Chapter Twenty-Nine #2
She’d been trying to quell the discomfort, telling herself he was different than Jason, but … Jason hadn’t started out mean. He’d started out as a huge flirt. As a guy who ate up the limelight. As a guy who thrived on his audience’s praise and basked in the benefits of it—
No, she ought to trust Thad. If Heart said he had a heart of gold, then it must be true. So far, she’d only been treated with a heart of gold.
“I get the sense you don’t want me to know about something,” Charlie hedged as he pushed back to standing.
He leaned down, planted a kiss to her lips more easily now. “Everything’s right as rain, baby, I just got hit with something I gotta deal with.”
“Okay.” She nodded, swallowing down the unease, and moments later, watched his taillights recede down the road.
She checked her phone. Three-thirty.
If she hurried to load up her laptop and coursework, they could get to the post office before it closed.
Clutching the rest of the mail stack, she smiled down at Daisy. “Wanna hit the post office with me?”
She tossed the mail on the passenger seat, starting the engine to crank the AC, let Artex jump in the back seat with Daisy, and raced inside to grab her satchel and books stacked on her kitchen table and … she smiled, her banjo case too.
Yeah, how could someone so reverent of her music and so honest about his want be doing something untrustworthy? This had to be her paranoia. Jason had made her see the worst in everyone else. She wouldn’t give this weird inkling any more thought until he actually did something untrustworthy.
But when she hoisted herself into the driver’s seat—
“Look, Momma, a letter for me!”
Daisy was leaning through the front seats, rifling through the mail.
Her school’s logo was on the upper corner. Oh God, her invitation to the daddy-daughter dance!
“Exciting! Let’s open it later, chica—”
But Daisy was already tearing it open.
Distract her. “Hey, Daisy, put your belt on. We can worry about the mail later…”
Daisy sat back and clipped on her belt, but she’d already slipped the card free.
Charlie craned back to take it from her, when the pictures of an illustrated silhouette of a man in a suit dancing hand in hand with a little one in a dress, with stylized party bunting printed across the top, met her eyes.
Daisy Thompson, you are cordially invited to Nacogdoches Elementary’s 18th annual Fall Daddy-Daughter Dance to kick off the new school year, it read.
Daisy stared at the picture, and Charlie saw her deflate. Saw her bite her lip and hang her head, letting it drop in her lap. She didn’t need to read to know what the picture meant.
“Hey, sweet girl.” She brushed back Daisy’s wisps. “I’m so sorry.”
That familiar guilt ate through her, gnawing at her resolve, compelling her to buy a hundred chickens if she had to, or find a living unicorn, when Daisy’s head popped up, blue eyes suddenly bright.
“What if I ask T. Rex to take me?”
Charlie’s breath caught. Yes! She quickly stomped the brakes. Was this too soon? Something told her the man who kept showing up for Daisy would jump at the chance. And yet, it was clear Daisy was getting attached. Charlie was getting attached.
Don’t break my little girl’s heart.
I think you mean, don’t break yours.
Her heart pinched as she put her SUV in reverse, because he’d never promised not to break either.
So much was up in the air. So much was at stake. What was she supposed to do? Daisy was still hopeful, so willing to hang her heart on a man’s smile.
She took a deep breath. Why was taking a chance so hard? She nodded, her heart betraying her logic.
“Okay.”
She pulled into the post office parking lot, hurried into the lobby, and retrieved her letter.
Charlie read the return address.
Her lawyer? She glanced at Daisy, busy restacking the customs forms on the counter, and looked back down at the envelope, tearing it open with increasing trepidation. Nothing good about Jason ever came from these letters … her temporary restraining order against Jason was dissolved?
Already?
How had his attorney pushed this through so quickly? She shivered, Jason’s intention clear. He didn’t want it in the way. He never did. He had this grand illusion he’d remarry her and was never going to let that go. How could any judge look at what Jason was doing and rule in such a way?
