“You too?” Gavin asked as I reapproached the team.
Through the pane of my visor, I stared at him with an arched eyebrow, trying to figure out what he meant.
“The auction had a better ending than you thought it would.” He clarified while I glanced back at Dakota, who was checking up on Elsie now. I turned back to him and nodded.
“Turns out you try and sell your body, and you end up losing your heart too.”
dakota
Laughter bubbledin from the dining room, where everyone was seated around the massive oak dining table that had seen generations of Butlers sitting around it. I stood in the kitchen, waiting for the kettle to boil after insisting I help make after-dinner drinks.
Forrest was here, but he wasn’t looking at Deacon and me. Every so often, I thought I caught him staring. Still, when I turned, he was busy doing something or talking to someone that it left me feeling like I was onlywishinghe was trying to look at me.
“I’m so happy things worked out between you and Deacon.” Ma appeared beside me with that mischievous twinkle in her eye that had gotten me into all this trouble.
“I wouldn’t necessarily say things worked out between us.” The kettle began to whistle, and I reached out, snapping it up off the base before beginning to pour out the hot water into each of the mugs.
“No?” Ma reached out and picked up the sugar dispenser. “It certainly looks like things are working out just great.”
“With Deacon and me? Sure, that’s great. Perfect even.”
“I knew it.” Ma smiled to herself as she dropped a heap of sugar into a cup that read, ‘My favorite child gave me this mug.’ I wondered which one that was. Though, I suspected it might’ve been Forrest.
“Did you now?”
“I did.” She smiled at me before stirring her cup. “Deacon has been fond of you for a while. Every time you came around, his eyes followed you everywhere. He came to events he knew he didn’t have to be at if he found out you’d be there.”
This surprised me when it probably shouldn’t have. Deacon had admitted as much, and it only made me feel foolish for not telling him I wanted more from the first morning we woke up hungover in my bed.
“How long is ‘a while,’ Ma?”
“Hm,” she poured more sugar into the cup while she thought, “probably since your last year in high school. He came to Forrest’s graduation with me. He said he wanted to keep me company, but he wasn’t paying attention when Forrest crossed the stage. When you did, though? Both eyes were glued to you.”
She smiled to herself and stirred the second cup that said, ‘I don’t have the time or the crayons to explain this to you.’ Seemed appropriate. Maybe I was denser than I thought I was, at least when it came to matters of the heart.
“Yeah, well, being with Deacon has caused a lot of problems for Forrest and me. He thinks we can’t still be friends if I’m with his brother, that it ‘complicates’ things. You shouldn't have paid for me to buy Deac. I probably, eventually, would’ve worked up the nerve to tell him how I felt.”
Ma snorted and looked over at me. “Yeah, by the time I was dead. I don’t have much time left, love. I need to make sure all my boys will be well-taken care of when I’m gone. Four down, one to go.”
“You gave Dakota the money to buy me?” We both spun around at Deacon’s voice as a flush grew on my cheeks. Was I supposed to feel shame? Was this okay? I couldn’t tell, and his face didn’t give anything away either.
“I did.” Ma wasn’t the least bit disturbed by our secret being revealed. She smiled warmly at her middle son and turned, grabbed her mug, and tapped the line about ‘favorite child.’
Oh, so Deacon bought it for her?
“Why?”
“Because I knew how you felt about her and how she felt about you. Anyone with eyes could have seen it. I thought maybe getting involved and nudging you two together would be in your best interests. And look,” she waved her hand between the two of us, “I was right.” She smiled smugly and shuffled out of the room. She might be pleased with herself for her matchmaking skills, but she was in pain and trying to hide it.
I’d have to ask her about that later because Deacon stalked across the room and cornered me against the counter.
“Why didn’t you just tell me?”
I shrugged. “It didn’t seem important.Shewasn’t the one who bought you.”
“Would you have bought me that night if she hadn’t suggested it?”
I opened my mouth to answer it and then closed it again. I didn’t know the answer to that question, or maybe I did, but I didn’t want to say it out loud. If not for Ma’s meddling, maybe we’d still be sleeping behind everyone’s back instead of sitting together at the dining room table, holding hands, and laughing like we were the happiest people in the room.