Page 31 of Roads Behind Us
“Well, I guess I’d better go,” I said, untying the apron and pulling it off. I hung it over the back of my chair when I stood. “It was nice to see you again, Mrs. Lee.”
“Oh, mm, you too.” Yeah, that had sounded like the equivalent of “oh, bless your little heart” when it oozed like rancid honey out of a southern woman’s mouth.
“Wait, you’re goin’?” Bax asked with a faint hint of panic. He leaned forward, like he wanted to reach out for me, and the pleading look in his eyes begged me to stay.
I smiled, mischief lifting the corners of my mouth even when I ordered them to stay down. “Your mom’s here, so you don’t need my help anymore. Besides, I have a lot of work to do before the crews get here in the mornin’.” I flashed a toothy grin before I said, “If you need help later tonight, you know where I’ll be.”
My unspoken invitation had Bax reaching beneath his kitchen table, probably to adjust the hard truth inside his pajama pants, but then his eyes slid over to his mom, and he flopped back against his chair in defeat.
Chapter Eleven
Bax
My mama had an immutable knack for overstaying her welcome where Athena and I were concerned.
She flitted around my house, apologizing over and over for “abandoning” me in my time of need, tending to me, cleaning, fluffing pillows, and washing and folding laundry for hours, like I was five years old and couldn’t possibly lift a finger for myself.
Okay, fine. Admittedly, I’d fallen behind on laundry. I wasn’t ungrateful, and all that shit needed to be done, but my mother had always had a way of inserting herself into our lives when Athena and I were probably best left to figure things out on our own.
When Abey brought Athena home with her new riding boots, Mama started dinner and then sat with us while it cooked in the oven, sipping decaf in the living room while Athena chattered away about drama club and how she’d been chosen to play the Ghost of Christmas Past in the school holiday show.
Mama didn’t like that. Oh, she was glowingly proud of Athena for getting the part, but she seemed to be bothered by the fact that she thought Christmas Past was a boy’s part, and she wanted Athena to have a girl’s part so she could fix her hair and make her a pretty costume.
It put my Road Trip right over the edge. She stood, and with waving hands and indignant scoffs, told her Grandma to get with the times, that girls could be boys, and boys could be girls if they wanted to.
Devo joined us after her meeting. She showed up in the middle of the rant and sat on the couch next to Abey, fully enthralled by Athena’s performance. My sister and her fiancée had a knack, too, for showing up when food was ready. They ate roasted chicken and wild rice with us when it was done, then hung out after Mama left. Who cared about the extra food when their presence was the reason my mama didn’t stay? She may’ve gotten on board with Abey’s and Devo’s relationship, but her big toe was the only part of her body on the boat, and she sure as shit wasn’t comfortable with it.
“You guys cool if I run an errand?” I asked as I reached for my crutches on the floor beside my chair and pushed up.
Devo snorted a laugh, snuggling back into Abey’s side on my couch. Abey slipped her arm over Devo’s shoulder and asked, “An errand? Where you gonna go?”
“Uh, I need to… to talk to Sweet—or I mean Bea about somethin’.”
“You need to talk to her?” Devo taunted. “Or you need to talk to her?” She wiggled her dark eyebrows.
“Shut up. It’s about the cabins. We were havin’ a conversation about it earlier before Merv showed up.”
Calling our mama Merv still made us giggle like twelve-year-olds, and Mama hated it with a passion, which was why we still did it.
“Go ahead,” Abey said, chuckling. “We’ll hang out for a bit. You have satellite, so that works out for us, and Athena said she’s got a lot of homework so she’ll be upstairs for a while.”
“Thanks. Is it cold out tonight? Should I grab a flannel?”
“No, it’s not too— Wait a minute,” Devo said, those eyebrows now furrowing in perplexion. “Just how are you plannin’ on gettin’ to Bea’s cabin? You might’ve been able to cheat with the brace, but with that bulky cast in your way, I’d pay good money to watch you try to drive. You can’t.”
“I was gonna take the skid steer.”
She laughed, and Abey said, “If Rye finds out you drove his Bobcat, he’ll kill you.”
“He lets Athena drive it.”
“Yeah,” Abey said, “’cause she’s a better driver than you.”
“C’mon, gimpy.” Devo popped up off the couch. “I’ll drive you.” She grabbed her keys from the kitchen table on our way out the door.
Devo held my crutches while I slid into the cab of her truck, which, now that I was thinking about it, seemed like the same make and model of Bea’s truck. Different years probably, but it was a heck of a coincidence that they drove the same POS Chevy when there were perfectly good Fords all over the place. Man, I missed driving my own damn truck.
I looked at my blue beast longingly as Devo pulled away from my house and asked, “You got condoms?”
