* * *
Atticus isat Beck and Beau’s house when I pull up later, still wearing my interview outfit because, yeah, I can’t unzip the damn pencil skirt from hell on my own either. Sweats were calling my name before I laid down for my nap but after an exhausting struggle, I said fuck it and passed out in my clothes.
Now here I am. Wrinkled, my makeup not nearly as fresh as this morning, with a bottle of wine hanging from my hand as I get out of my car. I realize this man is just living his life and most definitely not going out of his way to be where I am going to be but still, the sight of his truck annoys me. Because now I’ll have to beon. I’ll have to hold some pretense during this relaxing dinner, effectively making itnotrelaxing.
Except, as I head toward the front door, Atticus emerges on the porch, his leather jacket slung over his shoulder. He’s leaving, and for some reason, that thought doesn’t sit right either.Which is it, Goldie, you want him here or you don’t?
He lifts his head but doesn’t say a word as he drops down the porch steps, walking right past me.
“Hello to you, too,” I say to his back as he trots to his truck parked on the curb.
He stops, and my breath catches as his large body twists to look at me. His man bun is exceptionally shiny (read:greasy), and his face actually has smudges of dark against the rough stubble covering his jaw. He looks filthier than normal, and for whatever reason, my body likes it. I swear my knees go weak.
Yup. I’m that cliché bitch that gets weak-kneed. Though as the sun drops in the sky behind him and his broad chest rises with his next breath, I convince myself it’s the sunset. It’s his size. It’s the fact that I haven’t eaten today. It’s all of that. But it's definitely nothim.
I toy with the idea of telling him I took his advice and that being real was quite possibly the highlight of my interview. But I don’t really get the chance because he slides into his truck, the engine roars awake, then he’s gone.
My disappointment thatI have no right toovertakes me, and when I get to the door, I have a hard time masking it for a second. That in itself is strange because masking is my freaking specialty.
“Hey,” Beck greets as she pulls open the door. Her blonde hair is in a messy braid over her shoulder, so I toss the end of it back.
“Hey, I like your braid,” I say, distracting her from my mood. Even though I know she’ll think it was my Mom; I don’t want to wallow. I want to feel good. I want to recapture how I felt in the interview. I don’t want to be someone’s charity case or pity party. “Smells good in here,” I add, walking past her while pushing the bottle of wine into her hand.
“Thanks,” she says. The door clicks, and it’s that moment that I put Atticus out of my head. He doesn’t belong in there anyway. So he didn’t say hello. Is he really a guy that says hello because the man brought a Stephen King book to babysit and most of his communication comes in grunts? Hello probably isn’t part of his daily vocabulary. He lifted his head, and that’s probably as much as Beau gets, too.
There, I’ve talked myself out of that.
Beau asks me about the interview, and I tell him while he splits his focus between Jett and me, Beck listens and pokes me with additional questions here and there, and by the time we’re ready to eat, I’m so hungry I’m actually shaking a little.
The three of us eat in almost silence—I guess they’re famished, too—while Jett serenades us with baby talk and shouts. When Beau takes the last helping of rice and I snag the last piece of pork rib, all the food is officially gone. I make a move to clean up the kitchen and do the dishes, but Beck literally refuses. The truth is, I think she likes her dishwasher to be loaded a certain way, and you never argue with someone who has a specific way they like their dishes loaded. That’s dangerous territory.
After the dishes, Beck disappears to put Jett to bed, and I’m left at a clean table, the smell of a home-cooked meal and the quiet whirring of the dishwasher in the air making the kitchen feel like the warm home I always wanted.
Beau, who wears a smile most of the time, grows serious. “Goldie,” he starts, and the way he draws my name out while stroking the side of his jaw, staring at the table like it’s going to provide him with answers… makes me nervous.
“What’s the matter?” I question as I edge forward in my seat. Beau is never serious, not with me, at least.
His eyes come to mine. “I’m glad to see you eating.”
I don’t let him see me process those words. I don’t even know what I’d feel if I processed them because living on the surface of my skin at all times is a shield. Whenever I feel too seen, that shield tightens, preventing anything from getting in… or out. I’m so used to deflecting, rerouting, and keeping people off the scent of my pain that it’s sadly second nature.
And I only realize this now.
I give him a million-dollar smile. Well, not a million but after two rounds of braces, a few veneers, and lots of professional salon bleaching sessions, it’s at least a hundred-thousand-dollar smile.
“Why wouldn’t I?” I ask with so much nonchalance I actually crawl inside my skin a little. Why is opening up and being vulnerable so hard? This is my best friend’s man, who she will marry… I can trust him. “It was a dinner invite, Beau; of course, I ate,” I say with that expensive smile of mine. Behind the facade, every single part of me hates myself. Hates how easy denial comes. Hates how hard it is for me to admit even to myself that I have some issues. And now I hate myself for making them so obvious. It took years for Beck to realize, and Beau is already hot on my trail after just a few months.
The way he tips his head to the side in an understanding and not at all condescending way makes my eyes burn, but I blink them madly so the heat doesn’t turn to tears.
“Goldie,” he says my name again, lower, softer, and so gently that my eyes fill with the tears I’ve been trying to avoid. The good thing about hiding yourself all the time is that you’re really good at masking… Well, everything. I swipe beneath my eyes quickly, the smile never leaving my face.
“Yeah, Beau?” What am I actually doing? Am I seriously trying to gaslight Beau into believing I’m A-OK when I haven’t been anything close to that in months? But I don’t want to be pitied, and I don’t want to be seen as anything less than a badass independent woman who works hard and has her shit together.
Being seen as anything less is just…terrifying.
“I’m not going to play games.” He studies me, and the back of my neck grows warm. “Beck told me about some of your issues in the past. I’ve had my eye on you since then. And tonight’s the first time I’ve seen you eat.Reallyeat.”
In the near distance, I can hear Beck’s voice, low and soft, singing something unintelligible. A clunk sounds from the dishwasher, like a spoon knocking over or a cup shifting. The evening moon settles into a patch of clouds, giving the entire backyard a soft glow from what I can see through the kitchen window. The candle Beau lit before dinner flickers in the center of the table. Everything about this setting feels like home, like love, like family. But it’s so foreign to me. I fight it. Even though I want it, it feels so much safer to fight it.