Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
PANTY SNATCHER
LOUISIANA
My knee bounces restlessly as we inch forward in the school pickup line. “Fuck! Does nobody put their kid on the damn bus anymore? This is going to take forever.”
We’re crawling at a glacial pace, and my mind’s moving faster than traffic. All I can think about is laying eyes on that mouthy little boy with the blonde hair and sad eyes.
A warm hand settles on my knee, steadying the bounce. Henry. He gives it a soft squeeze. “School just started. Some parents are still figuring out the routine—probably want to see their kid’s face at the end of the day before trusting the bus.”
I huff. “Well, I’m not worried about little Timmy and his emotional journey home. I’m worried about Dallas. I want to know if his day was okay—or if I need to go in there and raise hell.”
Henry chuckles, that rich timbre of his voice filling the cab. “And here I was under the impression I’d satisfied your need to draw blood—for at least a little while.”
I whip around to face him. “You spent the last hour edging me like your life depended on it.”
He smirks, smug as hell. “Had ghosts to satisfy and all that.”
“And you stole my fucking panties!” I snap, leaning across the console and jabbing a finger toward his face.
“Ha! You call that tiny scrap of fabric panties?” He traces his mustache with infuriating calm. “How could I not steal them? Especially after you fucking ruined them for me.”
“You motherfu—” The rest dies on my tongue as I glance out the window…and there he is.
Dallas.
My breath hitches, and I sit up straighter, eyes scanning him fast—like I’m bracing for something to be wrong. But he’s in one piece. No bruises, no busted lip. Just standing there, hands in his pockets, talking to a stocky little redhead with a face full of freckles.
He’s not smiling exactly, but he’s not shut down either. Not guarded in that way that makes my chest ache.
Just like that, some tight, invisible grip inside me lets go. Not all the way—but enough.
“See, told you wildflower, he’s still all in one piece,” Henry whispers into the shell of my ear.
“Yeah, yeah.”
I roll the window down and call out, “Ready to blow this popsicle stand?”
Dallas all but sprints to the car like something might grab him if he slows down, and when his eyes land on me, his whole face shifts. Lights up. Like maybe I’m the one thing he was waiting for all damn day.
It guts me—because I don’t know if I deserve that kind of light. Not from him. Not when I’m still trying to convince myself I’m worthy of holding it.
Henry beats me to the question I’m too afraid to ask. “Well, what’d you think?”
Dallas shrugs, yanking the door shut behind him and flopping into the seat like he’s dropping a heavy weight.
“Food was shit,” he says flatly, his voice barely hiding the edge of disappointment.
Then he pauses, eyes drifting out the window like he’s searching for something beyond the passing street. “But the people…weren’t so bad.”
His words hang between us—simple, but loaded. Not exactly a glowing review, but maybe the tiniest crack in the armor. I catch the flicker of something softer in his tone, something hopeful that he probably doesn’t even realize is there yet.
I keep my voice steady, careful not to let anything slip. “Well, that’s…something.”
He tries to dump his backpack the second he storms through the door, but I know damn well—thanks to Charlie and Bash—that Dallas has papers for me. Maybe even some homework, since school started a few weeks ago.
I stand there, arms crossed, watching him try to slide past me like it’s no big deal. But there’s no way he’s off the hook that easy. “Oh no you don’t. Backpack on the table. Now.”
Thank God I wiped that fucker down before I left earlier—because one glance at it has me blushing from my head to my toes. The way Henry dominated me and took command of my body…Good God, but that’s not what I need to focus on.
With a heavy sigh, Dallas trails behind me and plops down at the kitchen table while I start rifling through his backpack. Everything’s surprisingly neat—folders stacked just right, papers uncrumpled, notebooks aligned like some kind of order I never expected.
Honestly? It makes me fucking sad. He’s still a little boy. There should be at least one doodle scribbled in the margins, some chaos on a page. Not this sterile, almost OCD-level neatness. Something I know he’s not, judging by the state of his room after only a week.
I open his folder and find his teacher's information sheet and stifle a laugh. “Henry!”
“Yeah,” he calls back before filling the doorway with the first two buttons of his uniform undone, kitchen towel slung over one broad shoulder. “You rang, Wildflower?”
