28. Dolly
28
DOLLY
“Can you fall in love with someone in a month?”
I ask the question before the heavy motel door is even fully open, the loud bang of it hitting the wall punctuating my question.
“You’ve been missing in action for hours and that’s how you greet us?” Emily responds.
She pushes past me, Alice hot on her heels, holding up a pie dish.
“Grasshopper,” she informs me, lifting the dish a bit to show it off. “Because it was that or sweet potato with a bourbon glaze, and this didn’t feel like a savory kind of panic button.”
She’s right, it’s not. Hell, I’m not even sure if this is an eat your feelings kind of moment. My stomach has been too tied up in knots since I pulled out of the church parking lot hours ago. Looking down at my hand, it’s still shaking, although at this point that might be because I haven’t eaten since o’dark-thirty. So pie is probably a good idea.
If I can manage to keep it down.
“Chocolate and mint is never the wrong answer,” Rose comments, following them in the door, Margeaux and Brenna right behind her.
Gang’s all here. Thank goodness.
“Exactly.” Alice nods, her proud smile saying it all. “I didn’t bring plates, but I do have forks!”
I let the door slam, the vibration rippling through the cheap motel room. The Ramblers’ Rest is about as far from a five-star accommodation as you can get. Pretty sure this place wouldn’t even get one star. Don’t get me wrong—it’s clean and decently maintained from an upkeep perspective, but that’s about where it ends.
The Lanes, who have owned the Ramblers’ Rest since before even my parents were born, haven’t renovated it or upgraded anything since the seventies. Maybe the eighties. It’s not a place that is designed for long-term stays—a quick in and out for those passing through. Or those looking for a quickie.
Or a girl who needs to not be found for a couple of hours.
“Have you been here all day?” Margeaux asks, her brows knitted with concern. “Hux is in knots.”
“You missed his big reveal,”Rose says.
“No…I…” I trail off. One question at a time.
I look to Rose. “I didn’t—at least not completely. He shared it with me privately first and…”
Guilt claws its way through me again. Between the way I reacted and missing his big reveal to the town, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get over this. Even if Hux manages to forgive me, I’m not sure this is one I’ll be forgiving myself over.
This morning was far from my finest moment. Like the distance from here to the moon far.
Actually, that might be too close.
“And no,” I continue, turning to face Margeaux. “I drove to Tifton.”
“You drove to Tifton?” Emily exclaims.
I nod. The small room feels almost cramped now with all six of us piled in here, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Alice hands me a fork, holding out the pie, letting me have the first bite.
Digging in, I take a moment to try and collect my thoughts. My very jumbled, out of control thoughts. There’s so much going on in my head, and I need to get it all out. Need to try and make sense of it all. I also need to try and do it coherently. The smooth minty-chocolatey combination hits my tongue, almost making me forget why I’m here.
Maybe this is an eat your feelings kind of moment.
“Here,” Brenna says, holding out the small, flimsy disposable plastic cup from the bathroom. It’s filled with an amber-colored liquid, matching what is in the unmarked bottle she’s holding in her other hand. A Southern Brothers special I presume. “I didn’t realize there would be pie, so I brought beer. Figured that’s why I was invited. Although it is Blue Jeans, so that’s probably the best one to mix with chocolate.”
I take the cup, placing it on the bureau next to me, so I can pull Brenna in for a hug. She squeaks, caught off guard by my gesture, hugging me in return.
“You were included because you’re family,” I tell her, still holding on.
We separate, and I let them all get settled—Emily and Rose on the bed up against the headboard, with Margeaux and Brenna seated on the edge, and Alice parked in the chair wedged in the corner. Taking another large bite of pie, I try to figure out how to start this—since none of them have answered my question from when I opened the door. But Emily breaks that ice with a single chop.
“Why did you drive to Tifton? Tell me you didn’t go to the dealership.”
Way to break the ice, Em…
I shake my head. No, the used car dealership my ex works at is the last place I wanted to be today. Or ever.
“Drove past it. Just like I drove past what would have been our place. But that was more out of autopilot than anything else. I needed to think,” I answer.
I needed to think. Simplest way to put it.If not a bit of an understatement.
“And answering our—or Hux’s—phone calls was intrusive to the process?”she pushes.
“I turned my phone off; that way I wasn’t distracted. Hux was what I needed to think about.”
Five pairs of eyes watch me expectantly, waiting for me to elaborate. I can see the questions forming in their minds, but I don’t know that I achieved any answers on my walkabout.
“I love him.” I throw my arms out wide, letting them fall immediately.
I let the bomb drop, waiting for an explosion. For all five of them to erupt—screams, yells, forks clanging, something. Instead, nothing.
