“This couldn’t have waited until I got back to Los Angeles? Did you really need to drag this shit across state lines?”
Up close, she’s as beautiful as ever. Smooth black skin, curious hazel eyes. She looks resigned and downright sad, and I’m shocked to realize I still have the capacity to feel pity for her after everything.
“No. It couldn’t wait.”
Her hand goes up to cradle her stomach, and I see for the first time what’s been so obvious since I first spotted her. Underneath her loose shirt, she’s concealing a very pregnant belly.
I have tunnel vision as I stare straight at it, trying to process what this means.
Shelby is pregnant.
Shelby is pregnant with Mike’s baby.
I feel like I’m sinking down into quicksand, like I need to hold on to something or I’ll go under. I reach out and grab ahold of the table beside me, hunching forward.
Shelby takes a hesitant step toward me, obviously worried about my reaction.
“Why?” I ask, and it sounds like my soul is being crushed. Why did she need to come here and show me this? Rub salt in a wound that was damn near healed?
“It’s not Mike’s baby.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Raelynn
Three more nights with Ben isn’t enough. Three nights is…god. What am I going to do? I wish I had cash to blow on seductive lingerie. I wish I could whisk us away to some fancy hotel. I want to make these nights memorable. Why? Because after Ben leaves for Tokyo, I’ll go right back to living a mediocre no-lingerie-necessary existence. There’s a sharp reminder of that this morning when Patrick arrives at Dale’s. He hasn’t been around the last few weeks, and I’d fantasized that maybe he fell off the face of the planet. Wouldn’t that be lovely?
At least this morning, he’s not drunk.
“Heard you been sleeping with that basketball boy.”
Okay, maybe a little drunk.
He doesn’t seem to mind that there are people eating at the counter, well within earshot of him as he throws barbs at me.
I choose to ignore him and continue working. I refill Doyle’s coffee and reach over to grab Dr. Tully’s empty plate. Before I can, Patrick yanks my ponytail, throwing me off balance. I stumble back and try to catch myself.
“You hear me, Raelynn, or you gone deaf?”
He lets me go, but my equilibrium is off. I tip forward and clutch the edge of the counter, and there’s a long awkward beat where my cheeks flame red and I straighten my dress as if I’m the one who acted out of line. I can’t meet anyone’s eyes as they all stay conspicuously silent. Maybe they aren’t sure they saw what they think they saw. Heard what they think they heard. Whatever the reason, their silence hurts worse than Patrick’s words.
He comes up behind me again and crowds my space.
“Is that another one of your jobs now? Fuckin—”
There’s a flurry of motion and I yelp in shock as Dr. Tully leans over the counter, grabs Patrick by the scruff, and squashes his face to the counter. Patrick struggles but Dr. Tully doesn’t let up.
“You keep harassing her and I’ll call the sheriff. You understand, boy? That goes for when I’m not around either. I’m sick of your shit. Your daddy lets you run around town acting like a fool, but I won’t.”
Patrick resists at first, and Dr. Tully leans in closer.
“Do you understand?” he asks again, enunciating every syllable.
Patrick lets loose a sound like a distressed animal as he nods over and over again.
Dr. Tully lets go of him and shakes out his hands. “Good. Now get outta my sight. You smell like a damn liquor store and it ain’t even nine in the mornin’.”
I hold perfectly still, tense from my head to my toes as Patrick grabs the baseball cap that got knocked off his head and stomps out through the kitchen without looking back at me. I watch the swinging door after it closes behind him longer than necessary, wondering if maybe he’ll come back through it, hotter than ever. Eventually, when I’m sure he’s well and truly gone, I look over at Dr. Tully to see he’s right back where he was a moment ago, sipping his coffee and reading the newspaper, unbothered. He’s not looking at me or anything. It almost feels like I imagined the whole thing, except for when he turns the page of the newspaper and casually says, “I’m calling the sheriff. Enough is enough.”
“Thank you.”
He shakes his head, still not looking at me. “Don’t thank me. I should have said something a long time ago.”
Even with Dr. Tully stepping in, my encounter with Patrick throws me into a funk the rest of the day. My scalp still stings from where he yanked my hair. His disgusting words circulate in my mind even when I try desperately to think of something better. At the trailer that night, I make a simple turkey sandwich and eat it on the steps outside, willing Ben’s SUV to appear down the gravel drive. He could distract me. He always does.
“Heard you been sleeping with that basketball boy.”
“Is that another one of your jobs now?”
A part of me is surprised we’ve been found out considering we haven’t been gallivanting around town or anything. I guess I’ve been with him in public a few times. He insisted on putting gas in Nan’s car for me last week, and two days ago, we drove up to the Piggly Wiggly to get some late-night cartons of Blue Bell when we were both craving something sweet. I hadn’t thought much of it, but now I wonder if everyone in town is thinking exactly what Patrick is and they’re just too polite to say it.
I set aside the last half of my sandwich, sick to my stomach all of a sudden. I want Ben to get here already. He told me this morning that he’d be coming back tonight. I kissed him good and long before he walked outside to his car.
“Sure you have to go?” I teased, knowing full well I had to get going soon too.
“Think they’ll notice if I don’t?”
I laughed. “Yeah…I guess you’re sorta hard to miss.”
He looked back at me for a long beat, smiling wide, and my heart caught in my chest. I wish I could have heard his thoughts in that moment, but he turned and kept walking and now I sit, waiting.
Usually, he’s here by now. It’s later than usual. I had a big house to clean in the afternoon and I really dragged. The sun’s good and set. The stars are starting to shine and the bugs swirl above my head, circling the light near the trailer door. I strain my ears and listen for the telltale sounds of tires on gravel or the whirr of an engine. I know what I’m doing. This eagerness inside me, nervous energy brimming over so I can’t keep still. My feet bounce on the stairs, my finger drags across my thumbnail, back and forth over and over. A critter moves to my left and I whip my gaze in that direction, trying to discern what it is. A rabbit locks eyes with me for a fleeting second before scurrying away.
I told Ben we couldn’t exchange phone numbers in a feeble attempt to keep restraints on a relationship that was never going to be contained in the first place. It was futile and naive and now I’m paying the price. I’m sitting here waiting on a man, desperate and hopeful, and it’s making me feel like an open wound.
He leaves in three days, I tell myself. Three days.