Chapter 5 Dusty
Chapter 5
Dusty
D usty Tucker, get your shit together. You are supposed to be getting her out of her head. That’s it. That’s all.
Holding her hand while we ran to my car? Harmless. Touching the small of her back to guide her to the back of Stan’s store? Necessary. She didn’t know where she was going. Unzipping her wedding dress? That’s fine—she asked me to.
Dragging my fingers over whatever blue lace contraption she had on underneath it? Dangerously reckless.
Fuck.
I stood outside of my truck, letting the cold air outside bite at my cheeks and nose. I could hear my truck wobbling and creaking on its shocks—a reminder that Cam was in there taking her clothes—her wedding dress —off. It wasn’t the first time she’d stripped down in my car, but it was the first time I wasn’t in there while it was happening.
Take a breath, Dusty.
I dragged a hand down my face. She doesn’t need this from you right now, dumbass. She needs a friend. To help her escape for a few hours before both of us have to go back to real life— the place where Cam and I weren’t even friends, at least I didn’t think so.
While we were driving, I did my best to keep my eyes on the road and mountains ahead of me. There weren’t a lot of cars on this two-lane. It wasn’t the main highway—it twisted and turned around the mountains instead of going through them, so it took a lot longer to get where you were going. But it was my favorite road—the only one I took in and out of Meadowlark.
Now, I was looking at the mountains again—trying to think about anything but the woman who was undressing in the front seat of my truck, but I couldn’t. An image of her with her forehead pressed up against the window flashed in my brain, and I closed my eyes. The fact that she felt comfortable enough to fall asleep in my passenger seat had my insides doing a full gymnastics routine—twists, flips, jumps and all.
After what felt like forever, I heard two knocks on the window. My jaw unclenched, and I felt my shoulders drop slightly. I turned back to the truck and went straight to the back, opening the hatch to pull out a big Carhartt coat, a clean towel I’d just put in there, a pair of boots, and a pair of thick socks. I had to dig for those, but I was glad I found them.
I always made sure I had supplies in my truck—especially in the winter. You never knew when a canyon would close due to snow, and you’d be stuck in your car for at least one night, sometimes more.
Then I went to Cam’s door and pulled it open. I took her in, just for a second—she was drowning in that ridiculous T-shirt with her hair and makeup all done. God, she’d just gotten more beautiful with time.
“Coat,” I said and draped it across her lap with the towel. “Socks.” I looked down at her feet. She’d taken her heels off, and her feet looked red and painful. There were indents where her shoe straps had been, as if they’d been crushing her something fierce. I hated thinking that she’d been in pain this whole time.
I set the socks on top of the coat and the boots on the ground next to me before gently grabbing one of her ankles. “What are you doing?” Cam asked.
“I just thought…” I mumbled as I started to rub one of them with both of my hands. It was so damn cold. “Your feet look like they hurt.”
“I guess they do a little,” she said quietly.
“Does this feel okay?” She nodded—a woman of few words. I kept rubbing for a few minutes before putting one of the socks on, switching to the other foot, and starting over.
“What’s the towel for?” she asked after a second.
“In case you wanted to get your hair wet,” I said. Cam tilted her head in question. “Your hair…you don’t like it when it’s straight.” I shrugged. “I know you’ll say it’ll be frizzy or whatever, but the extra water and towel are there—if you want them.”
Her brown eyes were soft as she looked at me. Too soft. I couldn’t handle it, so I put the other sock on her foot and said, “We’ve got a thirty-minute drive to our destination, so you don’t need to put these on yet.” I put the boots on the floor of the truck.
“Where are you taking me?”
I shook my head. “I’m not telling, but I promise, you’re going to love it.”
—
Almost exactly thirty minutes later, we rolled into a parking lot. “You brought me to a fucking Chili’s?” Cam said with a shocked laugh.
I smiled over at her as I cut the engine. “Sure did.” While we were driving, she took her hair out of its bun and ran water through the strands with her hands. Curls started to form almost immediately. She seemed so much lighter than she did a few hours ago.
“This is so ridiculous,” she said.
“You know,” I said, “there are very few things that a mid-range chain restaurant can’t fix—especially one with chips and salsa and a sizzling fajita situation.”
Cam’s stomach growled. “All right,” she said. “I could do some damage to an order of chips and salsa.” She leaned down and slid the boots on.
“Ready to rock and roll?” I asked.
“Let’s do it.”
We got out of the car, and I had the urge to grab her hand as we walked toward the door, but I didn’t, of course. It was weird—before this morning, I hadn’t held her hand in nearly fifteen years, but reaching for it felt like the most natural thing in the world.
I looked over at her. She looked fucking adorable right now with her messy hair and how she was absolutely swimming in my coat and her new outfit from the gas station.
When we got inside, we were greeted by a hostess and a very bright “Hi, welcome to Chili’s. How many?”
