10. Becca
TEN
BECCA
“Miss Becca?”
A tiny voice wakes me and the face that looks back at me is a blast from the past. The deep, dark, swampy past. Strawberry blonde hair and a sprinkle of freckles across her nose. Even the same gap she had in her teeth when we were little.
CJ.
Ellie looks so much like her mama that it sends a pang through me. Though as my eyes focus, I can see traces of her daddy too.
“Morning, Ellie.”
“What are you doing here?” she asks, her excitement apparent.
I sit up, stretching out a crick in my neck.
I’m on a couch in Tyler’s apartment, a pair of crocheted blankets falling to my lap.
A faint memory floats in of those blankets being tucked around my shoulders.
“Your daddy was worried I wouldn’t make it home safe last night and had me sleep here.
” My eyes cut toward what I assume is the bedroom in this apartment.
She shrugs. “Oh. He was asleep on the floor. That makes sense.”
“Is he awake yet?”
“No, but I can get him up.” She raises her voice about fifty decibels. “Daddy!”
“No, shh, that’s okay. We can let him sleep.”
Ellie looks at me like I’m the silliest goose that ever was. “Who’s going to feed us breakfast, then?”
She’s right. I can’t just leave her here with her dad asleep. I mean, maybe she’s used to that, but I’m not and I feel weird abandoning her. “Why don’t you show me around the kitchen, and we’ll scare something up?”
Ellie giggles. “Why is it scary?”
I laugh too. “‘Scare something up’ is an old way to say ‘put together.’”
She points me to the cupboard with a few toaster pastries in it, and I notice some stray dishes in the sink. “Men,” I mutter under my breath. There looks to be a perfectly good dishwasher. Is it really that hard?
Maybe I’m being too hard on Tyler. He’s a single dad living over his auto shop. That can’t be easy.
I look through the fridge and find a carton of eggs about to go bad. “You like scrambled eggs?”
“I like eggs in a basket.”
A beat of nostalgia hits hard and fast from my own childhood: my mamaw doing anything to get us to eat something remotely healthy.
I’d have lived on Taco Bell and hashbrowns if she’d have let me.
Now that I dabble in growing my own food, my tastes have grown up a bit.
I poke through the fridge, looking for something to jazz up the eggs in a basket.
“You like ‘em with a sprinkle of cheese on top?”
“And hot sauce,” she says confidently.
“Woo, doggie, you like it hot!”
She laughs at that. “Where’s your doggie?”
My heart pangs when I think of T-Bone. I left her in her room with the doggie door, but I hadn’t really planned to leave her alone all night.
Well, part of me hoped to, but not for the sake of leaving her.
I wanted some adult company, and I don’t make a habit of bringing somebody back to the farm unless I know them real well.
People know where I live and what I do, but I don’t want to invite anybody who might think they deserve more and start using my land for nefarious things.
“She’s back at my house. I’ll go home and play with her here soon. What’s your plan for today?”
“I have school and then I’ll be at the shop.”
I busy my hands with spreading a pat of butter around the heating pan. “Is that what most of your days are like?”
“Yep!” She acts like it’s a normal daycare arrangement.
I’ve heard plenty from my brother about how childcare costs about twelve times what you’d hope it would.
There are state vouchers and stuff, but who knows if Tyler would apply for something like that.
Knowing him, he’d be too stubborn and proud.
“Ellie?” Tyler comes rushing into the room, letting out a big sigh with his hand on his chest. “Thank goodness.”
“We’re okay out here, Dad,” I assure him. “You sleep good?”
“I just . . . I smelled food and was afraid Ellie was burning something.”
I chuckle. “I’m trying not to burn anything.”
“She’s making me eggs in a basket!” Ellie proclaims.
Tyler’s jaw tightens. “Miss Becca doesn’t need to make you anything. I’m up now, Reba. You can go.”
Something about the combination of the nickname and his sleep-rumpled state stirs me up. He looks cozy in a t-shirt and sweatpants, his hair sticking up at all angles. He runs a hand through it.
“I don’t mind staying. I can put another egg basket on if you want.”
It’s been so long since I’ve seen him in anything other than his mechanic coveralls, and I take a moment to appreciate how his clothes cling to his muscles.
I’m particularly enamored by those biceps peeking from his shirt sleeves.
Last night, they bulged in my face while I was trying to get out of here.
But he insisted I stay, and here I am. My eyes fall to the column of his throat, where he swallows.
I remember a different time when I saw his neck so strongly, his head thrown back while CJ rode him.
But then his eyes came back to me. Right at the critical moment, when a man loses himself completely, Tyler’s eyes were on me. The same butterflies that hit me then take flight again, because those dark eyes burn at me still.
