Trailer Park Heart
Page 70
His frustrated stare turned lethal. “I ended things with Kristen seven years ago. You might remember the night well. It’s the same night you got pregnant.”
That was enough to have me biting my tongue and wishing I could crawl into a cave and never come out. Wrenching open the Corolla door, I said, “She’s still into you.”
“And I’m still not into her.”
Sighing in frustration, I managed a small apology. “I shouldn’t have said that about you and Kristen.”
He folded his arms over his chest and moved back a step. “No, you shouldn’t have.”
“I’m going to leave now.”
“Probably for the best.”
Immense sorrow pressed against my chest, crushing my fragile heart inside as I plopped into my driver’s seat and shoved my keys into the ignition.
Netflix, I whispered to my deflated spirits. We can ring in the New Year with Netflix.
I turned the key and was greeted by a sputtering, whining, not-turning-on engine. “No,” I hissed at my piece of crap car. Turning the keys again, I closed my eyes and prayed for a New Year miracle. “Please, please, please,” I chanted alongside the brum, brum, brum of my useless engine.
Levi let me struggle and shiver for five more minutes before he said helpfully, “It’s not going to work.”
I glared at him. “Sometimes if I just…” I tried it again without a positive response.
“Come on.” He tilted his head. “I’ll call you a tow truck, but you can wait inside my apartment, so you don’t freeze to death.”
He started off across the parking lot toward the antique store across the street and I was forced to hurry after him. “That’s all right, I can just ask Coco—”
“For once, please don’t argue with me, Ruby.”
So, I didn’t. I let him lead me up the side staircase to a loft very similar to Coco’s. He flipped the lights on when we stepped inside, and I was greeted with a very warm, very manly space of rich leather couches and a giant TV.
It was also eighty degrees warmer inside and I let out a sigh at the feeling of my skin beginning to thaw.
I was immediately drawn to printed photographs in big frames hung around the cozy space. A group of stallions against the backdrop of a breathtaking sunset, a single horse, his snout facing the camera, the white patch over his eye seemingly too pure for an animal, a lone cowboy on the back of another mighty steed, his body a perfect specimen of the male form, his wide-brim cowboy hat an interesting, nostalgic touch.
“These are incredible,” I whispered, forgetting my purpose for being in his apartment to begin with.
“Thank you.” His voice was softer in this place, his private space. Less hard, less… distant.
There was pride in his answer, an ownership that whispered he had more purchase in them than simple buying power. “Did you take them?” I asked in a reverent whisper.
I glanced over my shoulder in time to see him nod his head. “Mementos of my travels.”
“Do you hate being back, then? Do you hate that your parents wanted you to come home?”
He shook his head and leaned back against the kitchen counter, his arms already folded over his chest. “No, it was time.” He tore his gaze from mine and stared down at his feet. “When I left I felt like there was nothing left for me here. Logan was gone. I thought… I thought you were gone. I just, I didn’t want to come home and feel empty.”
My heart skipped a beat, leaving me flailing to catch up. “And now?”
His gaze lifted, and his brilliant green eyes hit me from all the way across the apartment. “And now I know the life I wanted was waiting for me here all along.”
God, I could resonate with that. I felt those words in the deepest, most centered part of me. I knew what it was like to assume everything I wanted was out there, out in the world. And yet this whole time, it had been here all along.
“I’m sorry I slept with Logan,” I blurted, unable to keep the words inside of me for one more second. “I’m so sorry.”
“Ruby—”
I hiccupped a sob as the tears started streaming down my face. Damn, Fireball, you done me wrong.
“No, listen,” I demanded. “I was afraid, Levi. I’ve always been afraid of what I felt for you. I wanted out of this town so damn bad, that it clouded everything for me. And in my stupid, immature mind, I thought sleeping with him would be enough to break whatever was between us for good. I didn’t even know what that was. I never intended to hurt you or to have Max. I just wanted… I just wanted to leave. And it was the only way I knew how.”
He stared at me, unspeaking, unmoving. The hurt in his eyes and the frown on his face devastated my already broken spirit.
“And I don’t even know what to tell you,” I cried some more. “Because my mistake led me to Max and for that reason I can never really regret it. But I hate how I hurt you. I hate that my mistakes meant pushing you away. I hate that I finally know how I feel about you and it’s too late.”
