When we passed Chillicothe, Missouri, I noticed an exit sign for Trenton. “Huh. Look at that. Should we play a game? Find all the members of the Maddox family? I think there’s a town called Cameron, north of Kansas City. I say that counts as Cami.”
“Sure. Can we count your name already?”
“Ha-ha,” I said.
Even though we were both desperate to lighten the mood, it was still awkward. I wasn’t part of the Maddox family yet, not really. It was possible I’d lost my chance.
When we reached the Kansas City bypass, the sky opened, filling the car with smells of rain, wet asphalt, and the sharp stench of turmoil. I’d hoped the hours in the car would force communication, talking about what we couldn’t say, but there I sat. The girl who took pride in her big mouth was too afraid to bring up anything uncomfortable.
Keep your mouth shut, Mare. He’ll never get over it if you prompt a proposal even if he wants to do it.
Maybe he doesn’t want to do it … anymore.
The constant rat-tat-tatting of rain on the Charger grew irritating. As we drove between storms, the windshield wipers would change from dragging along dry glass to furiously trying to keep up with the downpour. Shepley would offer small talk—about the rain, of course, and the upcoming school year—but he stuck to safe topics, careful not to skirt too close to the edge of anything serious.
“Topeka,” Shepley announced as if the sign weren’t right there in big, bold white letters.
“We’ve made good time. Let’s stop at a restaurant. I’m tired of gas station food.”
“Okay,” he agreed. “Check your phone for something on the route.”
“Gator’s Bar and Grill,” I said aloud. It was third down on the list, but it was rated only two-and-a-half stars. “One review says not to go there after dark. That’s interesting. You think there are vampires?”
Shepley chuckled, looking down at the clock above the radio. “It’s just after noon. I think we’ll be safe.”
“It’s three-point-two miles ahead,” I said. “Just off the turnpike.”
“Which one? Four Seventy turns into Interstate Thirty-Five.”
“Four Seventy.”
Shepley nodded, satisfied. “Gator’s it is.”
As promised, Gator’s was just off the turnpike, just over three miles away. Shepley picked a parking space and turned off the engine for the first time in almost four hours. I stepped onto the concrete parking lot, my bones and muscles feeling stiff.
Shepley stretched on his side of the car, bending down and then standing up, pulling his arms across his chest. “Sitting for that long can’t be good. I don’t know how people with a desk job do it.”
“You have a desk job,” I said with a smirk.
“Part-time. If it were forty or fifty hours a week, I’d go nuts.”
“So, you’re not going to stay at the bank?” I asked, surprised. “I thought you liked it there.”
“Wealth management is a good place to be, but you know I’m not going to stay there.”
“No. You haven’t mentioned it.”
“Yeah, I did. I … oh. That was Cami.”
“Cami?”
“The last time I went with Trenton to The Red. You know how much I talk when I’m drunk.”
“I’ve forgotten,” I said.
Shepley reached for my hand as we walked inside, but at least two feet of space and unspoken thoughts were between us.
I glanced around Gator’s, looking up at the tall ceiling. Multicolored Christmas lights hung from the exposed ventilation system, the booth seats had ratty holes torn in the upholstery, and the floor had at least ten years of grime soaked into every twisted tuft of the worn carpet. Stale grease invaded my senses, and the rusted tin wainscot and charcoal-gray paint were more unwelcoming than the intended industrial chic.
“The two-star rating is making sense,” I said, shivering from the air-conditioning.
We waited so long for a table that I almost asked Shepley if we could leave, but then a blue-haired waitress with a chip on her shoulder and more piercings than she had holes showed us to two empty seats at the bar.
“Why did she seat us here?” I asked. “There are empty tables. There are a lot of empty tables.”
“Not even the employees want to be here,” Shepley said.
“Maybe we should just go?”
He shook his head. “We’ll just grab a quick bite and get back on the road.”
I nodded, unsettled.
