Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Avery Jane
Dixon slept on my porch in my wicker rocking chair, with no blanket or pillow, his arms and legs kinked up and hanging over the sides like a bunch of melted puzzle pieces that didn’t fit together anymore.
After she’d fingerprinted my door and the vase and table, I’d heard Abey talking to Dixon on the porch, but Mama and Gran stayed and insisted on helping me clean up, and by the time they left, Dixon was snoring.
When I woke up this morning on the couch, he had already gone.
But I didn’t have to wait long to see him again, because five minutes after I opened the flower shop, he walked in quietly, carrying an old, silver metal toolbox.
All he said was, “This door needs tendin’.
I nearly fell through it the other day because the latch doesn’t engage properly, and all it took was one look to see the hinges are nearly rusted through.
If you don’t mind, I’ll replace the hardware,” and without another word, he removed the front door from its hinges and began to work on removing the hinges themselves.
He was kind and helpful to customers when they came in, but he stayed silent most of the time. Gran and Mama were in and out, checking on me all morning, too, so I suspected Dixon wanted to talk but wouldn’t in front of them.
He worked effortlessly, like he hung doors every day. Maybe he did. I had no idea what he’d been up to since he left Wisper or where he’d lived before he came home. Wherever he’d been, it was clear the work he’d been doing was physical.
Cheese and rice! The man was built. Not like, ‘Oh yeah, he does cardio four times a week in a gym somewhere,’ but like he worked with his hands for hours every day, gripping things or manhandling things. I had no idea, but his hands were strong and sure.
And sweet Jesus in Heaven! When he bent or crouched, I came close to passing out. His ass! That perfectly rounded, toned backside had seen its fair share of lunges and squats.
By lunchtime, I was fanning myself with a paper flyer from the bakery down the street, advertising a class on how to make apple turnovers from scratch. My door had been rehung, the hinges now shiny brass, the glass had been cleaned, and the locks had been replaced and upgraded.
“I’ll do the back door tomorrow,” Dixon said as he turned to face me.
I tried desperately to conceal a squeak when he lifted the hem of his T-shirt to wipe the sweat off his forehead, flashing me six perfectly formed abs and those tiny muscles on the sides of his ribcage—labs?
Lats? Whatever they were, they rippled and popped as he lifted his arm, but then he dropped his shirt, bent, and grabbed his toolbox from the floor.
He handed me my keyring, now jingling with new keys, nodded, and left, and I watched him walk across the street to Ace’s House, where he said he’d been hired as a handyman.
And that was the last I saw of him until now.
He knocked on my door for the second time in twenty-four hours, and I rushed to answer it because when Dixon was around, I felt safer than I did without him.
I knew it was him and not my creepy ex because I’d heard him pull up, and when I looked out my window, I saw him getting out of an old, black El Camino he’d parked behind my delivery van.
“Did you buy a car?”
“Yeah.”
“Interestin’ choice,” I said, nodding over his shoulder and giggling.
“Don’t you make fun of me, Avery Jane Harlowe, or I’ll be forced to remind you that you used to make flower garlands for forest animals and draw hearts around all your boo-boos with a scented marker ’cause you thought the hearts would help you heal faster.”
“That’s fair. Come in,” I offered, opening my door wide and stepping back as he entered. I closed the door behind him and locked it tight. “Would you like somethin’ to drink? Coffee, tea?”
“What kinda tea you got?”
“Peppermint or Earl Gray.”
“Peppermint, please,” he said. “I don’t take caffeine.”
“Probably not a good idea this time of night anyway.”
“Right. Sorry. I should’ve called. Is it too late?”
“How would you call? You don’t have a phone.”
“I do. Bought one today.”
As he pulled a gray, older model phone from his pocket, I said, “It’s not too late. I wasn’t gonna fall asleep anyway. Too much on my mind.”
“Same,” he said. “Here. Put your number in.” He handed the phone to me and walked further into my house, checking the dining table for scuffs and making sure everything had been put back into place after last night.
I typed my contact info into a new entry in his phone and texted myself so I’d have his number too. I followed him into the kitchen and watched as he found the box of teabags and mugs in my open-faced cabinet and located my tea kettle already filled and heating up on the stove.
“You know you could just microwave the water,” he said, looking over his shoulder as I sat at my little fold-out island next to the kitchen window and set our phones on top.
“Yes, but a pink kettle is more fun and it’s more whimsical, and you know I’m all about the whimsy. Did you know that in the UK, if you heat your water in the microwave, they’ll try you for war crimes?”
He chuckled silently, adjusted the heat a little higher, then faced me and leaned against the counter.
“Didn’t know that.”
“So, you haven’t said. Why are you here?”
“Oh. Uh, yeah, well I wanted to give you my cell number, and I guess I thought we should talk about what happened last night.”
“I’m not sure what else there is to say.
Your sister was here. The whole town now knows I had a break-in, and she fingerprinted and took my statement.
I told her I’d email her my cell phone logs from my provider so she can try to track the phone calls, but I doubt she’ll be able to.
