She nodded emphatically and then hurried to the refrigerator. I went out to the car and got my dad’s car going, since I’d reverted to using it so my mother would have her car. It took several tries to get it going and then I cranked up the heat. When I returned to the house, my mother appeared by the door, paper bag in one hand and one of my father’s thermoses in the other.
“Coffee,” she said as she handed it to me. “You need something hot for your drive.”
“Thanks,” I said, unable to hide the suspicion in my voice. “I really have to go.”
“Okay. See you tonight.”
I nodded and hurried from the house. My mother’s behavior was weirding me out. It was almost like she was, what…sorry?
That couldn’t be right.
Could it?
Chapter Ten
Dallas
“It was just weird, you know?” Nolan murmured as he took another sip of his wine.
Sounds like she was trying to thank you or tell you she was sorry, I typed before showing the screen to Nolan. I was using my tablet instead of my phone so it was easier for both of us.
We were sitting on my living room couch after having eaten a huge dinner that had included pot roast, mashed potatoes, and green beans. I’d opened the bottle of wine afterward in the hopes of convincing Nolan to stay a little longer. I wasn’t a big wine drinker, but I’d inherited half the contents of my parents’ huge wine cellar from our old house after my father had died. I had no clue about wine, but Nolan seemed to have liked whatever I’d randomly picked, because he was on his second glass. His skin was flushed with a little bit of color and his eyes were relaxed and bright. As soon as we’d sat down, he’d sunk into the soft cushions of the couch and immediately turned so he was facing me while we talked.
I liked that despite the fact that I wasn’t actually speaking, he still interacted with me like I was. Most people didn’t do that.
Nolan definitely wasn’t “most people.”
“I guess,” he said. “Too little, too late,” he added.
I resisted the urge to touch him. Our conversation throughout dinner had been light and easy, but when he’d mentioned needing to go home before I’d opened the bottle of wine to get him to stay, he’d gotten quiet. I hated when Nolan was quiet because he was such a vibrant personality.
“Dallas, can I ask you something? You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”
I nodded. We hadn’t talked much about me, so I’d been expecting him to eventually press the issue. There were still some things I never wanted to tell him, but I knew that if I wanted to keep Nolan as a friend, I needed to be willing to open up a bit more.
I watched as Nolan shifted closer to me until our knees were touching. A soft smile graced his lips and I barely hid my own smile. Nolan was definitely feeling the wine now.
“When did you know?” he asked. “That you liked guys instead of girls. Or do you like girls too?”
I shook my head. Just guys. I knew when I was thirteen.
“But you had a girlfriend in high school. Sarah something…”
Sarah Anders, I acknowledged. I think she was suspicious, but she never asked me outright. She probably didn’t want to know.
I didn’t add the fact that I’d had a disastrous prom night with Sarah. Thankfully, I’d been able to blame my lack of an erection on alcohol that I hadn’t actually consumed but pretended that I had. I’d ended things with her shortly after that, saying I was just too busy with baseball to date anyone.
“Did anyone know?” Nolan asked, his voice sympathetic.
My older brother. I told him when I was fifteen. Right before we moved to Pelican Bay.
“Maddox. He’s in the military, right?”
I managed a nod, despite the fact that pain was spreading throughout my belly.
“Hey,” Nolan said, his hand settling on my arm as he shifted even closer. “We don’t have to talk about it…him.”
I nodded and tried to focus on how good it felt to have Nolan’s fingers brushing my skin. It bothered me more than I wanted to admit that Nolan likely knew about the accident and what my brother had said to me just before he’d left to return to the army. Doc Cleary had let it slip once that Jimmy’s mother, Edith, had been in the house that day and overheard Maddox telling me he’d wished I’d been the one to die in the accident instead of my mother.
Does your family know? I asked him.
“Yeah,” Nolan said with a sigh. “Said I was going to go to hell and they’d pray for me and all that,” he muttered with a wave of his wine glass. “On the positive side, it got me out of church for the next…forever,” he added with a faint chuckle.