29. Dolly
29
DOLLY
Throwing my Jeep in park, I’m not sure I pause long enough to even take a breath before I stumble out onto my parents’ drive. I should maybe be a little worried about how I got here, since I don’t exactly remember the drive—autopilot taking over and ensuring my safety as I made my way across town. Because Lord knows my mind was elsewhere.
Like actually managing to pull this off.
Thoughts continue to jumble in my head, mashing together all the things I want to say to Hux to get my feelings across with how I need to word this to my parents so that they don’t think I’ve completely lost my mind. Not that I think they are going to object, but my request is a little out of left field.
Barging through the door, I don’t stop long enough to make sure it closes, charging right on through the small hallway past the formal dining room that we never use and the kitchen toward my father’s office. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of movement in the kitchen, but I don’t stop. I’m on a mission.
“I need Opal!” I declare, word vomiting the first thing that comes to mind.
I feel the movement behind me before I hear my mother, her calm, loving voice not showing even the slightest bit of curiosity.
“The keys are hanging up by the garage. Your daddy moved them after Ken Noble fixed the alternator last summer,” she tells me. I spin around on my heel, ready to head that way, but she stops me. “Why don’t you join us in the kitchen?”
“I don’t have time, Mama. I need to get Opal, and then?—”
“I think you have time for a glass of sweet tea.”
A glass of sweet tea? Great balls of fire, what kind of Southern woman’s guide to hospitality does she think she’s fallen into?
Forcing a smile to my face, I step toward her, my heart still racing like it’s waiting on the starting gun at Churchill Downs. I don’t have time to waste. There’s already been too much of that as far as Hux and I are concerned. Decades, really. This is something I should have done so many years ago.
“I really don’t. I don’t even have time to explain. I need to get Opal and go.” I suck in a huge breath, a hiccup escaping. “I promise it’ll all make sense later, but right now…”
I try to sidestep her, but she grabs my arm, jerking me back. Same way she did when I was little and I did something that was out of line. She’s also looking at me the way she did back then too—lips pursed and eyes trained on me like a lion watching its prey.
“Dolly Norah McLain,” she whispers. “I pa-romise you that you have time for a glass of tea…”
Her emphasis on promise brings out her accent in a way that makes her sound so Southern that Scarlett O’Hara herself would applaud. It also lets me know that she means business and that I damn well better listen.
“Tea sounds great.”
Mama loops her arm through mine, her listen to me, damn it look replaced by her bright, beautiful smile as she leads me into the kitchen. For a split second I start to wonder what has overcome her. If maybe she had some kind of close encounter and is the next Roy Neary. But then I look up.
Then I see it.
See him.
Sitting at my parents’ kitchen table, right next to my dad, is the man who stole my heart. Right there, at the same table where I ate dinner every night growing up. The same table he and I did more homework assignments than I can count, shared afternoon snacks, and whispered secrets behind my mama’s back.
Hux Hayes.
The whole world stops, all the air sucked straight out of my lungs. Hell, from the atmosphere. I can’t breathe. Can’t move. Can’t think.
Hux is here.
“We’ll give y’all a moment…” Mama announces, patting my shoulder. “Joe…”
I stay frozen in place, watching as my father nods, both he and Hux standing up and hugging. Like this was any other Saturday evening that he came over for dinner and was simply saying good night. Inside, I melt, unable to hold it together, watching the two men that I love the most embrace like this. One more sign that this is exactly what I want.
Please don’t let that be a goodbye hug from Hux…
“Dolly,” Hux starts, waiting until Daddy is fully out of the kitchen to speak.
But I don’t let him continue.
“Marry me.”
I blurt it out, my word vomit game strong this evening. Hux reels backward, my words hitting him both physically and mentally. His hazel eyes go wide, and I can tell I caught him off guard, and that’s okay. To be fair, I’ve caught myself a little bit off guard as well. But now that it’s out there, I know that it’s exactly what I want.