“Two,” I said.
“Table or booth?”
“Booth,” Cam and I said at the same time.
The hostess nodded. “Right this way.” She led us to a four-person booth near the back of the restaurant. I waited for Cam to sit before I did, then I slid into the bench across from her. When we sat down, I watched Cam’s eyes latch on to the tattoo on my neck for a second, but when I caught her looking, she looked away quickly.
“Here are some menus, and your server will be right with you.” The hostess laid a menu in front of each of us.
“Thank you,” I said, and she nodded and walked away.
Cam picked her menu up. I watched her eyes track back and forth as she read. I liked watching her. I had spent so long not seeing her or only seeing pictures, so now, when I had the opportunity to look at her—which didn’t come as often as I’d like—I did it.
Her dark brown hair was longer now—and maybe darker, too. When it was curly, it fell to the middle of her biceps. Her face was less round than it used to be, and she didn’t tweeze her eyebrows as thin as she used to. They looked good on her face. She’d always been stunning. Now, she was…almost regal, too.
“Are you going to look at the menu, or…?” Cam said without looking up.
“Don’t need to,” I said. “Ultimate fajita platter.”
“Are you a Chili’s regular?” She sounded amused.
“I fucking love Chili’s,” I said. “Sometimes the craving strikes for that middle-class fancy shit, you know?”
“Like Applebee’s?”
“Meh.” I shrugged. “Not my favorite, but I like all the iterations of Applebee’s.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” I said, “right now, we’re at Southwest Applebee’s. Texas Roadhouse is like Cowboy Applebee’s, and Olive Garden is Italian Applebee’s.”
“Red Lobster?” Cam chimed in.
“Seafood Applebee’s. We should go there next,” I said.
“I could fuck up a Cheddar Bay biscuit any day.” She nodded, and I laughed. She was loosening up.
Just then, our server came to the table. “Hi y’all,” she said with a perfect customer service tone. “My name is Cara, and I’ll be your server today. Can I start you with anything to drink?”
I nodded at Cam, waiting for her to go first. I watched our server Cara take in her appearance. “I’ll just have a water, please.” The server nodded and looked at me. I didn’t miss the smile she gave me.
“Water, please, and also can we get a Tiki Beach Party Margarita.” I flashed Cara a smile and held up two fingers. “With two straws.”
Cara’s eyes flitted to Cam again as she wrote everything down, and then said, “Are you ready to order food, or do you need a minute?” She was only talking to me.
I looked at Cam, waiting for her. “Margarita grilled chicken, please,” she said, setting her menu down and looking over at me. I gave my order, too, grabbed Cam’s menu, and handed both to Cara. “Thank you,” I said before she walked away.
“The server is into you,” Cam said once she was out of earshot. I shrugged. “She’s probably wondering what the hell someone who looks like you is doing here with me.”
“Someone who looks like me?” I smirked. “What do I look like?”
“You know exactly what you look like,” Cam said pointedly. “You always have.”
“What if I want you to tell me, though?” I couldn’t help playing with her. It came so easy.
“Too bad. Women who got left at the altar don’t have to do anything they don’t want to do for at least a few hours afterward.”
“Does that mean you’re ready to talk about it, then?” I asked. We had avoided the subject until now. Cam didn’t like to be pushed, and I didn’t like to be reminded that she was engaged to someone else, or at least, she used to be, so it had been a win-win.
She shifted her eyes away from mine and started drawing mindless circles on the table with her pointer finger. “There’s not much to talk about,” Cam said. That was a lie. There was everything to talk about. “I showed up. He didn’t. It’s pretty cut and dried.”
It didn’t sound “cut and dried” to me. It sounded messy, but Cam didn’t like messy things.
“Hey,” I said. “Look at me.” She didn’t. “Ash,” I said more firmly. Her eyes flicked up to mine like they couldn’t help it. “You didn’t deserve that.” Cam always thought everything was her fault. I knew the way she was probably talking to herself in her head, and it made my teeth clench. “I need to know that you know you didn’t deserve that.”
“I think I did deserve it,” she said quietly. I wanted to throw the table. I wanted to get it out of my way, so I could hold her, but before I could even think about doing anything, Cara brought our waters and our drink.
“Your food will be right out,” she said again only to me and walked away. I looked at Cam, whose face had gone blank. No more talking, I guess—at least about the wedding. I opened both of the straws and put them in the giant glass of blue margarita.
“This is massive,” she said, eyeing the glass. She was wearing a small smile now. “And looks disgusting.”
“It is both of those things,” I said. “You’re going to hate it, but you’re also going to love it.”
“What does it even taste like?” she asked.
I leaned over toward the middle of the table to take a sip. “Artificial blue,” I said afterward.
“Well,” she sighed. “Blue is my favorite color.”
I know.