I rolled my eyes at my ridiculous, hipster friend. “Sorry, Co, I was watching Max.”
“Uh, huh.”
I was thankful for the dark night because it hid my telltale blush.
“Hey, Levi,” Coco finally acknowledged him. “What are you doing here?”
Max threw his arms around Coco’s legs. “He’s trick-or-treating with us!”
Her eyebrows jumped to her hairline. “Why?”
It was Levi’s turn to shift uncomfortably. “I like hanging out with Max,” he explained. “He reminds me of Logan.”
The world screeched to a halt as I noticed Levi searching Coco’s face for answers. Her expression twisted all right, but not with guilt. She stared at him like that was the strangest thing he could have possibly ever said.
“Okaaaay,” she dragged out, holding Max protectively against her thighs. “Weird.”
A puff of laughter escaped me before I could reign in my reaction. If Levi thought he could super sleuth my friends, he underestimated how deeply buried I kept this secret hidden.
No pun intended.
Ack, that was a terrible joke. I immediately felt guilty, even though it had only happened in my head.
“Are you guys ready for apple cider yet?” Coco asked me. “It’s freezing out here.” Her gaze moved to the giant plaid coat I wore, and her confused expression widened to another level of concern.
“I’m ready,” I answered casually, ignoring her jumping eyebrows and obvious glances at Levi. “Are you ready, Max?”
“Ready!” he cheered. “I got so much candy. It’s going to last me three years!”
We’d be lucky if it lasted three months, but I let him have his moment.
Levi took a step back, in the opposite direction we were headed. We all noticed.
“Are you going to drink apple cider with us, Levi?” Max asked.
He shook his head and I would have to thank Coco for her perfect timing. “Nah, not tonight, buddy. All that walking around wore me out.”
“You headed to Finch’s?” Coco asked.
“Not sure.” He shrugged, his hands shoving back into his pockets. “You?”
“Yeah, I’m not sure either. My wing-woman sucks.” She gave me a pointed look. “And has to worry about bedtimes and responsibility and all that crap. I’m not sure if I want to head over there alone.”
“I know what you mean,” Levi empathized. Then he looked at me and said, “She’s useless when it comes to keeping the unwanted ones away.”
I rolled my eyes at that criticism. “Please.” Then a thought occurred to me. “You two should go together! There. I just wing-manned you both into a date. You’re welcome.”
They gave each other disgusted looks, like I’d just asked them to kiss their cousin.
“What is wrong with you?” Coco sneered.
“Are you serious?” Levi guffawed at the same time.
“Well, have a good night, whatever you decide.” I smiled pleasantly at Levi, biting back another comment about Kelly Fink. Sounding jealous right now probably wasn’t the best call. “The apple cider is calling my name.”
“I’ll talk to you later, Ruby,” Levi promised.
“Bring Star Wars!” Max chimed in.
“All right, little man.” He held my gaze a moment longer, that too soft smile tilting his lips up. “Had fun tonight, Ruby.”
“Bye, Levi.”
He disappeared into the crowd and I was left with his coat and his smell and this wild, unsettled feeling coursing through my tingling limbs.
Coco tsked when Max ran ahead to Rosie’s. “He’s got it so bad for you.”
There was no point denying it. I knew he did. I’d known he had it bad since graduation night. It was just that he’d been gone for so long, I thought for sure he would have moved on by now. “What should I do about it?”
Coco linked her arm through mine and laid her head on my shoulder. “What do you want to do about it?”
Good question. “I don’t know yet.”
“Yes, you do,” she whispered. “I’ve never known you not to know your feelings exactly. Be honest with yourself, Ruby. You deserve that after all you’ve been through.”
But did I?
I wasn’t so sure.
And besides that, Levi was complicated and messy. Things might not be perfect for Max and me, but they were clean and easy. They didn’t leave us brokenhearted and shattered. We weren’t in danger of being left behind or forgotten.