His eyes flashed with something so intense I gasped for breath. “How do you feel about me?”
How could he ask me that now? How did he not know? How had he not always known?
“Don’t make me say it,” I whispered, my voice dragged over gravel. “It hurts too much.”
“Ruby,” he pleaded, his voice just as fragmented. “Say it. Please.”
I didn’t bother brushing away the tears, there were too many of them, my grief was too heavy. “I love you,” I whispered. “I’ve always loved you. I’ve just been too afraid to say it.”
To admit it.
He stared at me, his gaze heating and sparking and bursting to life. I couldn’t move. I was one hundred percent captivated by the way he looked at me and the frenetic energy in the room.
My boots were pooling water all over his floor and somehow in the last few minutes I’d stopped shivering. I should go. I knew I should go, but I couldn’t make myself move.
I wanted to stand there forever if it meant he would continue to look at me like this.
“Do you know how long I’ve wanted to hear you say that? How many different ways I imagined you saying those words?” He didn’t sound any less pissed and I couldn’t tell if he was going to forgive me or strangle me. “God, knowing you slept with Logan on graduation night…Do you know what that has done to me?”
I nodded, but barely. I could hardly manage even that. “I know and I’m sorry—”
“It destroyed me, Ruby. You destroyed me.”
The tears fell faster. I wrapped my hands around my body to shield me from his painful truth.
“I can’t even be mad at Logan because he’s gone! And I love Max too fucking much to hate you for it. It’s messed me up in a serious way.”
I nodded, knowing exactly what he meant, exactly how he felt.
Breaking his gaze with me, he ran his hands through his hair and made a tortured sound in the back of his throat. When he looked back at me, his eyes were blazing, the intensity in them stealing the breath from my body. “And you? What am I supposed to do with you? I loved you in high school. And not the way you fucking loved Logan. I actually loved you. You were so helpless and yet, so relentlessly tough. When we were kids, I had never met anyone as wild as you, as tenacious. And yet so contained at the same time, so utterly self-possessed. You fascinated me. I just wanted to get to know you, be near you. And as we grew up, those feelings only ever got more intense.
That was enough to have me biting my tongue and wishing I could crawl into a cave and never come out. Wrenching open the Corolla door, I said, “She’s still into you.”
“And I’m still not into her.”
Sighing in frustration, I managed a small apology. “I shouldn’t have said that about you and Kristen.”
He folded his arms over his chest and moved back a step. “No, you shouldn’t have.”
“I’m going to leave now.”
“Probably for the best.”
Immense sorrow pressed against my chest, crushing my fragile heart inside as I plopped into my driver’s seat and shoved my keys into the ignition.
Netflix, I whispered to my deflated spirits. We can ring in the New Year with Netflix.
I turned the key and was greeted by a sputtering, whining, not-turning-on engine. “No,” I hissed at my piece of crap car. Turning the keys again, I closed my eyes and prayed for a New Year miracle. “Please, please, please,” I chanted alongside the brum, brum, brum of my useless engine.
Levi let me struggle and shiver for five more minutes before he said helpfully, “It’s not going to work.”
I glared at him. “Sometimes if I just…” I tried it again without a positive response.
“Come on.” He tilted his head. “I’ll call you a tow truck, but you can wait inside my apartment, so you don’t freeze to death.”
He started off across the parking lot toward the antique store across the street and I was forced to hurry after him. “That’s all right, I can just ask Coco—”
“For once, please don’t argue with me, Ruby.”
So, I didn’t. I let him lead me up the side staircase to a loft very similar to Coco’s. He flipped the lights on when we stepped inside, and I was greeted with a very warm, very manly space of rich leather couches and a giant TV.
It was also eighty degrees warmer inside and I let out a sigh at the feeling of my skin beginning to thaw.
I was immediately drawn to printed photographs in big frames hung around the cozy space. A group of stallions against the backdrop of a breathtaking sunset, a single horse, his snout facing the camera, the white patch over his eye seemingly too pure for an animal, a lone cowboy on the back of another mighty steed, his body a perfect specimen of the male form, his wide-brim cowboy hat an interesting, nostalgic touch.