“Did you know his teacher was Pastor Stoker’s daughter?”
He doesn’t meet my eye as he palms his nape. “Uh, yeah.”
Listen it’s not a well kept secret Henry had a very long fling with ‘Dick ‘em down Deborah’ as we affectionately referred to her. I’m not going to pretend we haven’t been with other people during all these years we were…estranged, but damn if it doesn’t irritate me.
Irritates me for the simple fact I am jealous. Jealous someone else has gotten free mustache rides and got to trace the ink of his body with their tongue, but it’s my own fucking fault. I have no one to blame but myself. So, I really don’t have room to be jealous.
I suck my teeth. “Alrighty.”
Henry cuts me a look. “That’s it?”
“Yeah. That’s pretty much it.”
If he was expecting fireworks, he’ll be sorely disappointed. I’m not about to give him the satisfaction today. I turn back toward Dallas and see him clutching the sketch I’d made earlier—holding it like it is something fragile, something worth keeping.
“Who drew this?” he asks, voice quiet like he’s afraid to break it.
“I did,” I say, hesitant, unsure what he’ll think.
His eyes widen as he looks back down at the page, like he’s trying to match what he’s holding to the version of me he’s still figuring out. “You can draw?” The disbelief in his tone makes something twist low in my chest.
“Well, more like scribble now,” I say with a shrug, trying to play it off. “But yeah…I once did.”
“Once?” he asks, blinking slowly, eyes fixed on the sketch like it doesn’t quite line up with who he thought I was.
I nod, gaze dropping to the page. “Yeah. It was…me and my dad’s thing. Drawing. Ever since I was little. We’d sit at the kitchen table with scrap paper and dull pencils, just…sketching for hours. It was ours. Nothing fancy, just us, making something out of nothing.”
I pause, the memory catching in my throat. “When he died, I boxed it all up. Sketchbooks, pencils, even the good eraser he used to steal off my desk. Couldn’t bring myself to touch any of it. It felt like picking up a part of him I wasn’t ready to let go of or mess up.”
I glance at Dallas, then back to the drawing in his hands. “Sometimes when you lose too much, it’s easier to stop reaching for the things that made you feel anything at all.”
Dallas doesn’t say anything at first. Just sits there, staring at the sketch like it’s speaking some language only he understands. His fingers hover near the edge of the paper, not quite touching it—like he’s afraid it might disappear.
Then, finally, he speaks—soft and unsure. “Can you teach me?”
I freeze. The question hits harder than I’m ready for—lodges somewhere deep in my chest and just sits there, heavy and aching.
He has no idea what he’s really asking. No idea that drawing was the only language my daddy and I ever spoke fluently. That after he died, I packed it all away because it hurt too much to touch.
Now this kid—this boy who’s clawing his way through life one quiet heartbreak at a time—is asking for the one thing I swore I couldn’t give anyone again.
I stare at him for a long second. He still won’t meet my eyes. Still clutching the paper like it’s something precious.
I blink fast, grounding myself. “Yeah,” I manage, voice low and rough. “I can teach you.”
Maybe, just maybe…that’s how something soft starts to grow back.
“But only after you tackle this math homework—because it looks brutal,” Henry says as he reaches over and plucks a crumpled worksheet from the pile. He barely glances at it before giving me a wink.
I shoot him a grateful look. That man always knows the exact second I need saving—from myself, from the weight of things, from the silence. He always did.
Dallas gives me a wide-eyed look like I just betrayed him. Those big blue eyes plead Get me out of this.
Henry grins and claps a hand on his shoulder. “Listen, D, there are only two things Louisiana Wright is banned from doing in this house.”
He holds up two tattooed fingers. “Cooking…and math.”
Dallas huffs a laugh, sinking back into his chair like that is the most unfair thing he’s heard all day. But the tension slips from his face, and for just a second, he looks like a kid. Just a kid. Not a survivor. Not a problem to be fixed. Just a boy laughing at something dumb and harmless.
It undoes me a little.
Because that—that is what he should’ve had all along. Maybe I can’t rewrite the years that came before, but I can damn sure try to make sure he gets more moments like this one. Moments where life feels light. Where he doesn’t have to carry the whole weight of it on his own.