He clears his throat. “I got it, Reba.”
A chill zips up my arms and I hope he can’t see the goosebumps on my skin. I keep my back to my hosts and start to work on the dishes in the sink.
“Don’t mess with those.” Tyler is at my side, his breath ghosting down the side of my neck. This does nothing to cure my goosebumps. “The dishwasher part’s supposed to come today.”
“It’s no trouble,” I say, all the strangeness of this situation catching up to me. “Helps me to have something to do with my hands.” Why did I have to go and say all that? He’s seen me do stuff with my hands. “Because I’m hyper,” I add. “Helps me to stay moving.”
I’m not just making shit up. Standing still makes me want to crawl out of my damn skin. That’s why the farm suits me: always something to do, something to think about, some way to keep up with the breakneck pace of my mind.
I’m antsy now, a foreign longing pulsing through me.
What if this was my life? My everyday routine.
Ellie at the counter, Tyler next to me at the stove.
In the fantasy, his lips would deliver a soft nibble to my neck when Ellie isn’t looking, his hand running appreciatively over my ass before he gives me a pat. What would he rumble in my ear?
Mornin’, Reba.
None of that is happening, and I get the stark reminder when Tyler picks up our conversation.
“I get that,” Tyler says. “They always tried to give me pills for that kind of thing, but I don’t like how I feel on ‘em.”
“Me neither,” I agree. “Rather just chug a couple Red Bulls. They taste better anyway.”
I put the dishes in the drying rack and use the spatula to get the eggs and toast out of the pan.
“Order up,” I joke, sliding the plates in front of Ellie and Tyler.
Tyler cranes his neck to look at the stove. “You didn’t make yourself something?”
I dust off my hands. “No, I think I’m gonna take off.”
Tyler’s gaze cuts to the window, chewing the inside of his lip. “It’s mighty chilly out this morning.”
I force a smile. “It’ll wake me up.”
“Somebody might—” he starts, but I shoot him a warning glance.
“I’ll be fine.”
He sighs, exasperated. “You have those shorts on.”
“Oh, do I?” I look down at my mostly bare legs. “I hadn’t noticed.”
Now he’s mad. He snorts a huff. “Painter Creek Road’s a state route now and all kinds of good-for-nothings pass through here and somebody could—”
“What? Kidnap me? Like you have here? Imprison me?”
“I did it to help you,” Tyler bites out before his eyes stop on the oven clock. “Ellie, we need to leave for school in ten minutes. Finish up and go get dressed. I’ll take Miss Becca home after I drop you off. For now,” a small smile graces Tyler’s lips, “Miss Becca needs to eat.”
I did not eat anything for breakfast, and Tyler keeps huffing while we drive Ellie to school.
“Seven in the morning’s awful early to have to start learning,” I say. “You must be an early bird, Ellie.”
“She gets the worm every day,” Tyler muses.
His eyes flick to his little sunshine in the backseat and I fight a chill at his ensuing single-dimpled smile.
Tyler’s a handsome guy when he’s not busy being Grumpy McGrumperson.
That dark blonde hair with a handful of tousled curls, stubble on his cheeks and neck, those dark-as-a-coal-mine brown eyes.
He’s got all those manly features, and I can still see traces of that boy I grew up with.
The boy who I’d catch peeking into my room, who gave a soft “hey” if I caught him in the act.
The guy who saved my ass and never mentioned it to my brother.
But he doesn’t want me. I’m too wild, too unpredictable, too dangerous. I get that he had to settle down, and that he associates me with the life he left behind. It’s probably a pipe dream to imagine he could think any different of me after all these years.
I’ll always feel like someone knocked the wind out of me whenever I revisit the time CJ asked if I wanted to share him, and his answer was a firm no. He’s not into me. But then, he looked at me that one time while he came. And that . . . was something.
That I need to stop thinking about. Now.
“What time does she get out of school?” I ask.
“Ten,” Tyler grumbles, cutting the wheel to turn into a parking spot. I whirl around in my seat to look at Ellie.
“You have a good day, sweetheart. Be good for your daddy later.”
Ellie looks at me with tears in her eyes. “I want you to walk me in.”
“Oh, sure!” I’m so shocked I don’t know what to say. “If your dad doesn’t mind.”
His jaw pops. “Nope. Let’s go.”
He helps Ellie out of her car seat while I wait in front of the truck on the sidewalk. A small hand slips into mine and Ellie starts to babble away as we walk toward the school doors.
“Wait.” Booted footsteps sound behind me and a breath gusts against the back of my neck. “Here.”
I’m blanketed in warmth as Tyler slides his flannel jacket over my shoulders.
“Put it on,” he insists.