“We don’t have to do it right away,” I ramble, because why stop now. “We don’t have to have the whole big to-do either—the church, reception, and all that. Just you and me. As it should be.”
Hux stands there, still as a statue. Every inch of me clenches, muscles I didn’t know I had tensing, waiting for him to react. Say something. Do something. Blink. Sigh. Fucking anything.
“No.”
No? No?
I wilt, my knees weakening, nausea consuming me. Tears sting at the corners of my eyes and I fight them back, right along with telling myself not to puke.
No…
Doesn’t he want this? No, of course he doesn’t. Why would he want to be with the woman who reacted so poorly when he tried to show her how he felt? The woman who walked away.
How could I have gotten this so wrong?
“Because you want all those things,” he says, cutting through my thoughts. “The big to-do. So that’s what you’ll get. Complete with the white house and everything.”
What?!
I swallow hard, tears escaping. Pretty sure I didn’t hear him right.
“Come again?”
Closing the gap between us in two steps, Hux wraps an arm around me, hauling me into him. I hit his chest with a soft thud, the warmth of him surrounding me, welcoming me home.
“I haven’t come a first time.” He winks. I giggle, rolling my eyes. Classic Hux… “But Dolly, I’ll tell you as many times as you need to hear it. What my girl wants, my girl gets.”
His girl…
“Am I still your girl after this morning?”
He tightens his grip on me, and I do the same, not wanting to let go. This is the safest I’ve felt in a long time.
“Always. I would really like an explanation though.”
I sigh. Peering around him, I nod to the chair he was sitting in before. This might take a moment, and we probably shouldn’t be standing in the middle of the kitchen for this conversation.
Understanding exactly what I’m thinking, Hux lifts me up, taking the three strides over to the chair and depositing himself in it, with me in his lap. I shake my head but settle in anyway. After all, this is my forever.
“Explain.”
“As I was standing there, looking at that treehouse, all I could think about was being a mom to Hayes boys, which means at least one of them is going to try and push another from that thing and we’re going to end up with a broken arm. So then I’m going to have to leave the diner early, or you’re going to have to try and corral the others at the paper mill…and then trying to get them all to go to sleep in our perfect white house that you built, and…it was all so perfect…” I sniffle, looking away while trying to blink back tears.
Hux turns me back to him, wiping away the first escapee with his thumb, that infamous Hayes smirk already showing through.
“And that perfection was really overwhelming. Which sounds really stupid now that I say it out loud, I realize that, so don’t you go saying it. But, a few weeks ago I thought that I was never going to get the life that I’ve always dreamed of, and here you were serving it to me on a silver platter. Add in Aunt Hattie making stupid comments about my judgment, and my doubts and worries that you’ll change your mind about wanting me crept in, and it was all too much and I freaked the fuck out. I seriously take back all the times that I looked at other people and said that they just need to be grown-up and talk it out. A lot easier said than done when you’re the one armpit deep in it.”
“What if we end up with girls?” he counters, looking smugger than he has any right to.
What if we end up with girls…is he listening to himself? Or anything else I just said?
I scoff. “There are six of you boys. Six! Clearly a certain set of Hayes swimmers wins those races. I am not having seven kids just to have a daughter…”
Hux guffaws, throwing his head back. His whole body shakes, jostling me in his lap. It wasn’t meant to be that funny, but I’m glad he thinks it was so clever. I’m sticking to these words though. We will not be adding that many extra ornaments to Miss Belle’s Christmas tree.
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he says, turning serious. “I just wanted to find a way to show you what you mean to me. That I’m not changing my mind about anything. I meant what I said when I told you I’m in this. I want all those things too. I have for a long time. Much longer than I’ve been willing to admit.”
I lean back, searching his eyes for…something. A truth that I know that only I’ll be able to find. An unspoken entity that only exists between two people who know each other the way we do.
Sure enough, I find it.
“How long?”
“A long time.”
“Why didn’t you say…” I trail off, not even sure how to finish.
