The Dirty Truth

Lexi winces. “I’m dancing tonight, baby girl. Otherwise I’d be all yours.”

“You said you weren’t going to work there anymore.” Scarlett’s voice is low and laced with disappointment. “After that guy followed you home. And you said the younger girls were getting all the tips. And you—”

“Sh, sh, sh.” Lexi silences her with an apologetic wince of a smile. “It’s better now, baby girl. They even started featuring me once a week.”

I had no idea Lexi was an exotic dancer . . .

Dipping down, Lexi deposits a kiss on the top of Scarlett’s head before strutting out, and I let Scarlett have a moment of silence to digest the heaviness of this morning. Shoving uneaten pieces of pancake around her plate, she sighs.

“All right. Let’s go,” she says. Though I’m not sure where we’re going, seeing how her friends and her mother have blown her off in the past twelve hours.

I place enough bills on the table to cover all three of our meals, seeing how Lexi conveniently forgot to pay her tab, and we head out. Taking our time, we stroll the narrow, cracked, and pitted sidewalks of Whitebridge. Past sagging houses with scuffed paint. Leaning fences barely containing barking dogs. Barefoot children running through overgrown yards. An apartment building with a foreclosure notice on the front door. A hair salon with a weedy parking lot and a PERMANENTLY CLOSED sign in the window. A rusted Hyundai motors along, rolling through a four-way intersection without stopping, its muffler dragging on the road as it leaves a trail of sparks and exhaust.

There’s a sad, forgotten sort of heaviness to this town.

I don’t blame West for wanting more for himself.

This place is too small for big dreams.

My mental puzzle of West is far from complete, but I’d say it’s coming together nicely. For the first time, I can appreciate how far that tyrant of a man has come from his humble roots. Only one question remains unanswered: Why the obsession with burying them?

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

WEST

“Scarlett,” I say when the ladies get home Sunday evening, half past eight. “How was your flight?”

I don’t ask about her trip, only her flight. Elle kept me abreast all weekend, and I’m well aware of the fact that their time in Nebraska was disappointing at best.

Scarlett wheels her bag across the foyer before pressing the elevator call button. “Fine. But I’m really tired, Uncle West. If you don’t mind . . .”

“Good night, Scarlett,” Elle calls after her from the front door. “I’ll get ahold of you Tuesday, okay? We’ll check out that performance art exhibit Indie was telling us about last week.”

“Sounds good,” Scarlett says before stepping inside the cart.

“Good night, Scarlett. We’ll talk over breakfast,” I add before she disappears.

My gaze travels to Elle on the other side of the room. She drags in a long breath, a bittersweet, exhausted smile painting her cherry blossom lips.

“I think she has a lot to process from this weekend,” Elle says. “A lot of closure. A lot of disappointment. A lot of realizing that the grass isn’t as green as she remembers . . .”

Stepping toward her, I close the space between us. “I appreciate everything you did for her, Elle. I’m sure it wasn’t an ideal weekend for you, but—”

She lifts a hand, stopping me. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t make me into some kind of martyr. I went because I wanted to go,” she says. “My heart breaks for her every time we’re together.”

Same. Though I don’t share that.

“You want to stay for a drink?” I offer before I think better of it. The weekend was quiet. Too quiet. And dare I say borderline lonely—a word that hasn’t been a part of my vocabulary since a lifetime ago. I could use a little company. “Unless you have somewhere else you need to be.”

Her brows lift as her eyes broaden. “Oh? Um, yeah . . . no . . . sure.”

“Which is it?”

“Yes,” she says. “I can stay for a drink . . . but only if you let me pick your brain a little.”

“About Scarlett?”

Her mouth twists. “No. About you. Now that I’ve seen your hometown, I have some more questions.”

I roll my eyes and head to the elevator, slipping one hand casually in my pocket. “Always with the questions.”

She sidles up to me as I press the call button and we step inside.

Three minutes later, we’re in my study, and I’m fixing her a gin and tonic while she browses my collection of first-edition novels.

“Have you always been a reader?” she asks.

“For as long as I can remember,” I say. “I was an insatiably curious boy, reading everything I could get my hands on. Old issues of Reader’s Digest and National Geographic at my grandparents’ house. Stereo instructions my father shoved in the bottom of a junk drawer. Paperback mysteries I’d get for a quarter at neighborhood garage sales. Boxes of old magazines people would set out with the trash. We didn’t have a library in Whitebridge. Closest one was the next town over. I took what I could get.”