I pause, working my way into a civilized response. Anything less, and I’ll never hear the end of it.
“Happy for him,” I stammer before turning and walking out the door.
Reid won’t follow me in this heat. He’s always hated Texas summers. If he’s not working on the ranch, he chooses A/C every time.
But apparently, the news of Logan and Gigi is big enough to get people to do things they normally wouldn’t.
Reid chases me out the door. “Little Lo’s all grown up, I guess, huh?”
I stare at him in silence.
All grown up.“I guess he is.”
“Mace?” Reid leans closer. “You okay? You’ve gone pale.”
I swallow. “I’m fine.”
His expression shifts from typical-mischievous Reid to something I don’t think I’ve ever seen on his face before.Concern. Instead of teasing me like I’m expecting, he changes the subject and says casually, “It’s the heat, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I get out. “The sun is brutal.”
He reaches out and gives my ponytail a light tug. “I don’t know too much, but somehow, everything’s gonna turn out all right in the end, Macey.”
“That it will.” I wave awkwardly. “Excuse me.”
He walks back inside, and I go sit underneath the big oak tree at the edge of the parking lot. Once I’m in the shade, I glance into my purse to make sure the divorce papers haven’t wrinkled, and then I pull out my diary. Might as well read another entry while I wait.
Chapter Eighteen
Mama and Daddy got their first official divorce last month. I should have been prepared, but it always hurts when somebody leaves for good.
Daddy had been drinking a lot, and Mama and I held an intervention with Uncle Benji to convince Daddy to go to rehab. This is his second try—he went once when I was a baby, but it didn’t stick. This one didn’t either. He quit after just two weeks at Hills for Health and was back home and running The Cowherd like always. And like always, Mama woke me up and brought me to the bar with her so together we could get him out to the car and drag his drunk ass home.
Mama claims her eyes are getting worse now that she’s a mother of four, and she can’t be bothered to read on her own anymore. She says I will be her eyes and her voice from now on. And her ears—she sends me to snoop on Daddy at The Cowherd at least twice a week. She wants to know before anyone else who he’s seeing so she won’t be caught off-guard when some big mouth like Billie Wells stops her on the street and says that she heard Benjamin Henwood is seeing a hot young blond chick.
I read Emma to her, and as much as I loved it, having Mama hovering over my shoulder and exclaiming over every single paragraph got tiresome. So when I got the chicken pox, the best part was I got to read Northanger Abbey by myself because Mama can’t stand to be around the ill. Or the downtrodden. She’s too downtrodden herself to have much patience for others in that state.
I was in bed reading when Logan brought my homework by. He sat on the bed with me, leaned back, and put his arms behind his head. Even though he didn’t say it, I knew he didn’t want to stay around his house and watch his daddy and uncle have yet another fight about the farm while his mother snuck into the pantry to drink her wine.
Logan took my book out of my hands and closed it. He said I needed real human company instead of fictional characters.
“Real life isn’t like a book, Mace. You can’t control people the way an author can control the characters in her stories.”
“You think I don’t know that? Look at my parents—I can’t get them to do anything I want.”
Logan fumbled with the book in his hand and suddenly asked me if I’d be well enough to go to Dave’s party next Friday night.
“I really want you to come,” he whispered before he ran out.
My chicken pox cleared up, and Dave’s parents were out of town, so Ginny and I walked over together.
We played spin the bottle for the first time. When Logan spun, he got Amy Alder—three times. He never spun me once.Afterward, he pulled my ponytail and asked me if I wished it had been me. I stuck my tongue out at him and walked away.
But the following week, Dave had another party, except this time we didn’t have a bottle, so we used a stick, shut our eyes, and pointed in a direction. This made it seem a little more contrived—I mean, all of us knew where everybody was sitting, so they could certainly point in a general direction.
Logan pointed the stick at me. My legs went weak, and my heart raced because I didn’t know how to kiss, and I didn’t know what he’d try to do. He and Amy had definitely used their tongues.
When we reached each other in the center of the circle, we were both on our hands and knees, and everyone was clapping. I was so embarrassed I felt as hot as the sun must. But Logan seemed cool as ever, and he just leaned in and kissed me—his lips to mine. No tongue, though. And then, it was over.