Then there was the secret between us, the one I knew Levi had suspicions about. How could I ever explain that to him? How could I ever start something with him without explaining it?
How could he ever be interested in me after finding out?
I had worked so hard to figure out this little life of mine and now, with Levi’s explosive entrance back in Clark City, everything was out of place. He’d turned my world upside down and me inside out. Levi Cole wasn’t going to be happy until he’d managed the complete and utter destruction of me.
This was maybe his best revenge yet.
17
A New Hope
The next two weeks developed a kind of routine that involved Levi in my life more than I had ever anticipated. He came to Rosie’s for breakfast every weekday morning around six-thirty when all the working farmers showed up.
In the middle of November, we’d almost reached the off season for the agricultural industry, so I knew work was slowing down for him. Also, I’d asked. Partly because I was nosy, but also because I was genuinely curious.
His father really did want to retire. But more than that, he wanted Levi home to step up in the family business. Rich Cole was not an old man, nor was he struggling with his health. Levi and he had developed a ten-year plan of sorts designed to hand over the entire business in layers. That’s why he had time to stop by the diner every morning before he headed out to the Cole farm.
He’d also leased his apartment in town for two years. He said the farm was too small with his parents living there. I’d seen the Cole Family Farmhouse. It was not small. I took that to mean, he’d been on his own for too long. Speaking from experience, as one who still lived with her mom, he had done the right thing.
He planned to build a house on property nearby, but not until he could afford the land on his own.
We’d shared all of this over refills of his coffees and pleasant smiles. He was never impatient with me as I bustled around the diner every morning, hopping from one overall-wearing farmer to the next. He was always ready with that gentle smile that made my toes curl at the same time my heart always lurched in paranoia. He always tipped big.
I wasn’t sure if that was because he was still checking out my ass every time I turned around or if he was just being kind.
The rest of the ogling men had stopped though—checking out my ass and tipping well. I blamed Levi, but I was also too confused to know how to feel about it.
I saw him other times too, not just in the morning. He showed up Friday nights for the supper rush. I ran into him at the Piggly Wiggly twice and both times he bought Max a treat. He was at the big pep rally when the football team made it to state. He was at the post office dropping off a stack of things for his dad when I went to mail some bills. When I stopped for gas a few days ago, he jogged across the street from the hardware store to say hi. He was everywhere.
That was the problem with living in a small town. It was hard to avoid anyone, let alone a man I suspected was intentionally looking for me in the crowd.
It was strange to have had Levi absent from my life for seven years and then suddenly in it—and not just in the passive sense of the word. Levi was in my life. Everywhere in it. He’d developed a friendship with Max that I didn’t even want to think about. He was winning over Coco and Emilia. He had Rosie wrapped around his finger. And he was slowly, surely breaking down a lifetime of walls I’d built to keep him out.
By the Saturday before Thanksgiving, when he showed up at the trailer and knocked on the door, I wasn’
t even surprised. He’d stopped by the diner for supper last night and my mom had happened to be there with Max. The two of them met in the middle of the restaurant like they were the best of friends and couldn’t wait to hang out.
Max had bugged him about Star Wars again. Apparently, his friend Daniel was a big fan and he was telling Max all about it during school. Max couldn’t wait to experience it himself and since it wasn’t one of those movies I could grab from the Redbox at the Pump and Pantry, I hadn’t found a way for him to watch it yet.
Plus, this felt like Levi’s thing. As weird as it was to give him a piece of Max, I couldn’t bring myself to take it from either of them.
They’d made tentative plans for Levi to bring the movies over tonight, but I hadn’t expected Levi to actually follow through. Max hadn’t said anything about it all day and I had hoped he forgot.
But just as I was staring at an open fridge, trying to decide what to make for supper, a knock on the trailer door interrupted our evening and my life and my poor, jaded heart.
“It’s Levi!” Max shouted, jumping up from his LEGOs and rushing to the door.
I closed the refrigerator and followed after him, in case it wasn’t Levi. Max pulled the door open and grinned.
