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Chapter Seven
Slate had eaten two cheeseburgers on the way home from the pet salon. Fine, maybe only one and a half by the time he finished sharing with Granny’s dogs. He’d sworn them to secrecy though, as Granny didn’t like it when the dogs ate anything other than dry dog food.
He was stuffed full, but he did manage to find room for a couple of cookies and all of his sweet tea. Nothing was better than a sunset and Granny’s sweet tea, Slate decided.
Then Jill slipped her fingers into his, and everything in the whole world aligned. Holding Jill’s hand was definitely better than the cookies, the tea, and the sunset. Maybe the combination of all of it was just what was amazing.
“Is this okay?” she asked.
“Fine with me,” he said, his voice grinding in his throat
“I’m not leading you on,” she said. “And I don’t really crave human touch. I just want to hold your hand.”
Slate nodded, his mind firing through questions. “Why?” he asked.
“Why do I want to hold your hand?”
“Yeah.” He looked at her, their seat of a bale of straw so country he finally felt like he belonged on this farm, wearing the cowboy hat, watching the sun go down with a beautiful woman at his side.
“Let’s start with the obvious,” Jill said. “You’re super good-looking.”
For some reason, that reason made Slate burst out laughing. Jill joined him, her lighter, more feminine laugh so welcome in his ears. “Wow,” he said, still chuckling. “I wasn’t expecting that.”
“Come on,” she said with some measure of sarcasm. “You know you’re good-looking.”
“Honestly?” He shook his head as the sun went down another degree. “I’ve never been told that.”
“Well, you’ve been surrounded by blind women for your whole life then,” Jill said, and he didn’t detect any sarcasm from her this time.
Slate cleared his throat, the magic of the evening suddenly fading like the sunlight. “Actually, I need to tell you something.”
“Okay,” she said. “Then I can go on about why I want to hold your hand.”
Slate wanted to smile, but the gesture only lasted for a blip of a second. How did he phrase this? Did he start slow or just spit it all out? What would she think of him? Would he ruin this tiny relationship they’d started to build?
“Do you know why I went to prison?” he asked, his voice surprisingly calm for how much his stomach had clenched.
“Not really,” she said. “I mean, Jess said something about some bank transactions from a mall, but I didn’t ask any questions.”
“I did process a bunch of fraudulent charges from multiple stores at a mall in Austin,” he said. “I didn’t know they were fraudulent, but there are policies and procedures in place to catch that kind of thing.” He told himself not to clear his throat or shift as he did both. “I didn’t follow them, because I was so far outside of my head.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was high,” he said. “I was a junkie.” Now that he’d started talking, he couldn’t seem to stop himself. “I lived for the next fix, and I took it anywhere I could get it. I stole from my parents, my brother, anyone I had to in order to get the money I needed for the next round.” He nodded like that was that. The secret was out, and in a lot of ways, thatwasthat.
There was a lot of other fallout from those decisions, including the fact that he hadn’t spoken to his parents yet. Granny said they’d be kind, and that Slate just needed to dig down deep and find his courage to make the call.
He’d just used his whole store of it to tell Jill about his addiction. “I’ve been clean for over four years,” he said. “Fifty-two months and four days, to be exact.” He watched the sun sink below the horizon, amplifying the reds and oranges already in the sky.
Jill said nothing, and Slate couldn’t decide if that was a good sign or not. He let the silence permeate his soul, because the pastor he’d listened to that morning had said there was a lot to hear when things were silent. God often spoke to the heart when there weren’t other distractions or media in his eyes and ears.
“I don’t know what to say,” Jill said, all of her previous flirt gone. Her fingers in his tightened though. “I think it’s pretty amazing to be able to overcome something like that, though.”
“I had to,” Slate said. “I was in jail before the trial, and then I got transported from the courthouse to River Bay once I was convicted.” He did not want to go through the detoxification process ever again. He wouldn’t wish that on his worst enemy.
“You’ve been out for over two months,” she said. “You haven’t gone back to that lifestyle.”
Slate didn’t want any accolades for what he’d done since he’d gotten out of prison. The truth was, every day was a struggle. Every day, he thought about how all the troublesome thoughts in his head would disappear if he could find the right person who could supply him with the right stuff. He didn’t say any of that, though.
