Chapter Fifteen #2
Her pulse spiked as she landed a foot to return to the family room, when Thad shifted his phone on the coffee table, turning to Daisy and taking her cheeks in his palms so tenderly, Charlie’s pace slowed.
“Who said that to you, baby girl?”
“Just … a boy at school last year … said I was stupid when the teacher asked me to read the sentence on the whiteboard.”
Brow still furrowed, his jaw pumped when the words bit out. “Don’t you dare believe it. Don’t you dare listen to anyone who tells you you ain’t smart enough.”
“Then why can’t I read like the other kids?” And like that, Daisy’s blues were filling with tears, and Charlie wanted to take her into her arms except, she seemed to be opening up to him, and she didn’t want to dash this moment of trust sowing between them.
“You just have a different way of understandin’. Kinda like me. I’m dyslexic. My letters mix up sometimes. Makes it hard to concentrate.”
“Is that why you listen to all those books in your truck?” Daisy asked instead. He nodded, when she whispered, “Did people call you stupid, too?”
He sat there. Frozen. Tense. Eyes shuttered. Jaw tight. Oh God. Daisy had just sledgehammered the truth.
“Yes. People who shoulda helped me.” Maybe people like … his parents?
“T. Rex, am I dys—dyslexic, too?”
He tucked her bedhead tendrils behind her ears like a doting father. “I ain’t the one to diagnose it, Daze. But you’re lucky. You got a momma who’s fightin’ for you…” His words tapered off. “Which means you’re gonna be okay.”
“I have you too, T. Rex, right?” Daisy cupped his cheeks too. “And you have me.”
He swallowed, his throat bobbing. Charlie’s chest ached for her daughter reaching for connection. Was it too much, coming on too strong for him? She didn’t even know where they stood.
“Come ’ere, Daze.” He cleared his throat, reached for his phone, setting it back on his knee as he tugged her back into the arc of his arm, and hit play on the audio book.
And the way he held Daisy to him now … maybe it had been just what he’d needed to hear after all.
Charlie retreated to the kitchen. Jotted herself a note to call the school first thing in the morning and ask about testing for learning disabilities while they kept practicing in the other room.
She pulled out her phone. Just like that time he’d spent the night, he seemed as if in no hurry to leave, even when he had ample chance.
Charlie: “What happened, Heart? Do I need to kick your boyfriend’s ass? Thaddeus said you left and that he’s having to babysit his cousin.”
A moment later, ellipses began to pulsate with an incoming reply.
Heart: “Thaddeus? What happened to nameless band singer?”
Charlie frowned, but yeah. She’d broken her own rule and Heart was calling her out.
Charlie: “I made the mistake of getting to know him.”
Heart: “U guys finally talking again?”
Charlie shook her head, glancing toward the family room, but tapped her reply. Fun-loving Heart was the master of avoiding matters of her own heart.
Charlie: “Don’t deflect. What happened with you and Tyler? Thaddeus just told me you broke his heart.”
She hit send. Heart started to reply, then stopped. Started, then stopped.
Charlie: “Don’t forget, sisters before misters, right?”
Heart: “Speaking of misters. Thaddeus “just” told you? Is he there now? At 7:45 in the morning? Charlie, you harlot lol.”
Busted. Charlie smiled at the ribbing.
Charlie: “He didn’t spend the night.”
Heart: “I guarantee u he wanted to lol.”
Charlie: “He fixed my Rover last night. It broke down, and he let me drive his truck home. He brought it back this morning.”
Heart: “He loaned u his TRUCK?! OMG that boy doesn’t let anyone touch his truck. He’s so gone for u, u know that, right? He moped around Ty’s farm for 2 weeks, begging me 4 your number like a puppy dog.”
He had? Why hadn’t Heart given it to him?
Heart: “But sisters before misters, right? If you didn’t give him your number, I wasn’t going to, either.”
Charlie bit her lip. It had been their saying ever since they’d hit it off at a paleontology conference and become friends, two lost souls floating around the world with no roots, looking out for themselves.
Snippets of Thad and Daisy’s conversation filtered into the kitchen as she put a skillet on the stove and turned on the heat, laying the strips into the pan to sizzle, her brain running wild with speculation.
Charlie: “But can I trust him?”
Heart: “He’s a live wire, 4 sure. I know why u wouldn’t. I don’t talk 2 him much.”
Heart: “He keeps himself busy. But what do we say in science? Look at the facts. Jason’s a class A prick. In his 30s without a pot 2 piss in and a record a mile long.”
Heart: “Frm what I can see, T. Rex. is rough around the edges, like whiskey that’s just been racked but hasn’t had time 2 age into something fine yet.”
Huh.
Heart: “But he’s a hard worker. Skilled. Ty thinks the world of him. A jokester, but actually, kind of keeps 2 himself up on the ridge.”
Heart: “I heard him having a good time a couple nights.”
Charlie bit her lip, and that unease swirled to the surface again.
Charlie: “Always got a girl on his arm, right lol. Reason number 1 to nip this in the bud.”
Heart: “Oooh, a boy’s finally gotten under Charlie’s skin. Someone’s fishing for deets…”
Charlie flashed her eyes heavenward and sighed. But Heart wasn’t wrong. He was under her skin and beneath her eyelids when she daydreamed. In her thoughts every time she wore his T-shirt.
Heart: “I meant he and his band were outside practicing around his firepit. I haven’t seen a single girl.”
Heart: “He likes his privacy. His home is like a sanctuary.”
He didn’t have a new girl du jour there every night? Look at the facts.