The bartender wiped off the spaces in front of us and asked for our drink order. Shepley asked for a bottled water, and I ordered a strawberry lemonade.
“Not a beer? Why did you sit at the bar then?” the bartender asked, perturbed.
“We were seated here. It wasn’t a request,” I snapped.
Shepley patted my knee. “I’m driving. You can pour her a Bud Light. Draft, please.”
The bartender placed menus in front of us and walked away.
“Why did you order a beer?”
“I don’t want him telling the cooks to spit in our food, Mare. You don’t have to drink it.”
Thunder cracked outside and shook the building, and then rain began to pelt the roof.
“We can wait for the storm to pass somewhere, but I don’t want it to be here,” I said.
“Okay. We’ll find somewhere else even if it’s the parking lot.” He patted my knee again and then squeezed.
“Hey,” a man said, passing behind us with a friend. He looked drunk already, shuffling to a seat at the end of the bar. His eyes poured over me like dirty water.
“Hey,” Shepley answered for me. He locked eyes with the drunk.
“Baby,” I said in warning.
“Just showing him I’m not intimidated,” Shepley said. “Hopefully, he’ll be less inclined to bother us.”
The bartender returned with my strawberry lemonade and Shepley’s bottled water. “You ready to order?”
“Yeah, we’ll both have the southwest chicken wrap.”
“Fries or onion rings?”
“Neither.”
The bartender took our menus, eyed us, and then left to put in the order.
“Where the fuck is he going?” the drunk said to his friend.
“Calm down, Rich. He’ll be back,” he said, chuckling.
I tried to ignore them. “So, you’re considering the sports scout route?”
Shepley shrugged. “It’s a dream job. I’m not sure how realistic a venture it is, but yes, that’s the plan. Coach Greer said I should apply for a graduate assistant coaching position. He said I’d have a good chance. I’ll start there.”
“But … you don’t play football.”
Shepley shifted in his seat. “I did.”
“You … did? When?”
“Never college. I started all four years of high school. Believe it or not, I was pretty good.”
“What happened? And why haven’t you told me this before?”
Shepley pushed out his water as he leaned further up on the bar. “It’s stupid, I guess. It was the one thing I was better at than all my cousins.”
“But Travis doesn’t talk about it. Your parents don’t talk about it. If you started as a freshman, you must have been better than good. I haven’t even seen any pictures at your house that might insinuate you were in sports.”
“I blew three of four major ligaments in my knee during the last game before the play-offs my senior year. I worked hard to come back, but when I began training for Eastern, the knee didn’t feel the same. It still hadn’t healed, so I was a redshirt freshman. I wasn’t sure how long the coaches would wait, but I knew that even if they gave me the year, I would be done.” He sat up straight. “So, I bowed out.”
“That explains why you always say a different reason for the scars. I thought you were just embarrassed.”
“I was.”
I frowned. “That’s nothing to be embarrassed about. I can see why you want to be a part of it again.”
He nodded, the smile on his face revealing that he was just now realizing that fact himself.
He had opened up. It was the perfect opportunity for me to start a conversation about why the air had been so tense in the car, but as soon as I opened my mouth, I chickened out. “Thanks for telling me.”
“I should have told you a long time ago, but …” He trailed off.
Finally, curiosity and impatience won over fear. “Why does it feel so weird between us?” I asked. “What’s on your mind?”
Shepley tensed even more than he already had been. “What? Nothing. Why do you ask?”
“You’re not thinking of anything?”
“What are you thinking?”
“Baby,” I said, my tone more chastising than I’d meant.
Shepley sighed, nodding when the bartender brought me a cold mug full of amber liquid and a thin line of froth.
“Chug it!” Rich said, grunting. “God, those lips are fucking fantastic. I bet she could suck a golf ball through a garden hose! Lick them after you take a drink, sexy. Do all men everywhere a favor.”
I merely snarled at him, pushing the mug farther away from me.
Rich stood up.
The friend tried to stop him. “For fuck’s sake! Sit down!”
