I couldn’t find the courage to look at him. My insides wobbled with fear. “Not again,” I whispered.
“Not me again, you mean.”
“Levi…”
He pushed off the couch and stormed through my living room. It only took him five steps before he reached the door and wrenched it open.
“Fuck,” I winced as it slammed behind him, shaking the thin walls and windows.
Out of habit I looked toward Max’s room and waited for his woken-up-cry-of-protest. It never came.
“It’s not him?” my mom pondered in the kitchen as if none of what just happened surprised her. I supposed dealing with strippers all night and the men that traveled from all over the county to watch them did that to a person though. Jaded them. “I could have sworn it was him,” she went on. “Max looks just like him.”
I gaped at her, my mouth coming unhinged. Levi’s truck door ripped open and it was enough to move me into action. I launched myself out the door after him.
He drove a big ass truck, like most of the men in my part of the world. He’d cranked the engine by the time I jumped on the sideboard, my fingers curling around his window frame.
He jerked at the sudden sight of me, but I couldn’t feel bad when I had so much to say.
The window rolled down and his growled, “What?” would have sent a lesser woman running.
Or just a normal, rational thinking person. But I was none of those things. Not only did I have some explaining to do on my mom’s behalf, but I had my son to protect. And that was the most motivating factor of all.
I wouldn’t let Max become town gossip—any more than he already had been. I wouldn’t let Levi storm back into town spouting off nonsense he didn’t fully understand because he was mad.
Max deserved more.
And so did Levi, to be honest.
It was time to come clean. And hope that the fallout didn’t crush me in the process.
“Can we talk?” I asked humbly. “Please?”
His jaw ticked as he ground his teeth together. “I suspected,” he said as way of an answer. “The first time I saw Max I knew he was familiar. His smile. His eyes. I just… I couldn’t bring myself to admit it out loud.”
“Please let me explain,” I whispered, not denying any of it.
He tilted his head toward the passenger seat. I ran around the front before he could drive away. It wasn’t the easiest climb into the cab, especially with bare feet, but I made it inside before he’d peeled away.
It was drastically warmer inside. I hadn’t realized how cold it was outside until I was sitting beneath the blast of his vents. They did nothing to heat the air between us though. We’d been on fire only minutes ago and now we were the makings of an iceberg, the hidden mountain between us growing bigger and bigger by the second.
He stared straight ahead, his hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles turned white. “You’re here to talk, Ruby. So, talk.”
Only now that I was in here, I was finding it hard to form the right words. There were so many things to say, so many explanations to give. I had no idea where to start. Finally, after another steadying breath, I admitted, “I’ve never told anyone. Not even Coco.”
“Not even your mom,” he added snarkily.
“Especially not my mom,” I snapped. “She wouldn’t have ever seen Max as a grandson then. He would have been a meal ticket… a paycheck. If she’d ever known who his father was, she would have exploited him to the very last cent.”
“That’s why you kept it a secret? You were protecting my family?” His voice dipped and twisted, turning his questions into sarcasm instead of honest curiosity.
“To protecthim, Levi.” I closed my eyes and forced the next few words out. “And myself.”
“You’re going to have to do a better job of explaining yourself. My patience is running thin and you’re not making any sense.”
He was right. And that killed me to admit. It gutted me to even consider that I had been wrong, that I had messed up. But, I owed him the truth at least. It wasn’t up to me what he did with it, but he deserved to know. I would handle the consequences later.
“Logan.” The name filled the car like the ghost of the man himself. It hovered in the air, sucking up all the oxygen and casting this sparking, fizzing thing between Levi and me in a harsh, poisonous light. “Max’s dad is Logan.”