She closed her eyes. This was too much. All of it was too much. No … she exhaled. Tyler was going to help her now. Thaddeus was in her corner, rooting for her. He was right, and so far, he’d been nothing but an honest, hard-working guy so different from his stage persona.
She’d known Jason would do this. She couldn’t let Jason win.
“Are we going, Momma?” Daisy asked, and Charlie pasted a smile on her face, nodding.
“Yup, let’s hit the road.”
They were still going to be early, though, she thought, as Daisy took her hand to skip back to the Rover.
That inkling from earlier leaked in. No, he was receiving an important delivery of some sort.
He’d said they’d be bored if they got there before dinnertime but that was okay.
She had her articles to mark and scan, and she could easily do that on his porch in the fresh air while Daisy played on the playset.
They’d simply wait for him to finish up—
Her phone dinged with a notification.
A social media tag? She opened it. She never used her social media. She only kept it to follow botany pages and be part of the university alumni page. There weren’t any events coming up. Except as she tapped the app, there, right at the top, was a notification. She tapped it.
A post on … McClintock’s Alumni?
A grainy, mid-concert photo of her from two weeks ago, split next to a screen shot of an old news article featuring a beauty pageant winner in a strapless evening gown, in mid blow of a kiss to the audience.
Bright green eyes and long, blond hair, sparkling tiara, and a damning headline.
“Shamed contestant forced to pay back scholarship after divorce from band frontman. Custody battle ensues.”
Her pulse kicked up.
And the comments…
Her thumb doomscrolled, sweat beading on her brow, then an incoming call began to buzz and chime in her hand. From Jason? Her throat tightened and her body shook.
“Chases the band…”
“Nothing but a groupie … gold digger…”
“McClintock better watch his back unless he wants to end up saddled with a kid…”
“Glad I got a shot with him before the she trapped him…”
Her face burned! Her worst nightmare, being thrown in her face.
Jason’s call kept pulsing. She stabbed it to kick it to voicemail, his call so conveniently incoming right at the moment her world spun out of orbit. Jason’s humiliations on stage echoed in her heart, shutting off her throat as she fought to swallow.
And the anonymous poster who’d shared it and tagged her? How? Her profile didn’t even say her full name, just C. Brad. She’d stopped using it years ago.
She hurried to open her settings and saw a flood of messages hitting her app inbox. Hate mail. She couldn’t breathe! A tear leaked over her eyelid. She ripped at the collar of her T-shirt, gulping for air.
Jason called again, but she couldn’t deal with that as she scrambled to change her profile to private. Deleted her profile picture to the anonymous head silhouette.
“Momma, what’s wrong? Why’re we just sitting here?” Daisy asked, looking up from the tablet she’d brought along.
The phone kept ringing. Thaddeus this time.
Oh God, had he seen the post, too? The world was closing in.
She shut her phone off instead, the screen falling black and blessedly silent, tossed it onto the floorboard and lay her forehead to the steering wheel, still idling in the post office parking lot.
She had to get it together. What should she do? Just go home? Yes. She turned the wheel. She couldn’t do this band thing with Thad. She’d only drag them all down, give him bad press as Jason sabotaged her again and again—
“This isn’t the way, Momma,” Daisy said. “T. Rex is that way.”
How should she explain this to Daisy? She was so tired of being the one who had to explain every disappointment, who had to sideline her hurt from the constant stabs aimed at her, to find a way to rationalize it to Daisy, who’d then ask a million questions about it, further stabbing at Charlie by making her relive the details, when all she wanted to do was sink into Thaddeus’s arms and let his stalwart presence reassure her in the face of Jason’s restraining order rescinding, this anonymous post aimed to dox and humiliate her…
Jason. The moment her restraining order against him had been lifted—no, the moment she’d opened this letter—this anonymous post, calling her out for divorcing him, had hit social. Had he been … watching her check her mail?
Her skin crawled as she glanced in her rearview and … there was his F-150, pulling out on the road from the side street.
She flipped her blinker on and turned toward the farm. She wanted to see Thaddeus and feel his unyielding presence. She had to tell Tyler.
“You’re right, sweet girl. My mistake.”