Rich shook his head and wiped his mouth with his forearm, stumbling toward us.
“Shit,” I said under my breath. I kept my eyes forward.
Shepley squeezed my knee. “It’s okay. Don’t worry.”
“You can take those lips an—” Rich began.
“Sit. The Fuck. Down,” Shepley warned.
I’d only heard him talk so severely to Travis. My breath caught, and a mixture of nerves, surprise, and the distinct feeling of being turned on heated the blood in my cheeks.
“What did you say, motherfucker?” Rich asked, leaning against the bar on the other side of me.
Shepley bristled. “You have three seconds to get away from my girlfriend, or I’m going to knock you the fuck out.”
“Rich!” his friend called. “Get over here!”
Rich leaned in, and Shepley stood, taking a step around my stool, glowering straight into Rich’s eyes.
“Move out of the way, Mare.”
“Shepley …”
Rich snorted. “Mare? Shepley? Are you celebrity kids? What kind of fucking names are those?”
“Walk away,” Shepley said.
I stepped down off my stool and took a few steps back.
“This is your last warning,” Shepley added.
The bartender stood frozen in the kitchen doorway, holding our plates in his hands.
“Shep,” I said, reaching for his arm. I’d never seen him so hostile. “Let’s just go.”
With two of his fingers, Rich tapped Shepley’s shoulder. “What are you going to do, little man? How about I shove my dick in her mouth, and then you’ll have something to be angry about?”
Shepley’s jaw worked under the skin.
“Baby,” I said.
His shoulders relaxed. He pulled out a few bills from his pocket and tossed them onto the bar. He outstretched his arm behind him, reaching for me.
I sidestepped toward the door, encouraging my boyfriend to follow. Shepley began to turn toward me, but Rich reached out, grabbing a fistful of Shepley’s shirt and yanking him back.
Shepley didn’t hesitate. Rich’s eyes grew wide as he saw Shepley coming at him with a raised elbow. A thud sounded when Shepley’s elbow knocked against Rich’s cheekbone. Rich stumbled back, holding the side of his face, and the friend stood, pausing.
“I fucking dare you to jump in,” Shepley growled.
Rich tried to take advantage of Shepley’s momentary distraction and swung. Shepley dodged, and Rich fell forward as he followed through with the motion. I covered my mouth as I was in total disbelief that it was my boyfriend, not Travis, in the middle of a fight. It had been a long time since I saw Travis in the ring of The Circle, and even though he’d calmed down quite a bit since the wedding, Travis would still end up throwing a punch or two if someone pushed him too far.
Shepley was always the peacekeeper, but at the moment, he was landing punches on Rich, hard enough to draw blood. A cut began to bleed just above his right eye.
The bartender reached for the phone right when Shepley reared back his fist and grunted while he swung. Rich spun, doing a one-eighty, and then fell on the floor, bouncing once. He was out cold. The friend watched him from the stool, shaking his head. Rich’s eyes were already beginning to swell shut as he lay there, dazed, on the dirty carpet.
“Baby, let’s go,” I said.
Shepley took a step toward the friend, who jerked back in reaction.
“Shepley Maddox! We’re leaving!”
Shepley looked back at me, huffing. He didn’t have a single mark on his face. He walked past me, taking my hand and pulling me out the door.
Shepley
The Charger’s steering wheel whined as I twisted the wood with both hands. Rain fell from a dark blue sky, assaulting the windshield so loudly that America had to nearly yell over the noise. She was chattering a thousand words a minute, and it was all blurring together. She wasn’t mad but excited. I wasn’t mad. I was feeling unadulterated deep fucking fury. Adrenaline was still pumping through my veins, making my head throb like it was going to explode. That feeling was exactly why I wouldn’t lose my temper. It would leave me feeling sick, out of control, guilty—everything I didn’t want to be.
As the miles passed and we escaped Topeka, America’s voice came into focus.