Cody’s probably using one of those pay-as-you-go phones.
At this point, he’s probably got a whole box full of them so he can grab a new one every time I block him. ”
I rolled my eyes, but when I focused on him again, Dixon was smiling.
“I wasn’t talkin’ about that part of last night. Did you already forget I kissed you and then you stormed away and yelled at me?”
“No. I didn’t forget. But you said it was a mistake, so I wasn’t plannin’ on bringin’ it up.”
“Well then, I’m bringin’ it up. And when I said it was a mistake, I didn’t mean it was a mistake for me to kiss you.
I wanna kiss you again right now. I wanted to this mornin’.
I want to kiss you every minute of my day.
But what I meant was that you shouldn’t want to kiss me.
The mistake was mine, though, because I never should’ve put you in that position. ”
“You wanna kiss me again?”
“AJ, did you hear anything else I said?”
“Nope.” I gulped, reaching for the necklace around my neck that Gran had given me last Christmas and spun the tiny, rose gold dandelion between my fingers. “All I heard was that you think about kissin’ me all day long.”
Dixon’s strong hands gripped the edge of my Bess’s Bargains granite countertop behind him. His fingers flexed around the polished edge, but then he let go and walked to the island across from me, pulled out the other chair, and sat.
“I do,” he said quietly. “You’ve been on my mind all day. But AJ, I’m not the man for you. I’m an addict and I’ve been in jail more than once.”
He waited for me to react to what he’d said, but I didn’t. I already knew all that.
“I abandoned my own fuckin’ kid.”
I knew that, too, but I didn’t really see it as Dixon abandoning Stu.
I saw it as Dixon giving his son a fighting chance in this life.
Would it have been better if Dixon raised Stu around drugs?
My dad left when I was only two years old, but from what Gran and Mama had told me, I was better off.
So, if a bad father leaving was a good thing, certainly a sick dad leaving to get better for his son could only be good too.
I didn’t acknowledge Dixon, so he went on.
“You think you know who I am because we were friends as kids, but you don’t know a goddamn thing about me now.”
There he was, my best friend, the boy who’d told me his every fear and desire, and the man who had long been the focus of mine.
“So, tell me. Talk to me like you used to.”
Placing his hands on the island in front of us, he shook his head. “My family, my life—I’m a fuckin’ mess, AJ. You don’t want me.”
“I work with dirt and manure, Dixon. Messes don’t scare me.”
He tried to one-up himself. “I barely graduated high school. The only job I could find was as a janitor. I don’t have money.”
“True,” I said, nodding, pretending I agreed with all the dumb excuses coming out of his mouth. “And you bought an El Camino. That’s a red flag right there.”
“C’mon now. Don’t joke. I’m bein’ serious. I’m no good for you. Look at this life you’ve made for yourself.” He looked all around the kitchen but, inevitably, his blue eyes landed on mine again. “I don’t belong in your world.”
Reaching across the island, I clasped my hands around his. “Don’t you think that’s somethin’ I should get to decide for myself?”
Wordlessly, he laid his head on top of our hands, and his long hair spilled over the butcher-block top. I pulled one hand free, then gently and so slowly drew my fingers through the deep-brown strands. I pressed my palm against his head, and he moaned quietly and pushed into my touch.
“Dixon—”
The teakettle’s whistle pierced the night air, and it startled us both. Dixon sat up, and he pulled his hands away, then stood and went to the stove.
I followed and slipped my arms around his waist, pressing myself against his back while he lifted the kettle and set it on a back burner.
“AJ, I can’t even tell you how good it feels for you to touch me and kiss me, but”—he turned and put two feet of space between us—“we don’t know each other anymore, and besides, I’m in no place to be the man you need.
And there’s Stuart. I need to figure out how to be his dad. Or his friend. Or… somethin’.”
“Oh.” Right. Stuart. That sweet little boy was way more important than my libido.
“You’re right. I totally understand that.
But just for the record, you don’t need to figure out how to be a man for me.
You already are. You proved it today when you fixed my door.
Just the fact that you noticed it needed fixin’ shows me who you are now.
“But I don’t want to come between you and your son. That wouldn’t be right.”
“No,” he said, reaching for me. He pulled me close again and leaned down.
But he hesitated before he pressed his lips lightly to mine.
“I didn’t mean you’d come between us, just that I’m so confused about who I am to my own kid, and I don’t think I’d be any use to you as a boyfriend or a…
whatever. I’ve let so many people down, AJ.
I don’t wanna let you down too.” He tucked me against his chest and hugged me.
“But I’m all in to be your friend, if you’ll have me.
I wanna get to know you again. Would that be okay? ”
His warm breath on my cheek made me shiver, but I knew he was right, and I was proud of him for knowing what he needed.
“Of course,” I whispered, hugging him, too, my long-lost best friend, because I realized it might be the last chance I had to be close to him.
Dixon was home, but he was broken and beaten down, and before he could be anything to me or anyone else, he needed to figure out who he was to his son.
And to himself.