The smell of hot pizza hit me first and by the time the door swung all the way open and I was given my first full view of Levi Cole tonight, I was already smiling.
He stood in the doorway in dark-wash jeans, leather work boots and a gray, long-sleeve t-shirt with his family’s farm logo on the front. He was casual and adorable and… he stole my breath with his soft smiles and intense green eyes and mussed hair. He’d let it grow longer on top over the last couple weeks. It was a good look on him.
But honestly, the man could wear granny panties and sackcloth and he’d somehow come out of it looking like a GQ model.
I mean, in essence, Levi Cole was a farmer. And there shouldn’t be anything hot about a farmer. And yet… he had me on fire.
Okay, he wasn’t technically the overall wearing, straw-chewing hillbilly I waited on at Rosie’s. He was being trained to take over an agricultural monopoly that made an ungodly amount of money. But still, he was, by definition, a farmer.
So why did I find him so irresistibly attractive?
“You said you were usually at home,” he said by way of a greeting. “Thought I’d drop by and see how you’re doing.”
Folding my arms over my comfy and ratty and embarrassing hoodie, I raised an eyebrow and asked, “And the pizza?”
He moved the pizzas through the air in a circle, filling the room with their enticing scent. “I didn’t want to show up empty-handed.”
“Show up for what?”
His gaze met mine across the small space, sending fire blazing through my belly, down to my toes. “For movie night.”
He’d totally befuddled me. “Movie night?”
From underneath the pizza boxes, his hand moved to show me a stack of DVDs. The original Star Wars movies. All three of them.
“I thought we could…” He waggled his eyebrows and didn’t confess what he thought.
It didn’t matter, Max’s whoop of “YESSSSS!” was all the answer Levi needed.
I attempted a feeble, “I don’t know if this is a good idea…”
But the simultaneous puppy dog eyes did me in.
I held the door open wider and breathed out a tortured, “Fine.”
Levi walked in, unable to contain his grin. I waited for his excitement to fade. He took in the small space of my home with a keenness that made me nervous. His gaze swept over everything, from the old oak entertainment center that housed our small, outdated flat screen TV to the matching coffee table covered in Max’s LEGOs to the worn couches and threadbare carpet. He walked the few steps into the tiny kitchen, setting the pizzas down on the chipped counters.
The double wide was basically one big room in the front. The kitchen was open to the eating area and living room. The two spaces divided by a thin transition strip, bare carpet on one side, curling linoleum on the other.
I’d picked up this afternoon and cleaned it last week, so it wasn’t like filthy or anything. Just dated. Worn out. A revealing peek into my past.
As a grown-up, I’d tried to update some of the furniture, like the kitchen table and some of my mom’s appliances. But I couldn’t invest in the mobile home and save money at the same time. Basically, if something wasn’t broken, I didn’t fix it.
And usually that was okay with me. I’d grown up here. Everything was familiar and sentimental. But Levi invading my space shined a bright spotlight on what everything looked like, without the frame of childhood nostalgia.
Levi turned around and grinned at me, the cat that ate the canary. He didn’t seem to notice the chipped countertops. He didn’t seem to notice anything but me.
“I hope you don’t mind. I just… thought it would be cool to hangout. And Max not knowing what Star Wars is feels like a grossly delinquent rite of passage for his childhood.”
“Grossly delinquent, huh?”
He turned back to the cabinets and started opening them at random. “Just trying to help you out, Dawson.”
I watched him find the plates and pull down three. “You’re just making yourself at home. Aren’t you?”
He started plating huge slices of pizza. “Get used to it already, yeah? Cheese or Supreme?”
Blinking at this pushy, overbearing, ridiculous man, I found myself heeding his command, getting used to him in my space. “Both,” I said, holding my chin defiantly high.
He flashed me a grin and a wink. “Atta girl.”
“Mommy, can we watch the movie while we eat supper?” Max settled in his seat at the table.
