AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Maya grabbed a napkin and lunged at him, dabbing his chest, wiping his chin. “God, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
He stilled her hands, took the napkin from them and lifted it to gently wipe the beer from her lips. Maya went still, lowering her eyes.
“I shouldn’t have told you,” he said softly.
“No. No, I needed to know the truth.”
“If it helps any, I told Jimmy that if he said another word, I’d knock his teeth out.”
She smiled, but it felt weak. “I appreciate that.”
“Why does this hurt you so much, Maya? Why do you care what some ignorant fool like Jimmy Jones thinks of you, anyway?”
Closing her eyes, she shook her head slowly. “I’ve been trying to be the good one. The responsible one. Trying to be good enough for the upper crust residents of Big Falls.” She closed her eyes, shook her head. “Trying to be something I guess maybe I’m not and never will be.” She sat back down. So did he.
“Hey. Maybe you don’t fit in with those kinds of people, Maya, but don’t ever think it’s because you aren’t good enough.”
She looked across the table at him, smiled a little. “Thanks for that.”
“I meant it. But for the rest of it—I know what you’re going through.”
“You do? You’ve been trying to be respectable, too?”
He shrugged and seemed to think about it. “More like I’ve been trying to live up to other people’s expectations of me.”
“While I’ve been trying to live them down.”
He smiled at that. “And the results so far have been pretty lousy.”
She drew a breath, sighed. “I’m a saint. I live like a nun, but nobody gives me any credit for it.”
“I’m expected to live my whole life according to someone else’s plan. I’ve never even questioned it, so they assume I never will.”
She drank her beer, surprised to see the bottom of the glass so soon. She was even more surprised when he refilled it for her. “I, um…I don’t drink very often,” she said.
“Me either,” he said. “But tonight I’m going to do what I want, instead of what other people want me to do. If I want to drink, I’m going to drink. So there.”
She pursed her lips, tilted her head. “Yeah. You know what? Me too.”
She took a nice long drink. Then she glanced out at the floor, where her dancers were getting ready to begin again. “Ready for round two?” she asked him.
“You lead, lady, and I’ll follow.”
She did lead. She led him out onto the dance floor, then back to the table for two more beers when the line dancing was done. And then she was on the dance floor with him again when a slow song came on, and everything was different.
He held her closer, tighter, than she had ever been held in her life, and he said softly, “I’m liking this way too much, Maya.”
She said, “I am, too.”
“Yeah?”
She nodded, looking up into his eyes, liking what she saw there. Feeling the sting of all her efforts to be respectable having failed, the depression over her impending birthday, and the effects of too much beer, she knew she was in trouble tonight. And she didn’t even care.
“You want to get out of here?” he asked her.
She nodded. “Yeah…I do.”
His smile was slow, but gentle somehow. “Your family…?”
