping on her end.
“Hey, I heard a rumor about you,” she said, leaning closer so the office trolls behind her didn’t overhear.
“Oh, no, I can only imagine.”
She waggled her eyebrows dramatically. “Word around town is that Levi Cole has the hots for you. How come you never told me he’s been burning a flame for you since high school.”
“Because he hasn’t,” I snapped, more forcefully than I should have. “I mean, not that I knew about anyway. He picked on me back then. Not much has changed.”
“I heard something about Pug’s last weekend,” she whispered.
I couldn’t help it. I leaned forward and dropped my voice. “Oh, no. What did you hear?”
“About the fight.”
“What fight?”
“The fight with Levi and that horse trainer.”
“You’re going to have to be more specific,” I encouraged her, dread curling my toes inside my Chucks.
“You really don’t know? I could have sworn you were there.”
“Were you there?” I asked her, exasperated.
“Well, no. That’s just what I heard.”
“Becky, I know for sure I didn’t see a fight. If I had seen it, I would remember seeing it. Now can you please tell me what happened?”
She pursed her lips for a moment, feigning indecision, but believe me, it was only an act. Then she launched into her story. “Apparently, Levi was pissed off because you showed up with another man to his party and he sulked the whole night. Kristen March tried to get his attention for hours and he would have none of her. That’s what Monica Kerry told me anyway. When Kristen asked him what his problem was, I guess he said it was the guy you were with was pissing him off. Then everybody had too much to drink and the horse trainer said something to Levi about you and Levi punched him in the face.”
“Oh, my god, then what?”
“Then, I don’t know… I wasn’t there.”
“Did they fight?”
“No, I think Levi knocked him out cold.”
My face flamed tomato red and I considered my options: grabbing Max and leaving town, grabbing Max, going home to the trailer and never coming out again. Grabbing Max and heading to Mexico. “That’s the most ridiculous story I have ever heard. I wasn’t even there… for long.”
Just long enough to dance all over Ajax for hours and then make out with Levi by the bathrooms.
Apparently, I was there long enough.
Shit.
Becky shrugged casually, but her eyes sparkled with interest. “Does Levi have it bad for you?”
I frowned at my hands. “I didn’t know any of that until just now.”
“He hasn’t said anything to you?”
He had said plenty to me, but I wasn’t going to share that with Becky. “He said he wants to be friends. We weren’t really, er, friends, in high school. I was a brat.”
“I also heard he went home with Kelly Fink that night.” She shrugged again, the light dimming in her eyes. “So maybe it’s not what everyone’s saying it is.”
A foreign feeling burned beneath my skin, clawing at my bones and upsetting my stomach. Kelly Fink? Really? Levi couldn’t see through that shallow hag?
To Becky I said, “Bet Kristen loved that.”
Becky gave me a look. “Kelly better hire private security or something.”
Despite the icky feeling inside me, I smiled. Becky made a good point. “If Kelly disappears, we know what to tell the sheriff.”
Becky laughed and grabbed some nearby papers to shuffle. “I’m kind of bummed, Ruby. I was hoping he had a thing for you.”
I laughed, unable to stop the bitter sound from falling out of my mouth. “Why?”
She spread her hands helplessly. “Because you’re one of us, a girl on the fringe. The haves have been mating the haves since the beginning of time. What about all us have-nots? You are like… Cinderella.”
I looked down at my too short, striped waitress dress and stained Chucks. “I’m pretty much the opposite of Cinderella.” Not even Cinderella came from Clark City, Nebraska. And she definitely didn’t have an illegitimate child with the prince’s brother.
“You know what I mean,” Becky insisted. “I’m rooting for your happily ever after. That’s all.”
I rolled my eyes. “Trailer Park Princess. It does have a kind of ring to it, yeah?”
“Stop,” she groaned. “Don’t be crazy.”
I wasn’t being crazy. I was just keeping it real.
Tapping the ledge with my right hand, I took a step back. “All right, Becks, I need to get in there before Jamie has a conniption.”
She made a face. “Good luck to you. I heard your decorations turned out awesome though.”
Was nothing private in this town? “How do you know so much?” I asked her.
Gesturing at the space around her, she leaned forward and whispered, “This is
the main hub of communication. If you want to know anything about anybody, you just come talk to me. I hear it all.”
I would have to remember that. “Good to know. See you this weekend at the Halloween extravaganza?”
“Literally would not miss it for anything.”
I wished I could have felt that much enthusiasm, but I would buck up for Max. He was super excited about trick-or-treating around town. I’d sent him to school in a version of his costume this morning, but he would get to paint his face this Saturday night for the final Supper in the Square and go all out.
Jamie greeted me when I stepped inside the first-grade classroom. There were two other moms already there, helping string crepe paper streamers from one side of the classroom to the other. Just like at her house, this room looked like Halloween had thrown up everywhere.
But I was starting to realize that’s just how Jamie worked. She was contained chaos. I liked that about her.
“I’m so glad you were able to get off work,” she said enthusiastically. “We need your design expertise bad!”
The other two moms shot me looks from across the room. I didn’t really know either of them, just that one had a son Max never played with and the other had twins, a girl and a boy. They looked like all the other women in town though—highlighted hair, studded blue jeans, plaid shirts. They were a walking, talking ad for Miss Sixty jeans.
“You’re the creative genius,” I told her. “I’m just following your lead.”
She waved me off. “Help me set up the games,” Jamie coaxed. “Do you know Brianna and Leslie?”
“Hi,” I said. “I don’t think we’ve had a chance to meet yet. I’m Max’s mom.”
Their shared look was unmistakable. I watched it happen in slow motion, like a fender-bender I couldn’t stop.
This was a moment I was familiar with. When I was a child it said, “This is the daughter of that stripper,” or “That’s the girl from the trailer park.” As an adult it said those things too, but so much more—She doesn’t know who her child’s father is.
Poor.
Sad.
Trailer Park Heart Page 18