“These are incredible,” I whispered, forgetting my purpose for being in his apartment to begin with.
“Thank you.” His voice was softer in this place, his private space. Less hard, less… distant.
There was pride in his answer, an ownership that whispered he had more purchase in them than simple buying power. “Did you take them?” I asked in a reverent whisper.
I glanced over my shoulder in time to see him nod his head. “Mementos of my travels.”
“Do you hate being back, then? Do you hate that your parents wanted you to come home?”
He shook his head and leaned back against the kitchen counter, his arms already folded over his chest. “No, it was time.” He tore his gaze from mine and stared down at his feet. “When I left I felt like there was nothing left for me here. Logan was gone. I thought… I thought you were gone. I just, I didn’t want to come home and feel empty.”
My heart skipped a beat, leaving me flailing to catch up. “And now?”
His gaze lifted, and his brilliant green eyes hit me from all the way across the apartment. “And now I know the life I wanted was waiting for me here all along.”
God, I could resonate with that. I felt those words in the deepest, most centered part of me. I knew what it was like to assume everything I wanted was out there, out in the world. And yet this whole time, it had been here all along.
“I’m sorry I slept with Logan,” I blurted, unable to keep the words inside of me for one more second. “I’m so sorry.”
“Ruby—”
I hiccupped a sob as the tears started streaming down my face. Damn, Fireball, you done me wrong.
“No, listen,” I demanded. “I was afraid, Levi. I’ve always been afraid of what I felt for you. I wanted out of this town so damn bad, that it clouded everything for me. And in my stupid, immature mind, I thought sleeping with him would be enough to break whatever was between us for good. I didn’t even know what that was. I never intended to hurt you or to have Max. I just wanted… I just wanted to leave. And it was the only way I knew how.”
He stared at me, unspeaking, unmoving. The hurt in his eyes and the frown on his face devastated my already broken spirit.
“And I don’t even know what to tell you,” I cried some more. “Because my mistake led me to Max and for that reason I can never really regret it. But I hate how I hurt you. I hate that my mistakes meant pushing you away. I hate that I finally know how I feel about you and it’s too late.”
His eyes flashed with something so intense I gasped for breath. “How do you feel about me?”
How could he ask me that now? How did he not know? How had he not always known?
“Don’t make me say it,” I whispered, my voice dragged over gravel. “It hurts too much.”
“Ruby,” he pleaded, his voice just as fragmented. “Say it. Please.”
I didn’t bother brushing away the tears, there were too many of them, my grief was too heavy. “I love you,” I whispered. “I’ve always loved you. I’ve just been too afraid to say it.”
To admit it.
He stared at me, his gaze heating and sparking and bursting to life. I couldn’t move. I was one hundred percent captivated by the way he looked at me and the frenetic energy in the room.
My boots were pooling water all over his floor and somehow in the last few minutes I’d stopped shivering. I should go. I knew I should go, but I couldn’t make myself move.
I wanted to stand there forever if it meant he would continue to look at me like this.
“Do you know how long I’ve wanted to hear you say that? How many different ways I imagined you saying those words?” He didn’t sound any less pissed and I couldn’t tell if he was going to forgive me or strangle me. “God, knowing you slept with Logan on graduation night…Do you know what that has done to me?”
I nodded, but barely. I could hardly manage even that. “I know and I’m sorry—”
“It destroyed me, Ruby. You destroyed me.”
The tears fell faster. I wrapped my hands around my body to shield me from his painful truth.
“I can’t even be mad at Logan because he’s gone! And I love Max too fucking much to hate you for it. It’s messed me up in a serious way.”
I nodded, knowing exactly what he meant, exactly how he felt.
Breaking his gaze with me, he ran his hands through his hair and made a tortured sound in the back of his throat. When he looked back at me, his eyes were blazing, the intensity in them stealing the breath from my body. “And you? What am I supposed to do with you? I loved you in high school. And not the way you fucking loved Logan. I actually loved you. You were so helpless and yet, so relentlessly tough. When we were kids, I had never met anyone as wild as you, as tenacious. And yet so contained at the same time, so utterly self-possessed. You fascinated me. I just wanted to get to know you, be near you. And as we grew up, those feelings only ever got more intense.
