“Peppermint, please,” he said.“I don’t take caffeine.”
“Probably not a good idea this time of night anyway.”
“Right.Sorry.I should’ve called.Is it too late?”
“How would you call?You don’t have a phone.”
“I do.Bought one today.”
As he pulled a gray, older model phone from his pocket, I said, “It’s not too late.I wasn’t gonna fall asleep anyway.Too much on my mind.”
“Same,” he said.“Here.Put your number in.”He handed the phone to me and walked further into my house, checking the dining table for scuffs and making sure everything had been put back into place after last night.
I typed my contact info into a new entry in his phone and texted myself so I’d have his number too.I followed him into the kitchen and watched as he found the box of teabags and mugs in my open-faced cabinet and located my tea kettle already filled and heating up on the stove.
“You know you could just microwave the water,” he said, looking over his shoulder as I sat at my little fold-out island next to the kitchen window and set our phones on top.
“Yes, but a pink kettle is more fun and it’s more whimsical, and you know I’m all about the whimsy.Did you know that in the UK, if you heat your water in the microwave, they’ll try you for war crimes?”
He chuckled silently, adjusted the heat a little higher, then faced me and leaned against the counter.
“Didn’t know that.”
“So, you haven’t said.Why are you here?”
“Oh.Uh, yeah, well I wanted to give you my cell number, and I guess I thought we should talk about what happened last night.”
“I’m not sure what else there is to say.Your sister was here.The whole town now knows I had a break-in, and she fingerprinted and took my statement.I told her I’d email her my cell phone logs from my provider so she can try to track the phone calls, but I doubt she’ll be able to.Cody’s probably using one of those pay-as-you-go phones.At this point, he’s probably got a whole box full of them so he can grab a new one every time I block him.”
I rolled my eyes, but when I focused on him again, Dixon was smiling.
“I wasn’t talkin’ aboutthatpart of last night.Did you already forget I kissed you and then you stormed away and yelled at me?”
“No.I didn’t forget.But you said it was a mistake, so I wasn’t plannin’ on bringin’ it up.”
“Well then, I’m bringin’ it up.And when I said it was a mistake, I didn’t mean it was a mistake for me to kiss you.I wanna kiss you again right now.I wanted to this mornin’.I want to kiss you every minute of my day.But what I meant was thatyoushouldn’t want to kissme.The mistake was mine, though, because I never should’ve put you in that position.”
“You wanna kiss me again?”
“AJ, did you hear anything else I said?”
“Nope.”I gulped, reaching for the necklace around my neck that Gran had given me last Christmas and spun the tiny, rose gold dandelion between my fingers.“All I heard was that you think about kissin’ me all day long.”
Dixon’s strong hands gripped the edge of my Bess’s Bargains granite countertop behind him.His fingers flexed around the polished edge, but then he let go and walked to the island across from me, pulled out the other chair, and sat.
“I do,” he said quietly.“You’ve been on my mind all day.But AJ, I’m not the man for you.I’m an addict and I’ve been in jail more than once.”
He waited for me to react to what he’d said, but I didn’t.I already knew all that.
“I abandoned my own fuckin’ kid.”
I knew that, too, but I didn’t really see it as Dixon abandoning Stu.I saw it as Dixon giving his son a fighting chance in this life.Would it have been better if Dixon raised Stu around drugs?My dad left when I was only two years old, but from what Gran and Mama had told me, I was better off.So, if a bad father leaving was a good thing, certainly a sick dad leaving to get better for his son could only be good too.
I didn’t acknowledge Dixon, so he went on.
“You think you know who I am because we were friends as kids, but you don’t know a goddamn thing about me now.”
There he was, my best friend, the boy who’d told me his every fear and desire, and the man who had long been the focus of mine.
