It wasn't exactly a romantic picnic in a meadow but then again neither of us were looking for romance.
"Are you sure we won't get in trouble for this?"
"For eating chips and salsa? Last I checked, it wasn't illegal." Abraham took another chip, reaching over and tapping it against my lower lip until I rolled my eyes and opened my mouth, letting him pop it inside. "Although I'm not entirely certain tortillas qualify as chips."
"I meant drinking in the bar on a Sunday." I stretched out on my stomach, pillowing my head on my arms. "Dry county and all."
"It's only illegal if I'm selling it to you." He closed the salsa jar and rolled the chip bag down neatly, stowing both in an under the counter mini-fridge half full of single serve wine bottles. Laying down next to me, he said, "And since when did you care about getting in trouble?"
"Always." I pushed my hair behind my shoulders, studying his face with the same obviousness he was studying mine. "Poor people have to care about the law. Rich people don't."
"Unless I'm mistaken, you're the same woman who didn't wear underwear to church and then fucked me in a car in the middle of day."
"First, not wearing underwear to church isn't illegal. Maybe a little immoral but not illegal." I shrugged. "Second, we were on private property. Pretty sure that takes care of the illegal factor there, too."
"And here I always had the impression you were a risk-taker." He sighed and shook his head. "Shattering dreams over here, Jeannie Jackson."
"I'm pretty sure I know the impression you had of me in high school." The little bubble the afternoon seemed to exist in burst with a dull and wet sort of plop and reality started to creep in. I sat up, raking my hands through my hair in an effort to untangle the various snarls before pulling it in to a quick, no-nonsense braid. "I have to go."
"Hey." He stretched out one hand, his fingertips barely brushing my calf as I stood up and started searching for my clothes. "Hey-what's wrong?"
"I told you, I have to go. I have things to do." I sighed and closed my eyes, pinching the bridge of my nose as a thought struck me. "And I have no car. Damn it, I have to call Tammy."
"If you need to get back to the kids, I'll take you home but I'd like to know what I said to piss you off so I can apologize."
"If I have to tell you what to apologize for, is the apology even worth anything?" I opened my eyes, massaging my temples for a moment before huffing out a breath. "There has to be a phone in here. Like a landline. Can I use it, please?"
"I said I'd take you home." He rose, stalking around the bar only to bend over, disappearing for a second before coming up with my dress and bra. Tossing them at me, he snapped out, "Let me get dressed and we can leave."
If I'd had my way, I'd have called Tammy and started walking back to town but I was smart enough to know when I'd pushed someone to their limit. So I tugged on my clothes, shoved my shoes in my purse, and waited while he yanked on his pants and shirt, not bothering to button the latter. He grabbed his keys and stalked toward the door, not looking at me when he said, "If you want to go, let's go."
The next five minutes were filled with the sort of stiff silence which always seems comical in movies but in real life was about a hundred shades of awkward. I stared out the window, doing my best to pretend I didn't remember what we'd been doing in the same space barely an hour ago. Every few seconds, I heard a slight creak as Abraham adjusted his grip on the steering wheel, knowing without looking his knuckles must be white from the pressure he was exerting.
"Fuck it." He jerked the car to the shoulder, throwing it in park, and killing the engine. "I hate these kinds of fucking games. Would you just tell me what I did so I know not to do it again?"
"I doubt you can change that much." I whipped the seatbelt off and shoved the door open, grabbing my shoes and purse. "What I will do is tell you where you can stick your offer of a ride."
"Oh, the fuck you will." Between one breath and the next, he lunged across the seat, grabbing the door behind me and yanking it closed, effectively trapping me between it and him. He shook a stray lock of hair out of his face, his gaze hard and cold. "I can't fix a problem if I don't know what it is and while normally I don't give two flying fucks if anybody in this godforsaken backwoods hellhole likes me, for some reason I care if you don't. So tell me what I need to do to fix whatever happened."
"For starters, you could stop implying you know me. You don't know me." My plan to stay somewhat calm and collected went straight out the proverbial window. I wasn't yelling, not yet, but I knew it was almost a foregone conclusion. "You don't know me now and you sure as shit didn't know me fifteen years ago so stop acting as if you did."
"You were the smartest person in our entire class-fuck, the entire school-all the way from first or second grade until we graduated. You were on the yearbook staff every year and the school newspaper. You always wrote these funny little articles...." He trailed off, his frame relaxing just a little, his lips curving in a tiny smile. "And you were obsessed with food. The year you took home economics, you would make these elaborate plates while the rest of us were struggling to make chocolate chip cookies."
"How sweet." I purposefully kept my voice acidic because if I let myself believe what he was selling, there was a good chance I'd find up back in his bed again. "Do you also remember when you said I was the best guarantee for a fuck on prom night? Because that's the memory that tends to stick out for me when I think about high school."
"I didn't say...." He trailed off again, closing his eyes and sighing. "Oh, yeah. Yeah, I did say that."
"Yeah, you did. Well, congratulations for finally achieving your goal. I guess that's what they mean about never giving up on your dreams." I tried to open the door again, biting the inside of my cheek in an effort to hold back tears. They were temper tears, not real tears, or at least that's what I told myself because I refused to be the woman who cried because someone hurt her feelings in high school. The effort turned in to an all-out war when he grabbed the door handle, holding it in place. "Can I go now, please?"
"Do you know the sort of hell they would have put me through if they knew the real reason I asked you? The sort of hell they would have put you through?" He barked out a laugh, leaning forward and resting his forehead against mine. "I told them the only reason they wanted to hear. I didn't tell them the truth."
"What-." I broke off when my voice cracked, closing my eyes and swallowing hard before continuing. "What was the truth?"
"I liked you." He laughed again, softer this time, the edge of self-deprecation painfully obvious. "I mean, liked you, liked you."
"Why?"
"Because even though you were nervous as hell every time you talked to me, you still talked to me. Not the... the image of me, if that makes sense." He pressed his lips to my cheek, whisper soft, and I couldn't hold back a sigh. "Ninth grade, I couldn't figure out the basics of area and square footage to save my life. It just wasn't clicking. And nobody cared because I was on the varsity football team and varsity baseball team so what did a single bad grade in math matter? But you stayed after class one day and explained it to me, drilled it in to me, and when you left I realized you hadn't treated me like anything other than ordinary the entire time."
"I remember." And I did. I'd been certain he'd reject my offer of help but he hadn't. And he'd smiled and said ‘thank you' and my pitiful little teenage heart had tripped over itself and landed at his feet. "Why didn't you say anything?"
"Because in high school I was still scared to death of what my parents thought and what my friends thought and what everybody in town thought." He threaded his fingers through my hair, palming the nape of my neck. "And so I said stupid, mean shit rather than admit the truth."
"Yeah, it was stupid and mean." I leaned in to his touch. "You were an asshole."
"I was an asshole." He rubbed his thumb over my cheekbone, waiting until I opened my eyes and met his gaze before continuing. "But I promise you, I'm not an asshole anymore. At least not to you. And at least not on purpose."
"I'm not going to lie and say I don't have time for a relationship." I wet my lips, taking a deep breath and holding it for a moment before exhaling. "I will say I don't know how to be in one because I've never been in one and I'm probably a bad bet and people are going to give you all kinds of shit for being with me."