Page 108 of Sundown Somewhere

“That’s enough beer,” Gus says, sliding the pint glass away from me.

I snatch it back, picking it up to try and chug what’s left, but it’s intercepted by our mother.

“Huxley Adams Hayes.”

Oh shit. Triple named. I am in deep shit.

Miss Belle says each name so clearly, so precise and pronounced, you’d think it was a stand-alone sentence. And if I thought that her expression earlier when she was giving us grief over starting our day drinking early was judgy—well, I was wrong. Because the look she’s wearing now could stop traffic.

“What are you goin’ on about?” she continues, that same sweet, Southern I could just as easily hug you as I could whoop you woven in.

“She deserves better than me. Everyone knows it. Grandma Dolly even said so.”

I sigh, letting the little bit of pride I have left deflate out of me. That last tidbit has always been my secret, but after today, I might as well share it. Dolly certainly made it clear, running away like she did.

“She did not,” Miss Belle corrects me, her voice incredulous. “I know for a fact that Miss Dolly believed no such thing.”

I spin off my stool, planting my feet on the ground and facing my mother. My heart thunders, all my muscles contracting as she stares me down. I might be a thirty-six-year-old man, tear down trees for a living, and even have a few inches on my fairly tall mother, but this former beauty queen does scare me a little.

Okay, more than a little.

“She did.” I nod, standing strong in knowing what I know. Grandma Dolly’s words haunt me, so I’m not likely to forget them. “It was the Rhythm and Brews right after we’d graduated from college. I had been working up the nerve to finally tell Dolly that I wanted more. That I wanted to break our pinky promise. That was the year where the Enrights’ goat ended up on stage in a dress. Which I still deny any involvement in.”

A single, impeccably manicured eyebrow lifts on Miss Belle’s face, her …and I still don’t believe you coming in loud and clear. But I press on.

“Standing there, in all the chaos of getting the goat off the stage, the two of us laughing our asses off, Grandma Dolly looked right at me and said, “Maybe it’s a good thing y’all vowed to only ever be friends, Huxley Hayes, because you are nowhere near good enough for our girl…”

A shiver rips through me, those words just as painful now as they were that day. No—I take that back. They’re more so now. As of this morning they’ve grown new barbs. New thorns to cut through my skin, making me bleed. Like swallowing glass each time I try and push them down.

Warm, loving arms wrap around me. Instantly, I feel like a toddler again, the safety of my mother’s love creating a bubble that makes everything okay. Even a broken heart.

“I want you to listen to me, very closely,” she whispers, only loud enough for me to hear. “Because I am your mama, and I know things.”

I nod, trusting her.

She lets go, locking our gaze.

“Son, you misunderstood Miss Dolly. Or maybe she misunderstood you. But that was not her disapproving of you.”

Excuse you?

“That was her issuing a challenge. She was tired of the two of you missing what was so perfectly clear to the rest of us, so she thought maybe a little reverse psychology would work. That Mr. I-Never-Back-Down-From-a-Challenge would rise to the occasion and think he was sticking it to the man. Or well, the woman. When you didn’t, we realized that either you had more respect for your elders than we thought, or maybe there truly wasn’t something there.”

Reverse psychology. Are you fucking kidding me?

All this time I’ve thought that the one person whose approval I needed, I didn’t have. When in reality, it’d been signed, sealed, and delivered long ago.

Holy shit…

“You mean to tell me we almost watched Dolly walk down the aisle toward someone else because you misunderstood some reverse psychology bullshit?” Gus asks, incredulous. “I don’t want to hear anything about my smudging a phone number ever again.”

“Nope, you’re still gonna hear about it,” Jace quips.

I tune them out, trying to wrap my head around this news. Around the idea that I’ve been working off some bad data. Hope begins to rise in me. I could turn this around.

Until I remember.

Dolly walking away from us—telling me that she can’t do this—has nothing to do with what I may have misinterpreted more than a decade ago. That was all her.