She reached over to touch my hand. “Baby? Did you hear me? You might want to slow down. The rain is coming down so hard it’s starting to stand on the roads.”
She wasn’t afraid, but I could hear the concern in her voice. My foot lifted half an inch off the gas pedal, and I eased up, releasing the tension from my leg and then the rest of my body.
“Sorry,” I said through my teeth.
America squeezed my hand. “What happened?”
I shrugged. “I lost it.”
“I feel like I’m riding in the car with Travis instead of my boyfriend.”
I breathed out through my nose. “It won’t happen again.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw her face compress.
“Do you still love me?”
Her words were like a punch to the gut, and I coughed once, trying to catch my breath. “What?”
Her eyes glossed over. “Do you still love me? Is it because I said no?”
“You … you want to talk about this now? I mean … of course I love you. You know that, Mare. I can’t believe you just asked me that.”
She wiped an escaped tear from her cheek and looked out the window. The weather outside mirrored the storm in her eyes. “I don’t know what happened.”
My throat tightened, choking off any reply I might have had. Words didn’t come to me. I alternated between staring at her in confusion and watching the road.
“I love you.” She balled her elegant thin fingers into a fist and propped them under her chin, her elbow on the door’s armrest. “I’ve wanted to talk to you about the way things have been between us lately, but I was scared … and … I didn’t know what to say. And—”
“America? Is this a … is this like a good-bye trip?”
She turned to me. “You tell me.”
I didn’t realize my teeth had been clenched until my jaw began to hurt. I tightly closed my eyes and then blinked a few times, trying to concentrate on the road, keeping the Charger between the white and yellow lines. I wanted to pull over to talk, but with the hard rain and limited sight distance, I knew it would be too dangerous. I wouldn’t take the chance with the love of my life in the car—even if she didn’t believe she was at the moment.
“We don’t talk,” she said. “When did we stop talking?”
“When we started loving each other so much that it was too scary to chance it? At least, that’s what it was for me—or
is,” I said.
Saying the truth out loud was both terrifying and a relief. I’d been keeping it in for so long that letting it go made me feel a little lighter, but not knowing how she would react made me wish I could take it back.
But this was what she wanted—to talk, the truth—and she was right. It was time. The silence had been ruining us. Instead of enjoying our new chapter together, I had been lingering in the why not, the not yet, and the when. I had been impatient, and it was poisoning me. Did I love the thought of us more than I loved her? That didn’t even make sense.
“Jesus, I’m sorry, Mare,” I spit out.
She hesitated. “For what?”
My face screwed into disgust. “For the way I’ve been acting. For keeping things from you. For being impatient.”
“What have you been keeping from me?”
She looked so nervous. It broke my heart.
I pulled her hand to my lips and kissed her knuckles. She turned to face me, pulling up one leg and holding her knee to her chest. She needed something else to hold on to, bracing herself for my answer. The rain-speckled windows were beginning to fog, softening her. She was the most beautiful and saddest thing I’d ever seen. She was strong and confident, and I’d reduced her to the worried big-eyed girl next to me.
“I love you, and I want to be with you forever.”
“But?” she prompted.
“No buts. That’s it.”
“You’re lying,” she said.
“From now on, that’s it. I promise.”
She sighed and faced forward. Her lip began to tremble. “I screwed up, Shep. Now, you’re just content to keep going like we have been.”
“Yes. I mean … is that okay? Isn’t that what you want? What do you mean, you screwed up?”
Her lips pressed together into a hard line. “I shouldn’t have said no,” she whimpered softly.
I exhaled, trailing off in thought. “To me? When I asked you to marry me?”
“Yes,” she said, her voice almost pleading. “I wasn’t ready then.”
“I know. It’s okay,” I said, squeezing her hand. “I’m not giving up on us.”
“How do we fix this? I’m willing to do whatever. I just want it to be the way it used to be. Well, not exactly, but …”
Something Beautiful (Beautiful #3) Page 6
