I decided to imitate them and let the water wash away my makeup and earlier fears. When I looked back at the girls, they were spitting water at each other. Their goofy joy was what I had missed growing up, and I never wanted to steal it from them.
As I let the dogs inside for the night, my thoughts flashed to Boone. I felt drawn to him in a wholly lovestruck way. But a man would do me no good. My girls had only recently found a routine in Little Memphis. They didn’t need their mom chasing a man.
What if Boone did let me catch him? Could I be goofy with my girls like I was now? Marriage had never seemed particularly fun. I didn’t remember much from my parents’ time together, but Laverne’s other husbands sucked the joy out of our lives.
In contrast to my stepfathers, Chris Daly seemed like a fun guy. He joked a lot and often wore a smile. He was the very definition of the “class clown.”
Our girls inherited his blond hair and smile. Sometimes, Lyric would laugh, and I felt like Chris was in the room.
I wasn’t sure what I planned to tell the girls when they got older. They knew their dad was dead. Skylar barely remembered him. Lyric was born after I left Chris. When he showed up in Baton Rouge to take us back to South Dakota, Dan handled the issue. I understood my brother had killed Chris to protect thegirls and me. One day, I would need to find a way to explain that truth to Skylar and Lyric.
Once we were cuddled in bed, the girls quickly dozed off. I played with their hair and let my thoughts return to Boone.
His parents were involved in the biker lifestyle and lived in a town south of Little Memphis called Rawlins. Boone had been in jail for a few months. He also had a Chihuahua named Beef Jerky, who mostly stayed with his parents in Rawlins.
The few times he engaged with Skylar and Lyric, he only nodded and mumbled positively at whatever they were saying. Boone was clearly humoring them.Did he even like kids?
I recalled one time when Skylar was yelling at Zodiac about how he had no baby. The whole thing started right after Elle announced she was pregnant. The girls didn’t understand how there was a baby inside the still thin blonde.
Zodiac could have easily ignored their challenges, but the man had to poke back. Over time, even when Elle’s belly grew round, Skylar and Lyric claimed Zodiac was lying about his baby.
“There’s no baby,” Skylar would sneer. “Fibber.”
After Zodiac got the latest ultrasound pictures of his son, he lorded them over the girls.
“That’s no baby,” Skylar insisted. “That’s a monster.”
“You put the boogeyman in Elle!” Lyric screamed and started running around the room while squealing.
Boone had been over at Clint’s house when the situation happened, and he laughed so hard at the girls’ behavior. I could barely take my eyes off him. Boone was so handsome, but he rarely smiled. Seeing him so relaxed made me fall deeper into the fantasy I’d built about us.
Waking up the next day, I felt like an absolute fool for putting the paper in his pocket. Our attraction was completely one-sided. Boone had never shown any particular interest in me. He hadn’t flirted, not even one tiny bit!What the hell had I done?
My panic subsided by the time Dan and Lula showed up in the afternoon for a party at both Ford and Pax’s houses. I had fully convinced myself that Boone would never look inside his pocket. Dan often forgot slips of paper in his jackets, and I’d have to dig them out before doing the laundry. Men were just absentminded that way.Boone would never know.
And if he did find it, so what? He knew I gave the paper faces to people. There was no reason for him to assume anything.Everything was fine.
And if somehow, hedidfind the paper, and hedidthink I only gave it to him, so what? I would claim I was stoned and goofing around. My lies were already planned out.
Boone arrived with Goldie and Vanessa. The latter joined the party at her parents’ house and chilled out with my girls. While the three of them colored pictures, I stood nearby, smiling and acting normal.
My gaze frequently flashed toward Ford Reed’s next-door backyard, where Boone regularly walked in and out of the house. I noticed him walking toward Dan and Lula, who were talking to Zodiac, Elle, Clint, and Ivy. The group was behaving oddly, with everyone making out in really exaggerated ways. I sensed they were trying to prove who was more into their partner.
When I noticed Boone talking to Dan, my heart raced with paranoia. I really didn’t want my brother to lecture me about my behavior. I stared hard at my girls before forcing my gaze back to Boone. He was walking away from Dan. My brother and the five others in the group looked at me in unison.I knew instantly that I’d been ratted out!
After spending the entire day telling myself not to panic, I flipped out and ran inside the house. I hurried past Dillon talking with her grandmother, Bebe, and searched for a hiding place.
I’d built so many sexy and sweet fantasies about Boone Chester, but not once had any of them ended with me hiding in the bathroom.
BOONE
Exile looked as pissed as I expected when I told him that I planned to ask out Nova. I wasn’t an old-fashioned guy. I didn’tneedExile’s permission. But I still did him the favor since I figured he was overly protective after what happened with her abusive husband and then the shooting. Maybe my choice to play the nice guy was a mistake, though.
If Exile got to Nova before I did, he might make me look bad. I really had no idea how this shit was supposed to go down. I never dated women, let alone chased them.
My only girlfriend was in junior high. I wasn’t even interested in the chick, but the guy she was dating sucked. I knew she liked me, so I played along to get her away from the asshole. I kept that up for a few months until the jerk got a new girlfriend. I still remember how much the chick cried when I broke up with her. I said everything so nicely and blamed myself, but she still sobbed like I had broken her heart.
Thinking back to that clusterfuck nearly stopped me from entering Pax’s house. I hated when women cried. Their tears set fire to a festering pit inside me.
