My throat tightens, and I choke out a raspy, “Don’t you dare.”
“Or what?” She tosses her cards, sending them scattering across the bed of my truck. “Or fuckin what, Rich? You gonna hit me like he used to?”
She still doesn’t know how to argue with men, so her words come out in short, quiet spurts, but her eyes tell it all.
“You know I can’t even raise my voice at you. I…I can’t even tell you ‘no’ without feeling guilty, so you fuckin know better than that.”
She grabs her head. “Do you hear yourself? You say shit like that to me and then act as if I shouldn’t want you.”
She points past us at Kenny and Faye smiling at each other behind the barbecue pit. “I won’t be like her. We’re not her and Senior. I’m not letting that place or your dad’s toxic beliefs win. I’m not letting your head win this fight between us.”
“Lovie…don’t do this shit right now. Not here.”
“Stop calling me that. That’s not what you call me.” She stabs her finger into my hard chest and moves her face closer to minelike she can’t decide if she wants to slap me or kiss me, and I’m so faded I’ll take either.
I gurgle up a hiccup as Donovan gaits back toward my truck with a goofy smile, and two bottles of water and a Sprite tucked under his arm. The corners of his mouth drop when he gets closer to us.
He stops in front of the tailgate, eyeing the scattered cards and Slim’s finger pressed into my chest. “Is…is everything okay?”
She whips her head toward him. “N?—”
“Yes…yeah,” I cut her off, curling my hand around her finger. “We good. You still wanna play, right, D?”
“Yeah…I mean, it looks like we might need to start over.”
Slim grabs my arm and yanks me, but my body doesn’t budge. “I need to talk to Rich.”
Donovan looks at me with his eyebrows wrinkled like he wants me to tell him what he did wrong because even after a painful game of UNO and an hour of forced interaction, Slim still won’t look at him.
“Just let me holler at her real quick, D,” I mumble, wrapping my hand around hers and peeling her fingers off my arm.
“I…” He blinks and nods. “Uh, okay.”
“Just stay here. We’ll be right back.”
He sits the drinks on the tailgate as we slide off of it. As soon as my feet touch the ground, I feel all the whiskey I drank rush through my limbs and make them go limp.
I look from left to right.
A group of girls walk by, staring at Slim and then smiling at me.
The park is full now because the sun had finally set and brought out all the folks that aren’t supposed to be here—the ones like me. My truck is the first in a line of slabs, Chargers and Camaros because anything happening in Barnes-Blank Parkturns ratchet as soon as the sun goes down. Worthing’s Family Fun Day is no exception.
I don’t know where to go until Slim power walks to the passenger side of my truck and yanks the door open.
I look at D and open my mouth to say something, but I don’t even know how to explain me and Slim to him. I don’t know how to tell him he’s just a casualty—an innocent party who got caught in this war between me, her, and this stupid life I live.
I shake my head, following her and opening the driver’s side door.
As soon as I climb inside, she grabs my keys I left on the middle console. I reach over and try to take them back, but she snatches her hand away. She breathes out in tiny gasps, pressing random buttons on the key fob until my truck chirps and the locks clank.
“Look, you need to calm?—”
“How much?” she asks.
“How much what? What you talking about?”
“How much begging do I have to do to have you completely?”
