I crack a smile, and he grins.
“You should do that more often.”
“Look at your legs? Okay.”
“No. Smile. Like that. Your whole face lights up.”
“I don’t want people thinking I’m too nice.”
“I get that.” I shift in my seat so I’m facing him, making sure my legs are still stretched out, so he can enjoy them. Might as well give him a good, small thing as well. “I called you an ass this morning.”
“I remember that. You going to call me one again for looking at your legs?”
“No. I was just thinking. Either you changed a lot between this morning and right now, or… I was wrong.”
“I like a woman who can admit when she’s wrong.”
I roll my eyes, biting off a smile.
“There’s a chance… at some point during our interaction this morning, I acted like a jerk.”
I stretch my legs and stand. “Because I am sure that was very hard for you to admit, I’m going to share something with you, and it’s areallybig deal. Wait right there.”
I run to the bathroom, lock the door and stare at myself in the mirror. My hair is listlessly hugging my scalp, punishing me for smashing it under a hat for most of the day. The concealer I so meticulously applied has disappeared, the bruises on my face obvious. I dab on more concealer, then wilt against the counter.What am I doing?
I don’t even know him.It’s not like this is a date.
For all I know, Dot was wrong and he’s got a girlfriend.
But he doesn’t seem like the kind of man who would be here with me, sitting on the porch in a rainstorm, staring at another woman’s legs, while a girlfriend is waiting for him at home.
I dab on some more concealer, then swipe most of it back off again with a piece of toilet paper. What’s the point? He’s already seen the bruising. I might as well continue to look like a sick raccoon. A sad, sick raccoon. I think about how he was looking at me, searching my face. But not with pity. Maybe he’s trying to figure out what’s wrong, but he’s being too considerate to ask. Maybe he doesn’t know why I have bruises on my face or why I’m here by myself, but he’s got to see that whatever is going on with me is probably not an ideal situation. He’ll probably run fast and far the second it stops raining.
When I toss the piece of toilet paper in the trash, my eyes catch on the pregnancy test sitting on the bottom of the trash can. In full view, for anyone who has been in the bathroom to see.
I plop down on the toilet and cover my face with my hands and pray that John didn’t see it.
9
FOX
When she returns,I’ve run about twenty different scenarios in my head about what she’s going to share with me, including the news that she’s pregnant.
I could be completely wrong. She could be in a happy, healthy relationship with the father of the baby.
Or not. And Ava could be right.
Anger swells through me, just imagining that there’s a man out there who could hit her. And maybe the same man who hit her also made love to her, got her pregnant,then hit her again.
I stand up and pace the porch, clenching and unclenching my fists, trying to pull myself together before she returns.
What if she tells me she’s going back to him after she leaves here?
I won’t let her.
I rub my hands over my face and try to calm down. Now is not the time to lose it. Pull your shit together. If she’s been around an angry man, she doesn’t need to see you looking like you’re going to punch a wall.
She opens the door, balancing a tray with two pieces of pie and a dollop of whipped cream on top. She has a smudge of whipped cream on her nose. Maybe she put it there because sheknows it’s so damn cute. I have an overwhelming desire to kiss it off.