“You’re the only person this is news to,” Alice says, taking a large bite of the pie and passing it to Emily.
What?!
“It’s only been a month? A little more? I mean…” I start to pace, my mind whirring again. Because I can’t make sense of this. It’s how I feel, I know that. What I don’t know is if those feelings can be trusted. “Can you really love someone after a month?”
Rose holds up her fork, as if making a point of order in court. “I fell for Pierce after three days of being snowed in with him, so…yes.”
I acquiesce, slightly. Rose and Pierce are the fairy tale. The Hallmark movie. The this doesn’t happen in real life . I can’t compare this to them, can I?
“And, it hasn’t really only been a month,” Brenna adds. “You two have been Dolly and Hux since forever. I used to watch you two when I was little and wish that I could have that, because I was so convinced you two were going to get married and be just like Miss Belle and Auggie, so in love all the time. So, it’s really been decades, if you think about it.”
“Duxley,” Rose tells her. “That’s their celebrity couple name. Please, spread it around.”
“Or don’t,” I comment.
“Oh, we’re making Duxley a thing,” Margeaux says.
“Give Milo five minutes with that…” Brenna laughs. “Actually, give Anton two…”
I roll my eyes, already able to hear the jeers coming from my brothers-in-law.
Brothers-in-law…
My heart squeezes, realizing that’s how I already think of those two. Who they already are to me. As annoying as all their teasing is and will be, and for as much as Hux is going to hate it, there’s a part of me, way down deep, that loves it. That wants to spend Sunday dinners with those two taunting us, using that name. Both of them pissed they didn’t come up with it.
“Dolly, what’s the issue here? I thought things were great between you two?” Alice questions. “And when we were at Ming Garden a couple of weeks ago, it was all ‘Hux is making me feel things I’ve never felt before…’ So, what gives?”
My lungs constrict, making it hard to breathe, as I think about how to answer that. As I try to put into words all my swirling thoughts and panic.
“He is. And this morning, while we were in the church vestibule and he was standing there, pouring out his soul like it was the only thing in the world he had to offer me, all while showing me this gorgeous playground he designed…” I sniffle, fighting back the wave of emotion trying to choke me all over again. “It was everything I could have ever dreamed of. He is everything I could ever want or dream of. All I could think about while he was showing me that playground was how I can’t wait to take my kids to play on it, then go home to the little white house, and how I want to do all that with Hux. But then…”
A silent sob escapes, sneaking up on me so fast I don’t even see it coming. I stumble backward, catching myself on the bureau, leaning against it for balance.
“I want to be able to trust my feelings,” I choke out.
“What makes you think you can’t?”Margeaux asks.
Her voice is soft, gentle, like she’s soothing a child who scraped their knee. If only this were able to be fixed with a Band-Aid and a kiss.
“I got it wrong before.”
A hush falls over the room, all of us as silent as a church mouse. My heavy words hang in the air like unwanted balloons, floating around, none of us knowing what to say next.
“Know what the worst part of all this is?” I babble, knowing that’s exactly what I’m doing, trying to fill the space. Pushing up off the bureau, the faux wood structure wobbles behind me. “I’ve spent all fucking day all up in my head about all this, trying to convince myself that I’m not crazy. And that I can trust myself and my feelings, and that it’s totally normally to be ass over tea kettle in love with someone after a month…and the only person I really want to talk to about all this is him. Hux is the one that I want to turn to and look at and have him wrap his arms around me and tell me that I haven’t lost my mind. But I can’t, because I freaked out and ran away from him.”
“I’m not an expert or anything, but I’m pretty sure that’s your answer,” Brenna comments.
“Huh?”
I stop dead in my tracks, swinging around to face her.
“Bren’s right,” Margeaux adds, her smile devilish and knowing. Almost as bad as that smirk all the Hayes men keep tucked away in their back pocket. “You just answered your own question. If he’s the only one you want to talk to, then that tells you everything.”
That tells me everything…
Because Hux is it.
Any future I try to picture has him in it. Kids, the little white house, forever. He’s the reason it never worked with anyone else. Because it was only ever supposed to work with him. The one who has been by my side since we were too young to know better.
The Clyde to my Bonnie. The yee to my haw. The milk to my cookies.
The Peter to my Wendy.
I look up at the girls, a new wave of panic hitting me. I need to go. I need to make this right. And I know exactly how. As long as I can pull it off.
“I need to get to my parents’,” I declare.
“Your parents’?” Rose questions.
I nod, grabbing my keys and heading for the door.
“Yup. I need to go break a promise.”
A pinky promise.