“I’ll tell you what, buddy, we can even eat our pizza on the couch while we watch the movie.”
“Nuh-uh!”
Nodding my head, I caught some of his excitement. “Would you turn the TV on, please? I’ll make you a plate.”
“That made his night,” Levi murmured quietly while Max messed with all the buttons and devices needed to play a movie that I didn’t understand.
“You made his night,” I countered. “This is maybe the greatest thing that’s ever happened to him.” Going to the pantry, I reached to the top shelf and pulled down a flat of juice boxes. I had to keep them out of reach or Max would drink them all in one sitting.
“He’s a good kid.” Levi’s shoulder bumped into mine while I reached for a piece of cheese for Max.
I turned and rested my hip on the counter, holding Max’s pizza in one hand and the juice box in the other. Levi leaned in, moving his chest closer to mine. “He is a good kid. I got lucky.”
He shook his head, disagreeing with me. “It’s you, Ruby. You’re good at this whole mom thing.”
I thought about arguing with him. It didn’t feel like I was a good mom. It felt like we were just barely keeping our heads above water and I was making all the wrong decisions when it came to Max. For instance, was it fair to keep his dad’s identity a secret? I looked at Levi and my chest pinched with guilt. How cool would it be for Max to have Levi for an uncle? The Cole family would be obligated to invest in Max’s life. And they would. I knew that about them. They would care how he was raised and where he was raised and how much opportunity he had.
I thought about college and how impossible that felt right now. Granted, he was only six and that was a long way off. But still, it wasn’t something I could help him with. It might be something I could never help him with.
But I couldn’t share any of that with Levi. So instead, I shrugged off his compliment and said, “Oh, you know a lot of single moms, do you?”
“I know moms,” he insisted. “And you’re one of the best. Max is lucky.”
His words settled like a cozy blanket around my heart, releasing some of the tension that had been brewing since he walked in the door—or maybe it was always there, maybe it was the weight I always wore. I decided to take a break from constantly
worrying and accept his kind words. They felt good.
They felt amazing.
“Thank you, Levi.”
He smiled, and it was that soft, gentle one that made my heart do jumping jacks and my stomach do backflips. I’d never been especially athletic, but around Levi, my insides turned into Olympic gymnasts.
Moving on quickly, he reached for the small stack of movies and said, “Point me in the right direction?”
“By the TV. Max can do it if you can’t figure it out. He’s in charge of all the tech stuff around here.”
“Of course he is,” Levi mumbled as he walked over to the entertainment center. “Max, did you know that one time when your mom and I were in school together, she made a DVD player catch on fire?”
Max’s burst of laughter was contagious. “Are you for real?”
Levi nodded solemnly. “Mr. Atkins just wanted her to push play and she set the whole thing on fire.”
“That wasn’t my fault!” I gasped, totally surprised by the memory. It was traumatizing enough, I’d tried to block the whole thing out over the years. “I was set up!”
“Then there was the time she spilled a pop all over the best computer in the computer lab.”
“It wasn’t the best computer—”
“And the time she—”
“All right, enough of this fun trip down memory lane, Cole. We’re trying to watch a movie here.”
Max giggled next to me. “You are really bad at the TV and stuff, Mom.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Watch it, mister. Or I’m drinking the juice box.”
He perked up. “Juice box?”
I pointed to the couch. “You’re going to have to tell me I’m pretty.”
“The most beautiful woman in the whole wide world,” he parroted. It had been our joke since he could talk. Whenever he got in trouble for talking back to me, I made him compliment how pretty I was.
Now with Levi here, I felt a little pathetic. But it wasn’t like I had a line of people affirming my mom-body. It was just me and the kid. I had to take compliments where I could get them.
Levi had crouched in front of the DVD player and was frozen in place, staring at us. He wore a bemused expression and a goofy smile on his face. I ignored him and the butterflies flying laps in my stomach.
Trailer Park Heart Page 21
