Grace
Three Weeks until the Rodeo
This week has flown by.
Cars and I spent her last day in town mostly horizontal; yapping, snacking, and binging movies.
It was exactly what we needed. After she left, the rest of the week was spent roping Dad into helping me out with trivial Rodeo Festival tasks—sorting through tickets, allocating stall numbers for vendors, cross-checking my extensive contact listings, and the odd craft task to help Kenny out with her preparation for the Southern Belles’ Mini Miss Pageant contest being featured at the festival.
While I haven’t seen Tucker since the meeting last Saturday, we’ve texted most days.
What started, as I’d anticipated, with him sending me the cliff notes of what I’d missed after Carson and I had to take off, has slowly transformed into random updates on our days, things we’ve seen, done, or said that made us think of the other, and any sort of odd tidbit in between.
Though I’ve found that when it seems to be going too well, and I find myself opening up and getting a little too comfortable, I tend to sabotage it by bringing up Chicago and my imminent departure.
It’s a dick move, I know, but I can’t help it.
It does exactly what I need it to—it reminds Tucker that whatever this is, it isn’t permanent.
But it also hurts him. He doesn’t say it, but I see it in his texts.
He’s less playful, there’s fewer emojis and words, and his response times are longer.
What he doesn’t see, though, is the way I deflate more and more each time I bring it up, because I don’t let him see it.
My texts remain the same, as does my response time.
I’m scared to let him see that vulnerability.
There was a time where I wasn’t enough for him, which my memories don’t allow me to forget. Who’s to say I’m enough now?
“Evening, peanut,” Dad says as I come through the front door. “How was it today?”
“Hey, Dad.” Boots off, I wander over to his armchair and wrap my arms around his shoulders. He gives me a couple of pats on the back as I kiss his head. “Everything was peachy, I promise. Declan must be growing his team; an order came through from Hayes Construction.”
“Ah yes, been waitin’ on that order.” He nods as I take a seat on the couch. “From what I’ve heard, he’s puttin’ on a couple of high school graduates for apprenticeships. I think the Beaumont brothers talked him into helping out the local kids. Tucker, by the sounds of it.”
With a small hum I respond, “Sure sounds like Tucker.”
“Speakin’ of.” He glances at me out the corner of his eye.
The laugh I elicit borders on humorless. “You’re not at all subtle, just so you know.”
“As subtle as a gun from what I’ve been told.” He winks.
“Go on then,” I make a display of spreading my arms wide. “The floor is all yours, Randy.”
“Is it bein’ home that brings out this attitude of yours? Might have to send you back to Chicago sooner than expected.”
I gasp theatrically. “My own father would send me away, just like that?”
Dad contemplates for a second before smirking. “Well now, that depends how you answer this next question.”
I narrow my eyes at him, brows pulling together. “Does this question have anything to do with Tucker?”
The wide grin Dad gives me is the only answer I need.
I don’t have a single fucking clue where this is about to go, so I’m slightly concerned—I can’t imagine there’s any scenario where this doesn’t become awkward.
Tucker and Dad were always close back in the day, but I get the feeling they somehow became closer after I left.
Dad’s the sort of guy who’ll take anyone under his wing.
“Would y’look at that, yes, it sure does.” He swivels in his armchair to face me and clasps his hands together in his lap. “I’m thinking of inviting him over for dinner, but wanted to make sure that’s alright with you first.”
Invite him over for dinner.
I’m momentarily stunned into silence. Of all the places that could’ve gone, my dad wanting to invite Tucker Beaumont over for dinner was nowhere near the top of the list of possibilities; it wouldn’t even make the Top 100.
Invite him over for dinner.
Those five words are playing on an eerie loop. I feel my jaw drop slightly and my head shake, but it’s more like an out of body experience than anything. The strangest part is the sudden warmth that radiates through my body, and particularly my chest.
Are my hands clammy? Is the heat on?
I drop my gaze to the floor, and the smallest of smiles pulls at the corner of my lip. It’s only brief, but it’s enough to shock the shit out of me.
I don’t know how long has passed when I finally find my voice. “Dinner here, with us?” I can barely hear the words coming out my mouth—the pounding of my heart in my ears is near deafening.
Dad tilts his head and assesses me, as though I’m the one talking crazy, not him. “Might be a bit odd if he ate here on his own, kid.”
“Where will he sit?” Maybe Dad wasn’t totally wrong, I do sound a little insane right now. But it’s the first thing that came to mind after it rebooted. Dad’s six-seater table only offers so many combinations—would he sit next to Dad? Next to me? At the head of the table like a distinguished guest?
“Am I taking that as a yes?” He looks at me expectantly.
“What?”
“How’s tomorrow work for you?”
“Dad.” I state it like I’m swearing myself into a court of law, staring at him wide-eyed.
“Grace.” He mimics my tone.
“You’re weirdly chipper about this.” I sit up abruptly, lips pursed and brows raised. “What’s your angle?”
This makes him laugh. “No angle, just thought it might be nice. You just say the word, and I’ll scrap the idea, though. Whatever makes you comfortable.”
For all the ways he drives me up the wall, I’m damn lucky to have Randy Clark for a dad.
He’s spent thirty years putting me first. The least I can do is say yes to one dinner.
Just thinking about saying yes makes my stomach swoop.
But it’s the same swoop it does every time I see or think of Tucker—the good kind.
The kind that makes you fight back a smile and causes a funny tingling in your fingertips.
I’m starting to think it might be the feeling of hope, and that scares me more than anything.
