Page 74 of Take Me Home

Let me explain, she willed back.After. Later.

She turned from him first, afraid that in two more seconds he would break his silence and tell her to leave.

Students passed out programs as the choir took the stage in angelic-looking white gowns. They would sing a medley of Christmas carols, followed by a handful of jazz and tap numbers by the dance team. Lucy was short, so she stood in the front row. Directly across from her, Hazel’s father held up his cell phone. She could partially see it from here, Lucy singing on his screen, red light recording. It came on suddenly and sharply—an ache in Hazel’s throat, stinging behind her eyes. She refused to blink, willing the chilly air to dry out the brimming tears.

The transition to dancing came as a relief, and soon enough, the show was over. Hazel waited patiently for Maggie to usher her kids out of their seats and, in the other direction, for Ash’s mother to unlock the wheelchair. Now that she had the chance to speak to Ash, she wished she’d spent the last forty-five minutes preparinganythingto say. He stood to one side, holding her stupid fruitcake. That seemed like a good sign.

She strode toward him just as her father came down the center aisle from the front seats, nearly running into her. He did a double take. “Oh, youwerehere.”

She turned a cheery smile on Lucy and somehow managed not to sound as incandescently angry as she felt. “You were great.”

Lucy chirped a quick thanks before running off to join her friends. Val and Raf wandered ahead. But Hazel’s father lingered a moment before rubbing his neck and echoing Lucy’s thanks in a far more subdued tone, clarifying, “For coming.” Hesqueezed her upper arm, and she couldn’t help it—she flinched away.

Thanks?As if she were some stranger returning his grocery cart for him? As if, after she’d driven hundreds of miles, lost half her wardrobe at his entrance gate, and played her part in their little father-daughter charade, this performance had been optional?

Hadit been? Not once had he asked if she wanted to come or even officially invited her. Hazel wasn’t sure which was worse, to be obligated without the courtesy of an actual request—she would have said yes, obviously—or to be thanked for doing something she hadn’t really minded. It cheapened it somehow to be thanked.

“Kiddo,” her father said.

“Of course.” She flashed a feeble smile. “I have plans this afternoon. I probably won’t be back in time for dinner.”

“Okay,” he said.

She hadn’t noticed, but Ash had meandered closer, stood just a few feet away. He offered his hand in a simultaneous greeting and goodbye to her father, hisI’m good with parentssmile. When her father left, Ash faced the parking lot beside her and said, “That was shitty.” She knew what he meant—the awkward thank-you, the seat her father hadn’t saved.

Hazel blinked, and the first tear fell. She didn’t wipe it away, didn’t turn from him or try to hide. She knew she should apologize to Ash, should tell him she hadn’t meant to fight—and she would.

But for now, there was something cathartic about not saying, “It’s fine.”

Chapter

Sixteen

“My car wasn’t made for off-roading,” Hazel said, bracing on the dashboard as Ash drove over a bumpy set of hardened tire tracks between an old pecan grove on one side and a goat pen on the other.

Back at the festival, he’d asked for her keys, and she’d handed them over without a fight. He hadn’t planned at the time to bring her here, but when he impulsively took the highway east of town, it made a simple kind of sense. Here, he could talk to her, come clean about this morning, his father, everything. He just hoped he wasn’t too late.

Ash parked by the big, whitewashed barn. He unlocked the heavy doors with a long-memorized combination and slipped inside. The lights flickered on. He tasted dirt and rust in the air as his movements disturbed the space, which was half workshop, half storage. What he needed was right where he expected.

When he emerged back into the daylight, Hazel squinted dubiously and crossed her arms. “What are those for?”

“Come on.”

She did not fall into step behind him for a few stubborn seconds. Then, he heard her boots crunch through the short scrub.

Near the barbed wire fence marking the edge of the property, Ash set down his loot: a crate of golf balls, a seven iron, and ahandle of Jack Daniel’s that was down to its last inch. He stomped down weeds that had sprung up since the last time anyone had done this and pushed a tee into the ground.

“Explain,” Hazel said, impatient.

He pointed at a slowly bobbing oil pump on the other side of the fence. “We’re aiming for that.”

“That’s got to be a hundred yards away.”

“Give or take.”

Hazel let out a heavy sigh, arms still crossed. For a second, he worried he’d pushed her too far, brought her out here when she’d meant what she’d said earlier about wanting to stop what they’d only just started. But she nodded for him to go ahead.Do it, then, said the clench of her jaw.Hit it.

He knew his first ball wouldn’t land anywhere near the pump. His shoulders needed to warm up first, his body had to dial into the right force. He was better with a bat than a golf club, but golf balls were cheaper than baseballs. He swung, and the ball soared in a long, low arc and fell somewhere in the mid-distance, a small puff of dirt kicking up where it landed.

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