I shrugged. “I’ve been busy.”
He ran his fingers over my hip, dipping them beneath my shirt to find bare skin. I shifted my body to block Max’s view. “You’ve never been too busy for me before.” He grabbed both of my hips and pulled me onto the small deck landing with him. “I miss you,amor.”
Grabbing blindly for the handle behind me, I tugged the door shut to save Max some lifelong trauma from his mom getting hit on.
I should have cut things off completely with Ajax right then, but there was something about the stiffness in his shoulders and the tight grip he had on my hips that stopped me. “Now’s not a good time. My son’s home. We have to do homework before bedtime.”
“Always excuses with you,” he growled at the same time he stepped closer, bringing our bodies flush against each other. “I want to see you again, Ruby.” His lips dropped to my ear. “Be with you again.”
My stomach churned with anxiety. I thought about Levi at the restaurant.You haven’t changed.
Was that true? Was I still the same girl from high school? What kind of girl had I been in high school?
Careful. Quiet. Desperate to get out of here.
I wasn’t that girl anymore. I wasn’t careful—Ajax was proof of that. I wasn’t quiet either. I’d given up keeping my opinions to myself and getting run over.
And I was no longer desperate to get out of here.
But maybe there were things that were the same. This trailer for example. The way I let other people treat me. This moment for example, with Ajax’s hands on me and my inability to push him away.
Still, I couldn’t make myself say the final words to him. But it wasn’t because I didn’t feel them. There was something about him tonight that felt dangerous and I was more concerned about Max’s safety than I was my own pride.
“Tonight’s not a good night,” I said instead of the other one hundred things spinning through my head. I untangled myself from his grip, putting space between our bodies. “Text me though. I, uh… it would be fun to catch up. I’ll get a babysitter.”
His eyes narrowed. “You don’t answer my texts. That’s why I had to come all the way across fucking town.”
I wanted to shush him. No doubt Max could hear him. This door did nothing to stop sound. “I will,” I promised quickly. “I’ve just been busy lately. Text me. I’ll answer.” With ahell no, but he didn’t need to know that.
Ajax’s eyes flicked to the door and then back to me. “Okay, fine. I’ll text you.” He took a step back and his feet tripped over each other. He stumbled before righting himself. “Fucking answer, Ruby.”
I nodded quickly, fear pooling in my stomach like ice water. Was he drunk? High? “I will.”
Turning around, he jumped down the stairs and jogged to his Bronco. The engine rumbled to life and he tore out of our gravel drive and down the narrow park road like he was being chased.
Leaning back against the door, I realized my heart was racing and my hands were shaking. God, was he on drugs?
On what kind of drugs?
I stepped back inside my home and locked the door, including the chain at the top, but I still didn’t feel safe. Max had finished his supper and had settled quietly in the chair next to me. I could feel his unease and hated that I had caused him to feel that way.
“Let’s go to Coco’s.” I finally said, texting my friend as I stood up. “We’ll take the ice cream and make brownie sundaes with her.”
Max immediately jumped to his feet with his usual energy. “For real?”
I smiled at him. “Get your shoes on. I’ll grab everything we need.”
Coco lived in town above the hardware store. She had the cutest apartment with a fire-escape ladder next to her entrance. A lot of the shops on Main Street had little homes above them that were rented out. I’d fantasized about getting one for Max and me one day, but I’d never been able to afford it. Plus, if I was going to move, I wanted to move away from this town, not deeper into its tangled web.
My gorgeous friend greeted us at the top of the stairs, throwing her arms wide so Max could give her a running tackle hug.
Coco was half Chilean, half cowboy. Her parents owned a small ranch outside of town and so she grew up with goats and chickens and one pig they called Oscar. We’d been best friends since kindergarten had put us together in the same art center.
Coco was the one person I could always count on. She’d been there for me during high school when I couldn’t imagine things getting worse. She’d been there for me when I found out I was unexpectedly pregnant. And she’d been there for me ever since. Her older sister, Emilia, shared the apartment, but Em had been gone for the summer on an extreme and borderline insane backpacking trip across the West Coast—the entire West Coast. It was called the PCT or something like that.
“This is a fun surprise,” Coco said as I pulled out an extensive number of supplies for brownie sundaes—including pineapple, strawberry, caramel and hot fudge sauces. Max and I took ice cream very seriously. “And random,” she finished.
“Sorry,” I told her quietly while Max mastered her TV and all its extras in less than three seconds. How was he just born with the ability to control technology? Half the time I had to have him show me how to use our small, uncomplicated TV. I could never get it to play Netflix. And I needed Netflix. “Ajax showed up unexpectedly and I got a weird vibe from him. My mom’s working all night. I just, I don’t know, I didn’t feel good about hanging around home.”
