7. Bonnie
BONNIE
W e ended up at Delilah’s Café.
It wasn’t planned. Gray had asked if I wanted to get out of there, and I’d said yes before my brain could overrule my mouth.
Then we were walking, side by side, and neither of us said where we were going.
Delilah’s door was propped open, and we walked in like it had been the plan all along even though it hadn’t.
Gray motioned for me to step in first. As I did, Delilah looked up from behind the counter.
She was mid-forties, petite and curvy, with red hair streaked in silver and chunky jewelry that clinked when she moved.
Her eyes had that permanent sparkle to them—like she was always in on a joke no one else had heard yet.
The second she saw me walk in with Gray, that sparkle turned into a full blaze and her brow lifted.
“Well, well,” she said, a smug grin stretching across her face. “Bonnie Williams and Gray Barns. This is a combination I wasn’t expecting.”
“We just need a table,” Gray said, ignoring her theatrics as much as he could.
“Of course you do, honey.” She grabbed two menus and led us to a booth in the back corner—the one tucked away from the windows and the other customers. She set the menus down with a wink. “Take your time. I’ll bring coffee.”
She was gone before either of us could respond, her bracelets jangling as she disappeared behind the counter.
“She’s going to talk about this,” I said, sliding into the booth.
“She’s already talking about it.” Gray sat across from me. “Delilah starts composing gossip before the event is even over.”
Despite the sick feeling from my run-in with Darren still sloshing through me, I chuckled. “You know her well.”
“Everyone knows Delilah.” He grinned. “More importantly, Delilah knows everyone.”
“That is true.”
Delilah reappeared with two mugs of coffee, a small pitcher of cream, and a plate with two slices of pie she hadn’t been asked for. “Apple, fresh from the oven,” she announced, setting everything down. “On the house. You both look like you could use it.”
She squeezed my shoulder as she passed and went back to the counter.
The coffee was strong and hot. I wrapped my hands around the mug the same way I wrapped them around the tea at the library, and I realized with a jolt that this was becoming a pattern. Me, holding on to warm drinks like they were anchors, like if I let go, I’d float away.
Gray picked up his fork, cut into his pie, and didn’t say a word.
He was good at that. He didn’t rush to fill silence, didn’t press, didn’t ask what Darren had said to me in the parking lot that upset me. He just sat there, steady and present, and let me decide what came next.
So I decided.
“You know who my dad is,” I said.
It wasn’t a question. Of course he knew. Everyone in town did.
“Yeah,” he said without any hesitation.
There wasn’t even a shift in his expression.
“And you haven’t said anything to me about it.”
“What would I say?”
“I don’t know. Something. Most people do.” I took a sip of my coffee.
“I’m not most people.”
“No.” I stared at him. “You’re not.”
He lifted his gaze, and his amber eyes held mine. There was nothing in them I needed to defend myself against. No pity. No morbid curiosity. No carefully hidden discomfort. He was just there, listening, not only to what I said, but to everything I didn’t.
The words started coming before I could stop them.
I told him about all the trouble I’d been having with Lawson.
Not the version I kept ready for school counselors and social workers so they wouldn’t look at me like I wasn’t handling things well.
The real one. The one where my brother looked at me like I was the enemy and I didn’t know how to fix it.
I told him about the school calling because he hadn’t shown up all week. I told him that I’d had no idea he’d been skipping. I’d been oblivious. I told him about the fight. I even told him what Lawson had said—that I’d left, that Darren and Cade were the ones who stayed.
“The worst part is he’s not wrong,” I said.
“I did leave. I went to college and I left him there with our dad, who was either absent or too caught up in his illegal doings with Darren to notice his own kid. And Lawson was alone. He was twelve years old and he was alone, and I was two hundred miles away pretending I’d escaped. ”
Gray was quiet for a moment. Then he asked, “Why did you leave?”
“Because if I didn’t, I was going to drown.
” The honesty of my answer surprised me.
I hadn’t said that out loud before. Not to anyone.
“I’d been taking care of Lawson since I was fourteen.
