Chapter 23
“What happened?” Jack asked Lottie. “Your red and swollen eyes mean that you have been crying. Was it out of anger or sadness? Do I need to fire Knox Callahan or shoot him?”
“A little of both, and now I’m embarrassed about the way I managed it,” Lottie said as she got into Jack’s truck. “We’ve been kidding about”—she opened the glove compartment and took out a McDonald’s napkin—“our first big fight, and then it happened, and I was so angry that I just took off.”
“Then I guess you need to talk to Knox about that, not me,” Jack said. “Hungry?”
“Yes, but I can’t swallow,” she answered.
Jack made a right-hand turn off the highway onto an exit with a sign advertising an ice cream store. “This must be serious. You eat when you are happy, when you are sad, and all in between. I’ve never known you to pass up food. I’m going to get a chocolate milkshake. What flavor do you want?”
“Vanilla.”
Jack got out of the truck and went inside. Tears flooded Lottie’s cheeks and soaked the paper napkin in her hand. “I am boring. I’m like a plain old vanilla shake—nothing fancy for me like salted caramel or even orange pineapple,” she whimpered.
You are acting like a pouting child. Her mother’s voice popped into her head.
“Better to face the pain now, than later after…” She fished the last napkin from the glove compartment and dried her face. “The other shoe has dropped—just like it I figured it would.”
No, it didn’t drop. You took it off Knox and tossed it out the window. You made that choice, and now you can pay for the consequences.
“You could take my side. I’m your daughter,” Lottie argued.
Jack startled her when he tapped on the window.
She rolled it down and took her milkshake from him and put it in the cupholder.
“Drink that. Don’t look at it,” he said when he was back in the truck.
“I’ll get after mine as soon as we’re back on the highway, and I didn’t order a vanilla.
Last time I checked, you liked that one that tastes like an orange creamsicle, so that’s what you’ve got. ”
“Thank you,” she muttered.
It seemed like Uncle Jack even knew she wasn’t boring.
Jack picked up his shake. “Your expression tells me that you are arguing with someone. Is it Knox?”
“No, it’s… I don’t want to talk about it,” Lottie said as she removed her shake from the cupholder and sucked down enough to give her a brain freeze.
“ You might as well get it off your chest,” he said. “I’m a good listener. Is it Knox?”
She grabbed her head with her free hand. “No, and my head is about to explode.”
“Don’t drink so fast,” Jack told her. “You made the decision to make a big deal out of something small, so now you have to pay the price.”
“How do you know it was a small thing?” she asked.
“Because you said that you were embarrassed by what you did. If you were right about the fight, then you would stand your ground and do battle until the death. I know you, girl. I was there when you were born and have been in your life almost as much as your folks. Only you can make this right, so what are you going to do?”
“Knox sent a text asking if we can talk tomorrow. I haven’t answered it.” She held up her cup. “And thank you for this. I didn’t realize how hungry I was.”
“You are welcome, and it’s time for you to let Knox know if and when you are ready to tell him why you acted like you did.”
She took her phone from her purse and sent a text with only one word: Yes.
* * *
Cheeto flew down from the roof of the trailer and landed on Knox’s shoulder before he even closed the truck door.
“Thank you for the welcome home. Seems like a month has passed since last night.” He gathered up his suitcase and briefcase from the back seat and carried them to the trailer.
“We may be going home to Spanish Fort tomorrow, so stick close by.”
The rooster gently pecked him on the cheek and flew back to his perch on the roof. Knox opened the door, and Bally jumped off the bed, ran across the floor, and tried to climb up the leg of his jeans. Knox set his luggage on the floor and picked her up.
“Somebody missed me and still loves me.”
She snuggled down on his shoulder and purred. He sat down on the edge of his bed and sighed. “This is the first time I can ever remember being in trouble and not even knowing the real reason why.”
Bally changed places from his shoulder to his lap and looked up at him with her green eyes as if she understood every word. “She said that we can talk tomorrow, but do I go to her place, or wait for her to come to mine?”
The kitten growled and hopped down off his lap.
She jumped up on the cabinet, looked out the window, and slapped at it like she was fighting a monster, and all the while, Cheeto was fussing about something up on the roof.
Knox slung the door open, expecting to see a flock of birds trying to steal Cheeto’s roost and tormenting Bally through the window.
Not a bird in sight, but Lottie stood on the bottom step.
“I was trying to get up enough courage to knock,” she whispered.
“It’s not Sunday,” Knox told her.
“I understand,” she said and turned to walk away.
“But it’s only a few hours until midnight,” Knox raised his voice, “and there’s no way I can sleep.”
She turned around, and even with only the dim moonlight, he could see the anguish in her eyes and feel the pain in her body language. “Then may I come in and talk to you?”
He swung the door open, and she came inside. “May I sit down?”
