Chapter 24
Everly
I’m not a pie in the sky person, but after a weekend I’ll never forget, I genuinely expected to spend the week texting messages signed with cute little emojis back and forth with Knox.
In the evenings, I imagined he’d stop in for dinner.
Maybe wait around for me to close up so we could spend time together. Trade some more kisses.
Silly me. In place of my expectations, I’ve got a way too quiet phone and haven’t seen the man once. Did I say the wrong thing? Do something I didn’t realize?
Am I a bad kisser? I was a bit rusty before Saturday, but it felt like things fell into a groove quite nicely.
I frown at the decked-out evergreen by the checkout counter. Knox’s tree. The points on the starry topper feel like barbs into my soul. Lance pursued me and then ran once he got to know me better. Ethan…
Well, Ethan was a fraud and I’m well rid of him, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt finding out I’d been toyed with.
“Hey, sugar. You got man troubles?”
I spin out of my trance. Marlene watches me as she places a new filter into the coffee maker. “That’s a giant assumption.”
She closes the lid on the machine and shrugs, but with a knowing look in her spidery-lashed eyes. “When it comes to man trouble, I know the signs.” She flips the switch to brew and invades my space, as she tends to do when she’s in gossip mode. “Something go wrong with Knox, hon?”
I look around the sparsely filled dining room.
We’re in that fleeting lull that happens as the breakfast hour settles but before the lunch rush throttles us for three hours straight.
The Christmastime satellite radio station I managed to stream through Uncle Charlie’s antiquated sound system blares overly peppy holiday music through the overhead speakers.
“You know they been real busy at that jobsite, right?”
“I know. Knox has texted that a couple times, but—” Rats. “You know what? I’m sorry, but I don’t understand. I’ve gotten a few boring messages about being busy but otherwise haven’t heard from him, and after Saturday night…”
Marlene shimmies and sidles closer, balling her fists in front of her ample chest in suspense. “The night in the motel? Do tell, sugar. Marlene wants details!”
No joke. She hounded me all day Monday, although I think mostly for her personal entertainment purposes. She's known me for too long to doubt my account of the night.
I strut away. “When—if—there’s anything new to report, you’ll be the first to know.” Or not.
“That’s what I like to hear.”
All I know is there’s a knot the size of Texas in the pit of my stomach. I let down my guard with Knox. I got real.
I take another couple steps, then spin around. “Cliff has been in, and you’ve seen him every night.”
She drops back, gnawing her lip. If she’s not careful, she’s going to smear the bold red paint. “Well now, hon. Cliff ain’t the boss. Knox has got a lot more on his plate.”
Maybe. But I can see in her eyes she’s not convinced either. And that means something, because goodness only knows if Marlene is an expert on anything, it’s failed relationships. Not being unkind. She says so herself.
So far, Knox has reached out only enough to keep me on a string.
But Wednesday evening, right as I’m about to turn off the lamp and overthink everything, my phone dings.
Knox: Save my seat for dinner tomorrow. I’ll get there as quick as I can. Missing you.
Hope and joy are reborn.
Thursday, the hours pass at a torturous pace.
Now, I check the time on the clock, the same clock I’ve looked at ten times in as many minutes. Seven-twenty-two.
No Knox. I dig my phone from my apron.
Are you still coming?
Nothing.
I’m sorry he’s having a rough time, but I’ve foolishly denied signs before.
It’s Marlene’s day off and I tried calling her twice earlier in the day to see if she could fill in the gaps of what’s so awful at the jobsite. but all day long she hasn’t returned my calls—another red flag. As much time as she and Cliff spend together, she knows something.
The knot in my chest cinches to the point of physical pain.
Dinner isn’t our busiest time, and tonight is extra slow. Suzy, Uncle Charlie’s second-best waitress, can handle things for half an hour, right?
I fill a to-go container with chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes, corn, and a fresh roll. I even box up a slice of pumpkin pie.
Have I chosen poorly yet again? The thought plays on repeat as I cross the main highway to the other side of town. A cold mist keeps my windshield wipers busy.
I park along the shoulder of the road. Unlike Knox’s truck parked near a trailer surrounded with temporary light poles, my SUV doesn’t have four-wheel drive. Plus, it has an aversion to mud on its shiny black paint.
Hmm. Is that something the infamous Becca might have said?
It’s a good thing I’m wearing ugly shoes I care nothing about, because these atrocious, no-slip slip-ons are going to need hosing down after tonight.
The jobsite is lit up like Christmas, and despite the darkness, work is in progress. Multiple industrial-sized lights are keeping the crew in business.