“You’re not the only one who has been up in their own head. So trust me when I tell you I get it. If you only knew the mental gymnastics I’ve done over the years. I probably should have come clean about that a long time ago.”
“We can call it even for me keeping the not in love with Jeff thing to myself.”
Hux nods, one corner of his mouth tugging upward. “You running away, I thought, was the confirmation of my own fears and doubts. This has been the longest day of my life, Dolly. Thinking that I did something to upset you and that I lost you. I didn’t know how I was going to live with myself.”
“That’s never ever what I want you to think.” I rest my forehead against his, letting out a long breath. “Who would have thought we shared that worry?”
“Now that we know, how about we promise each other we’ll try that talking thing going forward.”
“Promise. No secrets—even little ones.”
Hux chuckles. “Except maybe what I got you for Christmas.”
“Deal.”
“Thinking of, what did that lady say to you at Reel Madness that made you blush?”
“What lady?”
“The older lady, who asked about the cinnamon rolls.”
I smile, laughing to myself. I totally forgot about her. “She thought we were really cute together, and that based on the way you were looking at me, I should make my move.”
“That made you blush?”
“No.” I shake my head. “That was from the part she added about how getting to kiss your best friend every day is a lot of fun.”
“She’s not wrong.”
So I have learned…
Running my fingers along his collarbone, my stomach flips, a weird anticipation flowing through me. Hux is mine. All mine.
“Maybe now I’ll finally get to use that acronym I’d cooked up as a way to ask you out.” He winks, tickling my sides.
“What?” I giggle.
Reaching behind himself, Hux lifts a hip, pulling out his wallet. From it, he slips out a small, well-worn piece of paper, handing it to me. I unfold it, unable to hold back my laughter as I read it.
I want to FUCK
Find ways to make you smile
Understand and support you
Cuddle you up and hold you close
Kinda also really want to fuck you too
“Hux, this is…hilarious. What stopped you?”
“Long story about failed reverse psychology. Just be comforted in the newfound knowledge that Grandma Dolly was on our side.”
Duh…
“Every girl needs a little rip in her jeans…” I wink at him.
He yanks me into him, kissing me hard. I whimper, savoring his taste. It’s our first kiss since our hiccup. The first of forever.
“I have no idea what that means, but you’re the second woman in your family to say it to me today.”
“Old family saying about getting into trouble,” I explain. “Grandma Dolly told me right before she passed that you were the rip in mine, and to never patch it up.”
“She always was a wise one.”
He kisses me again, this time slower and full of purpose. I lean in, letting it linger, enjoying the moment. The ease of it. Of us. Because this is how it should feel. Sweet, loving, easy.
There is still one outstanding question though.
“You really won’t marry me?” I tease, poking him.
Scrunching his face, Hux gives me a sour look. “Doll, I’ll marry the fuck outta you. Why do you think I’m here, talking to your daddy?”
My heart stops all over again. But this time, it’s for all the right reasons.
Fireworks shoot off in my belly like it’s the Fourth of July, every fiber of my being ready to shout my acceptance. To get this party started and for forever to start yesterday.
“But we’re gonna do this properly. None of your half-ass proposed we don’t need the big to-do nonsense. Which means I’m gonna parade you around this town on my arm showing you off for a bit, and then I’m going to make a showing of getting down on one knee, and then, we’re having a wedding. Hayes style.”
“McLain-Hayes style, thank you very much.”
He nods. “McLain-Hayes style.”
“At sundown?”
His brow furrows. “If that’s what you want.”
“It’s sundown somewhere, right?” I smile, butterflies spreading through me as his own grin takes over.
“With you, it’s always sundown.”
“I love you, Hux Hayes. I know I pinky promised to never do that, but I need to break that promise. Because I love you so much.”
“I love you too, Dolly. How ’bout a new pinky promise?”
I hold out my hand, little finger extended. Hux wraps his around mine, squeezing.
“To forever?” I propose.
“Forever.”