Our mom left, and Dad checked out, and I was the one making sure there was food in the house and clean clothes for school.
By the time I graduated, I couldn’t breathe.
College was the first time I felt like a person instead of a life raft. ”
“That’s not something you should apologize for.”
“Tell that to my brother.”
“Your brother is fourteen. He’s angry because the people who were supposed to take care of him didn’t, and you’re the closest person to be angry at.” He paused. “That doesn’t mean he’s right.”
The simplicity of it hit me harder than it should have.
I’d been carrying Lawson’s words around like a verdict—guilty as charged, no appeal.
Hearing someone say it wasn’t that simple, that I wasn’t the villain in my brother’s story even if he needed me to be right now, loosened something in my chest that had been wound tight for months.
“He thinks Darren and Cade are his family,” I said, setting my coffee down. “He thinks they care about him.”
“What do you think?”
“I think Darren was part of the operation that put my dad in prison, and he walked away without a scratch. I think he’s been hanging around my brother since before the arrest, and now he’s got his nineteen-year-old brother reeling him in even more under the guise of friendship.
” I picked at the crust of my pie with the fork.
“Cade is the one Lawson actually spends time with. Darren’s the one pulling the strings, though. ”
“You think they’re using him.”
“I know they are. I just don’t know for what, and I can’t prove it. Also, Lawson won’t hear it.”
Gray nodded. How was it that he was so easy to talk to? I barely knew him. Yet, here he was, listening to me drone on about my screwed-up life.
When was the last time someone had been there for me like this?
Maribel’s voice drifted through my head— He sees you . Not the name you carry or the past. Just you .
I blinked and looked away, afraid of what my face might be showing.
“Thanks for listening to me ramble,” I said. “I know this is a lot to dump on someone over pie.”
“It’s good pie.”
A laugh escaped me. His mouth curved—not quite a smile, but close enough—and something warm spread through my chest at the sight.
We finished our pie, and Gray paid the check before I could reach for my wallet.
When we made it to the door, we both reached for the handle at the same time, and our hands touched.
The contact was brief—maybe two seconds—but a jolt of something shot through me like an electric current.
My breath caught, and I pulled my hand back too fast, like I’d touched something hot.
Had I shocked him? Was that static?
“Sorry,” I said.
He didn’t say anything, but there was something passing through his eyes I couldn’t name.
We stood there for a heartbeat until the sound of a chair scraping the floor nearby snapped us both out of whatever moment we’d been locked in.
Gray reached out for the door again, holding it open for me, and I walked through it without looking at him because I didn’t trust what my face might be doing.
What the heck was that all about? What just happened? And why did he look so stunned?
Outside, the cool air hit my flushed cheeks. I pulled in a breath and tried to get my pulse under control.
“Thank you for the pie and cup of coffee,” I said. “I should get home, though.”
Gray nodded. “Anytime.”
We walked toward my car without discussing it, and he just fell into step beside me the way he had on the walk over.
When we reached my beat-up sedan, I turned to face him.
He stood a few feet away with his hands in his pockets.
There was a calm expression on his face that I was starting to realize wasn’t calm at all. It was more like patience.
There was a difference.
“Thanks again,” I said, meaning it.
“No problem. Let me know if you need anything.” He pulled his phone out. “What’s your number? I’ll text you so you have mine. Just in case you ever need it.”
I rattled it off before I could overthink it. A second later, my phone buzzed. I didn’t tell him I’d probably never call him, but it was a nice gesture.
One I appreciated.
“There,” he said. “Anyway. I’m sure I’ll see you soon.”
“Yeah,” I said, digging my keys out of my purse. “At the library.”
Because this wasn’t a date. I mean, it hadn’t been.
Right?
I didn’t have time to date. Not right now. Heck, maybe not ever.
Gray waited until I’d climbed in my car and started the engine before stepping back. I pulled out of the lot, and when I glanced in the rearview mirror, he was still standing there. Watching.
Maribel’s words came back again.
He sees you.
Yeah. He did.
And there was a part of me that wanted him to, even if I didn’t want to admit it.