29. Tyler
TWENTY-NINE
TYLER
This is what happens when I let myself have something I want.
And I can still taste Becca. I don’t know whether I want the taste to go away so I stop being tortured by what I did wrong, or whether I want to savor it forever.
I got distracted and let my daughter down. I went away for a night and my daughter, rightfully so, doesn’t handle a parent leaving her well.
I let myself hope, and that’s always a mistake.
I hoped CJ could be a good mom, but she cracked under the pressure.
I hoped CJ could get better, but she left.
I hoped marrying Becca might be able to become the real thing, but the moment I let one area go on cruise control for a fucking night, my daughter reminded me that she needs me more.
Ellie will always come first. It doesn’t matter what I want. What matters is what she needs.
I held that damn octopus while we rode in silence, watching the occasional street light illuminate its ridiculous octopus face.
It was never really about Pussy 2. Ellie’s afraid of losing me.
Becca tried to make me feel better, to let me know I wasn’t alone in this, because she’s good at that kind of thing. She put her hand on my knee in the truck and said, “This must be really hard.”
I’m an asshole, so I just scoffed.
Oh well. Better not to let her get attached.
She’s probably already attached. I take in the details in this room she set up for my daughter.
Fun accent pictures line the walls with a pink aquarium theme.
She somehow found sheets and a comforter with pink dolphins on them.
It’s stuff I never would have had the emotional bandwidth to put up in our apartment.
I was too busy getting through the day to day.
I thought I was doing enough by painting nails and wearing tiaras and setting up girl playdates.
But there’s clearly a gap here, and Becca fills it.
My daughter needs Becca, and Becca’s sweet on Ellie too.
I have to keep showing up if I want any of this plan to work.
Becca rushes around in the morning, almost losing a few eggs from her basket as she bustles through the kitchen. Her eyes stay down until she realizes Ellie is also in the kitchen.
“Morning, little mama. Did you have a rough night last night?”
Ellie nods gravely. “Daddy fixed it.”
Becca smiles wryly. “He’s good at that, isn’t he? Well, you have a good day at school. I guess . . . I’ll still pick you up? Then we can go to the courthouse?” She looks at me.
I clear my throat. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that. I can have Dad pick her up. I’ve got a big job to finish this morning.
The customer’s been a real pain in the ass, and I don’t want that hanging over my head.
Plus, thought you might need extra time to get ready, and I can come get you. ”
Becca’s eyes round like she’s surprised. “Oh. Okay. Yeah, that’d be nice.”
“I’ll get you around noon, then.”
Becca scrapes her teeth over her bottom lip, still looking stressed. “Noon it is.”
“Reba?”
I toe out of my boots by the back door and am surprised Becca’s not ready to go. I’m even running late because my morning job took longer than expected.
They always take longer than expected.
I call her name again and get a frantic, “Up here, sorry!”
I climb the stairs, concerned by her tone.
I wouldn’t blame her if she’s nervous. Hell, I’m nervous.
Becca usually plays music when she gets ready, something she’s done since we were pre-teens.
I’d pass by her room to see her sitting on the floor in front of the mirror singing along to country radio and applying eyeliner with surgical precision.
I peek into her room with the hole in the ceiling to find her doing just that, but this time she’s at the mirror over her dresser, her bare feet on tiptoe, and there’s no music on.
Her blonde hair is down with a slight wave to it, and she’s got on a short white dress that has cute little loops off her shoulders.
I know for a fact she won’t wear a jacket with it, and there’s no sense in arguing about it.
That’s Becca Martin, and she’s my bride.
“Sorry,” she says, leaving her lips open as she lines her right eye. “I lost track of time when I was cutting pumpkins. Shit.”
She steps back and frowns at herself in the mirror.
I rest my shoulder against the doorway and lean my head into it. “Didn’t mean to distract you.”
She sighs and sucks on a Q-tip, twirling it between her lips. I ache thinking of my fingers in her mouth just last night. This is our first time completely alone together since then, no Ellie in the house. “No, I’m just shit at everything today.”
She dots the Q-tip along her lash line, and I want to puke thinking she’s having a hard time on today of all days.
“Bad day?” I ask.
“No, it’s fine. I’m just behind.” I’m not used to seeing her harried like this.
She’s normally the type that if a bus drove by and covered her in mud, she’d smear the mud all over her clothes and wear it like it’s fashion week.
I take in the sweet smell that she carries everywhere, a perfume that clings to her even though I don’t think she wears it on farming days.
“You look beautiful.” I say it, and I fucking mean it.
She turns my way with the eyeliner pen in her hand again with a sad smile. “Thanks. You’re pretty handsome yourself.”
It’s so hard for me to not go into fixer mode like I do for Ellie, like I used to do for CJ. Maybe if I fixed everything just right, I could keep everything from falling apart.
I know now that I can’t fix everything, but I still try for Ellie.
I don’t know whether I should or not for Becca. For one, I don’t know if she’d let me, and two, I don’t know if it’s the right answer.
She pauses when she picks up her mascara, flexing her left hand to look at her ring.