There are shiny yellow bulldozers and backhoes. Orange and white ones with giant treads moving about, and stacks of giant pipes I assume will soon be buried in the dirt.
The workers are mostly toward the rear of the site, but a man in a suit paces a few feet from the trailer, phone to ear. He has to realize the mud has already contaminated his shiny loafers, though he appears to have bigger problems on his mind.
The man, listening to someone on the other end of the call, tracks me with vague curiosity as I screw up my courage, nod politely, and take the three steps to the trailer door.
My worst fear reinvents itself into blinding reality as I take in the scene inside the trailer. There are a couple of metal and vinyl chairs, a filing cabinet, and a desk, behind which sits a beautiful—and I do mean gorgeous—blonde. She’s almost the spitting image of my last boss’s trophy wife.
From her striking, platinum blonde hair, surely shored up by extensions, to her pointy, shiny fingernails, to her custom tailored dress, the woman looks straight from one of those swanky events littered with the who’s who of whichever world she comes from.
Knox leans in the doorway behind the desk, grinning down at her and her laughing fuchsia lips.
I catch a flash of her return smile, and weirdly, the thing that comes at me hardest is the unnatural perfection of her high-gloss white teeth.
I want to knock them from her head.
Unclench your fists, Ev.
“Everly.” Knox’s surprised smile falters before rebuilding brightly.
Too bright?
“What are you doing here?” He and his adorably tussled hair meet me in the middle of the room. He holds out his hand.
My glance encompasses her again, then him. Yep. There was a smile on his lips before, but now, tightening lines frame his eyes. I’m crashing his party, no doubt.
“I figured you were busy, so I brought you dinner…” A fast-forming lump grows in my throat. Who cares about food at a time like this? What I’d like to do is open up the smaller Styrofoam container in the bag and mash the orangey pumpkin goo in his cheating face.
I turn for the door, ready to run full speed the instant I’m through it. I’m not a drama girl, not me. The scammy player is all hers.
It’s only been a matter of weeks. One night of kisses. I can move on. Pretend Knox never happened. I can recover.
But he snags my elbow, halting my mad dash. With the other hand, he lifts the bag of containers from me and raises it to his nose. “Mmm. Chicken fried steak?”
I nod, silent, because my voice isn’t playing on my team right now. He’s trying to act normal, but his fleeting first reaction held all I needed to see.
The woman’s cat eyes both swoop and linger over me, envious, I’m guessing, of my ugly shoes and the ketchup blob smeared into my t-shirt since breakfast. “I better go.”
“Everly, wait.”
Shoot. Knox’s voice holds magical powers. I turn mid reach for the door, stuck, like I’m knee deep in slimy mud. Awareness of my outsider status registers clear to my bones.
The air in the trailer is as thick as the gunk on my shoes. I’ve never felt so out of place in my life. When I should be running, my feet are failing me. Can’t leave, can’t stay. Pathetic.
Wheels thump and rattle against a warped plastic chair mat. Lifting a full-length coat that’s been stretched across the desk, the blonde stands. She’s as petite, fit, and pretty much as AI perfect as I imagined when she was seated.
She smiles at Knox. “I’m going to find Rand.” Her nod as she passes me is polite, and, I dare say, amused.
I’ll show her amused…
A whoosh of cold air rushes around my legs before the door thuds closed.
Ironically, the chill thaws me. I fold my arms. “Nice of you to string a girl along, Knox. All you had to do was say you didn’t want to see me anymore.” Ugh. Here I am chasing the man with bad diner food. “A simple text and I’d have been out of your hair.”
“No, Everly—”
“She’s very pretty, by the way. I’m sure you’ll be super happy with her—for the five minutes you stick around.” I say it with a tipped-up chin lest he think any of this hurts me more than it does.
Knox backs onto the corner of the desk, palming one muscled thigh. A single side of his mouth—his stupid kissing mouth—rocks up in a maddening grin. “Are you jealous, Everly Wilkes?”
How. Dare. He. Laugh!
“Because I’m seeing a little green around...” He circles his fingers about his face. “You know.”
“Wouldn’t you like that?” My chin continues its ascent as if it’s helium filled.
He crosses his arms, matching my posture. The khaki work shirt, splattered with grime and ripped at the hem, stretches across his chest. “Oh, I do like it. I like it very much.”
“Wow.”
“Wow?”
“I completely misread you. I thought you were a guy with...” What’s the right word? “Integrity.”
His look reads smug, not the least chastised or humiliated. “I tend to think I am.”