“Tomorrow is good.” My face flushes as I speak, so I turn away from Dad in the hopes of hiding it, but not before I see the way his face lights up.
“I’m gonna call him right now,” he says, fumbling around in his pocket until he locates his phone. “Just you wait, the three of us are gonna have a grand ole time.”
The smile doesn’t leave Dad’s face the whole time he’s speaking to Tucker.
“We’ll see you tomorrow, bud. Don’t you dare bring a thing.” He hangs up with a satisfied hum. “Alright, now tell me what’s going through that head of yours.”
“Nothing you need to concern yourself with, I promise.”
“You’re my kid, everything about you concerns me.”
We stare at each other for a second before bursting into matching laughter, clutching at our sides and wheezing in tandem.
“You know what I was tryna say, right?” Dad says once he’s composed.
“Yeah Dad, I know.” I give him a gentle pat on the knee.
“Go on then.”
I let out a sigh and run my fingers through my hair. “There’s not a whole lot to say, Dad. I’m heading back home in a couple of weeks, so all of this will be behind me.”
I regret the words as soon as I’ve uttered them. They burned against my throat and felt wrong on my tongue. One look at Dad’s fallen expression is enough to know he’s not super impressed by them either. Fuck. I don’t know why I’m like this, my default setting being self-sabotage.
“Sorry, Dad. That’s not what I meant.” I stand up and begin pacing. “There’s so much going on in my head at the moment, I can barely tell up from down.”
“I know, kiddo. That’s wh—could you quit the pacing? You’re making me nauseous.”
I stop dead. When I look over at Dad, there’s a clenched half-smile on his face.
“Please don’t look at me like that. It makes me feel pitiful.”
“Grace, honey, would you stand still or sit? Please?”
I’m about to ask why he sounds almost exasperated until I realize I’ve started pacing again. I slump back onto the couch and roll my head toward where Dad sits.
He looks as though he’s weighing up his words before he speaks.
“Now, I don’t pretend to know everything about love, because I damn sure don’t, but the one thing I do know—well, most things—about, is you.
You went through a hell of a thing with Tuck all those years ago, but it don’t matter how long ago that was.
I know my daughter, and I can see there’s still some type of feeling there. ”
“Would it kill you to suck a little at reading me?”
“Deflecting with humor ain’t gonna work this time.”
A heavy sigh escapes me as I lean my head back and stare at the ceiling.
Dad doesn’t push when I sit silently for a while.
Thank God, too, because my brain is anything but silent.
Images of Tucker, us, our lives—then and now—whirl across the front of my mind in what might just be the saddest slideshow known to man.
“I feel like I never had the chance to fall out of love with Tucker,” I finally admit.
Tears prick as my voice shakes from just saying his name.
I squeeze my eyes shut and immediately regret it when a tear rolls down my cheek.
It’s rolling down my jaw when I speak again.
“We never had real closure; we just were, and then we weren’t.
And now that I’m here and we have the chance to find closure, I don’t know if I want that. ”
“If there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that the world works in mysterious ways.
I saw it when your momma left us, and when Garrett Sr. was taken from us far too soon.
Two very different situations, and both caused a world of hurt in different ways.
If you ask me, I think you and Tuck losing each other fits the bill, too.
Y’all might’ve been young, but I’ll be damned if what you had wasn’t real. ”
“We were babies, Dad. I don’t even know if we really knew what love was. Hell, I’m not sure I even know now.”
A shifting sound from Dad’s direction gets my attention. When I look over, he’s on his crutches and hobbling over to me. I sit up and make some room as he lowers himself into the spot beside me. We meet each other’s eyes and he clocks the tear streak on my cheek.
His face morphs into an almost pained expression. “Now, now, kiddo,” he says, placing a comforting hand on my leg and giving it a pat. “You can’t let age discount what your heart already knows.”
A small, tearful laugh spills out of me. “When did you get so wise?”
With bright eyes and the tiniest of smiles, Dad wipes an escaped tear off my cheek. “Always been wise, you just didn’t want t’ believe it before now. I’m gonna ask you a question, and I want you to answer honestly, alright? With the first thing that pops into your head.”
“I can do that.”
“Could you see this being home again?”
Without a second of thought, I respond, “He’s the only place that’s ever been home to me.”
Dad smiles at me almost wistfully. “Sounds like you’ve got some things to think about these next couple weeks, then.
I’m gonna turn in.” Declining my help, he ambles up and onto his crutches.
He kisses me goodnight and hobbles away, leaving me alone on the couch to contemplate every decision and action that’s led me to right here, right now.
As I lay in bed an hour later, I’m begging my mind to shut up long enough for me to fall asleep.
But it doesn’t. Sleep evades me, two sets of differing thoughts spinning around each other in an intricate dance—my life then; living here, being with Tucker, surrounded by everyone I love, and my life now; living in Chicago with a support network party of one, in a job I’m slowly accepting I really don’t love.
And then there’s the third thought, one that barrels through like a bull out the chute—what my life now could be, if only I stayed.
I’d get to see Dad as often as I’d like, which is something I miss terribly when I’m in Chicago, and I’d be permanently surrounded by everybody I love—except Carson.
But hey, if she continues the way she’s going, she’ll end up in Nashville in no time.
An hour drive into the city beats a ninety-minute flight any day.
The thought of it alone, of coming home, is enough to spook sleep.
Just as sleep grabs hold of me, a fleeting thought passes through my mind—when did I start calling Beaumont Ridge home again, and why does it feel more natural than it ever felt to call Chicago home?