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I get situated in the passenger seat, waiting for Royce to lower the hood and get behind the wheel. Then he just sits there.
“Is there something wrong with my car?” I hazard a guess as to why he keeps opening his mouth, like he’s trying to find the right words.
“On Monday, after we get back, I want to take it in and evaluate what needs to be done,” he answers me after pulling onto the highway. “There are some things I can do immediately, but with the time needed to order some parts, I can check with Connal about getting you the loaner car.”
“We can talk about it then, but I don’t know if I can afford everything at once,” I tell him, almost giggling as his handstighten around the steering wheel and he grimaces. “Are you alright?”
“You know what I do for a living, right?” he asks, looking at me as I open up the Twizzlers I bought.
“You’re a mechanic.” I smile patiently in his direction as I open another bag.
“Yes. And if you’re dating a mechanic, he’s going to make damn sure your car is taken care of.”
“But I’m not dating anyone,” I respond as I open the bag of pretzels.
“I’m taking you home to meet my mom, so you bet your ass we’re dating,” he huffs, reaching over to grab a handful of pretzels.
“With an answer like that, I’d bet you have less experience dating than I do,” I counter.
“Why is that?” He cocks an eyebrow in my direction. “And do you have a Coke?”
Opening his drink, I put it in his cupholder and wave off his first question. “Small town bullshit.”
“Well, we got about six hours to go, so…” With that, he takes a huge gulp of his drink and waits for me to continue.
“My mom, she was considered, let’s saypromiscuousin high school and I don’t get the impression that she changed much in the years between then and when she came home years later with a baby.” I shrug as I tell him the short version, pointing to myself to indicate the baby in question. “Small town, big gossips. The kids my age all heard shit about her and teased me in the years after she died.”
“Yeah, I grew up on the pity version of the gossip mill,” he grumbles, nodding his head in understanding.
“Which circle of hell did you get?” I ask, not sure that a guy like him can understand what it’s like growing up feeling so isolated inside a tight-knit community.
“Bigamy,” Royce says, the side of his mouth twisting as his nostrils flare. “Turns out my father had three separate families, each one living seven hundred miles from the nearest one. Then he got engaged to a woman whose brother was a state trooper; that guy was bored one night and ran a search on my dad. Pieced all the shit together and arrested him at the engagement party.”
“No shit?” I gasp out, my Twizzler frozen halfway up to my mouth.
“I wasn’t even six months old, and my mom’s life just blew up. The story caught national attention and overnight there were news stations outside our door, I guess. His first wife tried to sue my mom and the other woman he married in between them.” Royce lifts his soft drink and takes a huge swig.
“You said he was dead. Did he…” I hesitantly ask, not sure how much he wants to talk about this.
“No,” he interrupts. “The asshole slipped on the courthouse steps and cracked his skull on an iron railing. My mom worked her ass off raising my sister and me. I don’t know how to explain it, we had this weird family dynamic. Growing up, I just knew there were some questions I was never allowed to ask.”
The next hour or so goes by mostly enjoying the music and snacks, until a song that my mom used to sing to me comes on and I broach our previous topic again. “So, you want to tell your mom that we’re dating?”
The furrow between his brow tells me that he’s trying to work through his thoughts on the subject, but he just lets the silence hang between us until he finally lets out a sigh.
“You realize we just had a disastrousfirstdate?” I ask to confirm that we’re on the same page.
“That was a goddamn nightmare,” he laughs mirthlessly. “Christ, I finally get you to go out with me and I walk you into a minefield.”
“At least I wasn’t the only one who didn’t know your name is Ryan,” I smoothly criticize him for that omission.
“You never asked.”
“It didn’t occur to me that Royce wasn’t your name. Where did that come from anyway?”
“When I was young and dumb…”
I let out a louder huff than I mean to and get a wry twist of his lips in response.