“Something wrong with your ring?”
She shakes her head with a little chuckle. “No. I just never got to do my nails.”
Alright, yeah, I can’t help it. I don’t want her to have any reason to feel bad today.
“You eaten anything?” I ask.
“I’ll just grab a protein bar when we leave.”
Make that two things I can fix.
I bob my head and go into her bathroom, opening the medicine cabinet and hoping for the best. I find what I’m looking for and head down to the kitchen.
Becca comes downstairs as I’m putting her sandwich on a plate. “Get you something to eat?”
“No. It’s for you.”
Her cheeks pinken and her eyes look glassy. “Is that fried bologna?”
“With yellow mustard.” I grab the butter knife I used to smear the mustard and cut her sandwich in half diagonally. “There. Now you know it was made with love.”
It’s a thing she used to say, arguing that a sandwich is just food if it’s not cut in half diagonally. I realize I may have now stuck my foot in my mouth because it’s like I told my fiancée of convenience I love her through a bologna sandwich.
Appropriate.
Her lips are pressed together. “We need to go, don’t we?”
I lift a shoulder. “We’ll make it before they close.”
Becca sits at her little round dining table, the one that perfectly seats the three of us in her kitchen. She leans over her plate extra hard. “I don’t want to get mustard on my dress.”
I sit in the seat next to her and pull the nail polish bottles out of my pocket. “We won’t get this on your dress either. Which color?”
There’s a bright red, a Barbie pink, and a bottle of multi-colored glitter. The teary smile Becca gives me almost makes me cry too. “I know it’s stupid, but I wanted one of those pretty soft bridal pink colors.”
“Then we’ll stop at the store,” I say.
“No, this pink is fine. I don’t want to waste more time,” she objects, dotting a napkin at her lips and checking for mustard. “I love how you brought the glitter one.”
I tip my head from side to side. “Ellie would say you need glitter on top.”
Becca laughs and sniffles. “Then pink with the glitter on top.”
“We’ll get the color you want, Reba—”
She waves her hands. “No, no, no, I like that Ellie will be there in spirit.”
She grabs the pink bottle and shakes it up, but I snatch it back. “That’s my job.”
“What?”
“If I have to know how to paint nails, I may as well put it to good use. How many grooms can say they painted their bride’s nails?” I nod toward the sink. “Finish up and go wash your hands.”
Becca puffs her lip out before shoving in the last bite of sandwich. I forgot how freaky fast she eats. Probably a product of growing up with Dusty. She takes her plate to the dishwasher, then keeps shooting me glances while she washes her hands. “You really don’t have to, Ty.”
“Sit before I make you.”
Her voice is a low purr. “And how would you do that?” I plant her with a look and she rolls her eyes. “Fine.”
She slumps into the seat next to me and holds out her hands for me to examine. “Lovely color choice, Miss Martin.”
Becca giggles, but her joking stops when I unscrew the lid of the pink nail polish, dabbing the brush on the lip of the bottle. She’s quiet, which is rare.
“You’re good at this,” she says when I’m a few nails in.
“If I can paint a toddler’s nails, I can paint my bride’s.” I blow on her fingers after I finish the first coat and start to unscrew the glitter bottle.
Her breathing falters, and I look up in time to see a single mascara-colored tear fall down her cheek.
I cap the polish bottle and lift my finger to wipe her tear away.
It was devastating when CJ had her big meltdowns.
It’s gut-wrenching whenever Ellie hurts.
But I’m ready to burn the world down over whatever is making Becca Martin cry.
I lean my elbows onto my knees and put my hand on her leg.
“What is it, baby?”
I didn’t mean to call her that, but it just slips out sometimes. The weird thing is, it’s felt right every time. When I was going down on her and encouraging her to come for me. Now, when she’s upset and it’s everything I can do not to pull her into my lap and hold her.
She draws a big, wheezy inhale before she lets out a sob, the first and only sob I’ve ever heard out of her. “I want our families to be there today. I know it’s fake and I know it’s stupid, but this is probably my only wedding.”
“It’s not stupid,” I assure her.
“I want Ernest to walk me in and I want Dustin to give me away,” she heaves a choppy breath, “and I want Ellie to see us and our parents and Mamaw and . . . I want pictures.”
My heart swells at her inclusion of Ellie. I think I secretly want her there too, and it’s a huge relief. I fight a smile. “Okay.”
“I want dancing and cake and nothing has to be fancy and I know I’m not a girly girl and I’m not supposed to like this stuff but I want those things, Tyler.”
“Let’s do it.”
“What?” Becca finally stops looking at her hands in her lap and looks up at me. I grab a napkin from her chicken-shaped napkin holder and dab the tears off her face.
“Let’s have our families come. I’ll put this glitter on your nails and then I’ll call them.” My heart is pounding, all of this multiplying so fast, but so are my emotions about it.
I want Becca Martin to have what she wants and I’m ready to move mountains to make sure she gets it.
“We’ll have to bust Ernest out of the nursing home. We might get in trouble,” she squeaks.
“Then I guess you’re turning me back into a troublemaker.”