“Oh okay. Where? Don’t tell me Milton too. That’ll be a crazy coincidence.”
“I own a home on the outskirts of New Haven.”
Ricki was confused. “New Haven? But we passed New Haven already.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Milton is like a full hour past New Haven.”
“I know that too.”
“But . . .” People didn’t do her favors. She did people favors all the time. But they never did any for her. It felt unnatural to her. “You could have dropped me off in New Haven and I could have . . .”
Vince looked at her. “You could have what?” Her stubbornness was upsetting him. She’d vote against her own best interest because of that stubborn streak within her. “Youcould have what?” he said again when she didn’t respond. “With nine dollars to your name, what could you have done, Rasheda?”
Ricki was a realist, even though he thought she was a fantasizer. “Very little,” she admitted.
Vince nodded. He was pleased she didn’t try to sugarcoat it. “So let’s just get you where you need to be,” he said. “If that’s okay with you.”
Ricki almost lashed out again, but she held her tongue. “Thank you,” she said.
Vince laughed. “That was the harshest thank you I’ve ever heard,” he said, and she couldn’t help but smile too.
They settled down to total silence as they made their way to Milton.
But as soon as he hit the city limits, he noticed Ricki began to withdraw into herself. This town, he realized immediately, was ground zero for all the trauma he was feeling within her, and sometimes could see on her face.
He wondered why.
CHAPTER TEN
Vince noticed a complete change in Ricki as soon they arrived in the small town he’d never stepped foot in before. Her small body seemed to draw up, as if she was getting smaller right before his very eyes, and her face looked like a combination of adject sadness, bitterness, and pain. Pain was overriding the other two. But all three were prevalent.
After giving her a chance to regroup, he asked for directions. She was able to direct him to the courthouse, which was easily the largest building in the small downtown, with its huge white columns and bank-looking, colonial-style front facade.
He pulled into the parking lot, found a spot near the back, and parked. When he looked over at Ricki, she was staring up at the large building in front of them. Now it was fear and a sense of dread that appeared to be overriding all those other emotions on her face.
“What’s wrong?” he asked her in a sensitive tone he didn’t realize he was using.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve been inside that place.”
“Didn’t you say you were from Brooklyn?” he wanted to ask. “How can a New Yorker be intimidated by some nothing courthouse in some nothing town like this?
But he didn’t ask those questions. Because it wasn’t about intimidation. It was about fear. Something in that town scared the living daylights out of her once upon a time. He just didn’t know what it was.
But as she continued to wait in his car, and when he looked at the clock on his dashboard and saw that it was nearing four pm, he knew something had to give. Although he had zero interest in what he was about to suggest, he felt compelled to ask it anyway. “Want me to go in with you?”
He expected her to yellhell noin no uncertain terms. But when she looked away from the courthouse and into his eyes, he could see that she wanted more than anything for him to go with her. It stunned him.
That was why, instead of forcing her to admit her need, he began unbuckling his seatbelt. “Let’s go,” he said and got out of the car.
Ricki was so relieved she didn’t have to face those people again all by herself that she quickly began unbuckling her seatbelt. When she went to open the door, Vince was opening it for her. Another thing she was not accustomed to.
They walked slowly across the parking lot up to the courthouse entrance. But when Ricki got to that entrance, she stopped abruptly in place, causing Vince to bump into her butt. A bump that actually aroused him. But when he looked at her, ready to tell her to take her ass on, he realized she was frozen in place.
His plan was to place his hand on her lower back, to give her support, but when he touched her, he kept going. He slid his arm around her waist and kept it there. It was a move that was just the feeling of comfort Ricki needed to keep going. And she entered that courthouse.
After walking through the metal detector, the guard asked which courtroom. “Seven,” Ricki said, and he pointed to the appropriate elevator.