“We’ve had an argument which I don’t understand at all, but you don’t have to ask for permission to come in or to sit down.” He couldn’t control the flat tone. “Can I get you something to drink—water, tea, a beer?”
“Beer, please,” she answered and sat down.
He took two from the refrigerator and twisted the tops off, then sat down, but kept a couple of feet between them. “Do you want to tell me what I did wrong?”
She took a long sip of her beer. “It wasn’t you. It’s me.”
“Seems like I’ve heard that line right before a lady told me that an old boyfriend had resurfaced.”
“It’s not anything like that,” Lottie’s voice came out in half a groan.
“I’m listening.”
“We were talking about whether we would survive a big fight, and…” She paused.
Knox waited for a full minute before he said, “Go on.”
“I couldn’t bear the pain of not being with you, and then there was the boring thing, and I just lost it. My mind said ‘just get it over with.’ Cut your losses and face the heartache now. My heart said something different and…” She paused again.
“What’s going on with this boring thing and you?”
“I’ve never talked to anyone about it, not my mother, or Uncle Jack or even the school counselor.
” She kept her eyes on the beer bottle as if it mesmerized her.
“When I was in elementary school, I was taller than all the other kids, even the boys. Since I was towered above them, the other kids got it in their heads that I had to be older than any of them and was held back a couple of years. They called me ‘dummy’ and whispered behind my back. Always loud enough that I could hear them, but low enough that the teachers didn’t.
Somehow, I knew that if I tattled, things would get worse, so I kept my mouth shut.
To top it all off, I grew so fast that I was clumsy.
I’m not telling you this for pity. I don’t want that, but I do want you to understand. ”
“I’m ready to make a bunch of grown adults pick up highway trash to pay for their sins as children,” Knox said through clenched teeth.
“I learned to be a loner. When the recess time rolled around, I sat alone and read books. Then I got into junior high school, and things got worse. I didn’t fit in with any of the cliques.
My grades were so good they couldn’t call me dummy anymore, but I became Loser Lottie, because I didn’t have friends.
After that was high school, and I’d already been tagged a misfit that couldn’t even be in one of the other oddball groups, so I became Boring Lottie. ”
Knox scooted over closer to her. “I’m so sorry.”
“No one knew me in college, but part of that was my fault. I didn’t know how to be a friend or have one either.
I was just the awkward girl who only went to a couple of parties and felt so out of place that I spent the twenty minutes I was there hiding in the shadows.
Now fast-forward to my first boyfriend. I thought I was in love, and when we broke up, he told me that he couldn’t stand to be with someone as boring as me.
That stung because that’s what the popular girls in high school called me.
“The next one said nothing about me was exciting, and he couldn’t tie himself to a woman that was boring.
The third one was a loser, but by then I figured that he was the only kind of guy a person like me could catch.
He wouldn’t work, and when he left, he cleaned out my bank account and left me with a couple of maxed-out credit cards.
I refuse to be a victim, so don’t pity me. ”
“I’m not,” Knox said. “I was thinking that you are pretty damn strong to survive all that.”
She took another long drink of her beer and stared at the bottle a while longer before she went on.
“I planned on us only being in a fake relationship, and then I started liking you, and that turned into love, but I kept telling myself that pretty soon that other shoe would drop. Just thinking about it hurt so bad that I couldn’t breathe.
When you said that I would be bored if we went on anything but weekend trips, it triggered something inside me, and I ran. ”
“Why didn’t you tell me all this before?” Knox asked.
“I was afraid you would figure out that I am awkward when it comes to relationships and boring, and that”—another pause—“you could do much better than being saddled with a giant sunflower when you could have a petite little rose. I shouldn’t have left without giving you a chance to explain.”
Knox moved over until his shoulder was against hers. “No, you shouldn’t have. Now it’s my turn to talk, but I want you to look at me.”
She turned her face toward him, and he could not only see the pain in her brown eyes, but also feel it radiating from her whole body. He tilted her chin up with his fist and barely blinked when he started to talk.
“Don’t let your past define what we have.
I have always felt like the lucky one in this relationship.
To have a gorgeous woman like you beside me seems surreal.
At the end of the day, to be able to talk to you about my dreams and have you really listen when I’m all up in a discussion about two-by-fours and trusses is a blessing.
You understand me and, honey, the other shoe—or, in my case, a work boot—is never going to drop.
You are not boring, and anytime you want to take a week off and go anywhere, the mountains or beach or out in the middle of a desert, I’m ready to go with you.
We can fly or road trip in a vehicle or even in one of our trailers so that we can take Bally and Prissy with us.
I don’t think Cheeto would travel too well, but if that’s what you want, we can cage him up and take him too. ”
“Are you sure?” she asked with a weak smile.
Knox kissed her on the forehead. “I’m damn sure.”
“Then you will accept my apology?”
“Of course, but from now on, let’s be honest and talk to each other when we have a problem.”
“I promise,” she said.
That time, the kiss was on her lips.