Chapter Thirteen
Sunday
Skylar jammed the mascara in and out of the tube, but it was no use. It was dried up. The last time she’d worn any, it had been to the parenting classes DFPS had required her to take to become a foster mom, and it had been old then, too. Nervousness, of all the silly sensations, had unsettled her stomach today. What should she wear? Why had she let him twist her into a date? She’d stopped caring about trying to look pretty over the years. The animals didn’t care about makeup or strappy sandals, and those were worthless in her line of work anyway.
Yoda’s tail thumped the bathroom doorframe as Skylar rummaged around for another tube of mascara, sifting through her drawer, opening the linen closet to dig through a basket of random toiletries in her bra and boy-short panties. A real bra, not a sports bra—the latter she wore most days. Travis hadn’t eluded to where he was taking her. Was it even “real bra” necessary? They’d hardly texted since he’d rushed off to the hospital, except for a late-night check-in on Yoda and Travis’s not so subtle flirts when she’d texted him a photo of Yoda nestled against her pillow and he’d asked if there was room for him—another text mid-morning when he’d finally gotten a break.
After having been up much of the night, he’d been dead on his feet at noon, and she’d insisted he go home and sleep even though he’d wanted to come straight over. She’d been gone half the afternoon anyway, driving Brandon to meet his ride to the game.
It was almost like she was reluctant. And excited. And nervous.
“I don’t know, Yoda, what should I wear? I’ve literally never had this problem…” she muttered to herself, pushing shut the cabinet and scouring her hands over her face.
Her phone buzzed.
Trav:Be there in ten. Don’t worry. Whatever you’ve got on, you look fine
She huffed a laugh, as if he could still read her mind after fourteen years. Took a deep breath. He was right. Besides, no matter what she wore, one date wasn’t going to define their future. It might not even work out. Chemistry had always run hot between them and apparently still did, but with her obligations to Brandon and the risk they faced of him moving in the fallout of the accident, Travis’s timing couldn’t be worse. And did she want to find herself legs spread, ripping on Travis’s belt buckle all over again, knowing full well what could result from mounting that cowboy like a bronco?
This worry about what to wear wasn’t worth the mental turmoil. As a teenager, she’d always felt inadequate. She’d worn dollar-store nail polish and sifted through rummage bins of donated clothes at school, hoping to find something fashionable, even though Travis had told her she could wear a gunny sack and still be hot. It hadn’t just been about Travis’s opinion, though—it had been about wanting to look like the normal girls and not like the poor one. Cue her grunge phase which had stretched into college and then her current phase: the “horses don’t care what you look like” phase. She’d only worn a dress a few times, prom being the most memorable, a secondhand, pale-pink tulle-sequin disaster from a friend’s sister, that Travis’s mom had helped her alter. Humiliated, she’d refused Deborah Dixon’s offer to take her dress shopping. And still, Travis had laid eyes on her coming down the sweeping stairs of the Legacy’s ranch house in her gown and had frozen, in his matching bow tie and cummerbund, as if mesmerized by a movie star.
She swallowed. Caught a glance at herself in the mirror as she flicked the mascara tube into the trash and did a double take. Pausing, she ran a hand down her side and her thigh, then over her hair, the ends styled in loose, feathery curls hanging down her back. So plain. She’d never understood what the gorgeous Travis Dixon with the flocks of friends had seen in her, but she’d loved him for it.
Screw it. She snatched up the lip gloss and rolled it over her lips, smacked them so they glistened. Already she could hear the far-off grinding of tires on gravel, and peeking out her window, she could see that old red truck, a speck on the horizon.
She was out of time. Anticipation and worry warred in her belly. Memories of that explosive kiss yesterday and the mistake they’d almost made right there on her reception counter had kept her tossing and turning all damn night. She snatched the only sundress she had off a hanger, a ’90s-era spaghetti strap black cotton thing left over from her “Courtney Love phase,” a little faded from being washed on the bulky cycle with her jeans over the years, and slipped it over her head so the fabric cascaded down her thighs, bouncing just above the knees, and slipped her feet into socks—she had to wear her ropers. She ruffled Yoda’s ears. He’d stay in the house while they were gone.
By the time she’d jogged down the stairs and whipped the laces of her ropers into knots, the truck was rumbling to a halt in front of the porch. She grabbed her Carhartt backpack; her keys; an old, oversize plaid shirt in case it got cooler, and checked Yoda’s water dish and winged open the screen door, letting it fall shut in lulling, pulsing intervals.
Red Lightning’s driver door pushed open. The paint gleamed. He’d washed it? Of course he had. Deborah had raised her sons to be gentlemen, and even though Trav’s little brother, Toby, had slept around through half of high school, all three sons had been taught to hold a door open, wash their trucks before a date, and arrive shaven.
Travis stepped out, music from his stereo turned down and softly emitting out into the evening. Freshly shaven—she smiled—mesh-back cap backward, sunglasses hooked over the collar of his stretched-on T-shirt beneath a loose old plaid shirt—Her smile rose higher. They’d thought alike in this regard, too. How easy it might be to sink into their old, comfortable rhythm…
The setting sun, casting the sky in lavender and rosy pink, stained the underbellies of the clouds like an Impressionist painting and set Travis’s brown eyes aglow, tones of dark brown, chestnut, amber striations. It shadowed the cut of his cheekbones and jaw, his neck yoked with muscle and Adam’s apple bobbing. He glanced up at her. His dimpled smile slowly fell as his eyes caressed the bare skin of her legs, her shoulders, her neck, flitting to her hair as a breeze rolled in and cast it across her face.
She shifted, rubbed her arms nervously. Was he going to say something?
He cleared his throat, bracing himself by propping his arms atop the open door and the roof of the cab, his tattoo stark on his tan arms where the flannel was rolled up to his elbows.
“Hey,” he croaked. Cleared his throat again. “And here I just wore jeans and boots.”
“I can change,” she hastened to say, thumbing over her shoulder, and whirled around, yanking open the door. “Hang on, okay—”
“No,” he interrupted quickly. She glanced back as he hurried around the hood of the truck toward her like a delayed reaction, those jeans riding low, that belt buckle peeking out beneath the hem of his T, his boots scuffed and soiled from years of wear. He chuckled, scoured his mouth, and stretched his neck as if seeking breathing room, seemingly to himself. “Uh, no.”
He left the engine idling and the door open, arriving at the bottom of the steps. “You look…” He swallowed, shook his head, then grinned as his hot perusal seared her and his eyes shone reverently. “Don’t you dare change. You were always so damn pretty back then. I don’t know how it’s possible for you to look even prettier now…”
His chest rose and fell in an appreciative exhale, when Yoda, hearing him, blazed out the screen door behind her and bolted down the stairs, his limp resolved, whining excitedly.
“Hey, boy!” he said, that smile exploding into something bigger, teeth showing, genuine happiness as Yoda jumped up and down, uncaring of his bandaged hind foot. She laughed. “How in the hell did you get into a cactus? Sky said she pulled seven spines out of your paw…”
God, he was so handsome, so… Watching him with the dog pinched her chest. Yoda had been there for Travis, to shepherd him toward recovery. She’d always love the dog for helping to save him. That bitterness and betrayal had ebbed yesterday. It still hurt that he’d forsaken her back then, but she couldn’t fathom what he’d seen—or perhaps done—in that warzone. So young and happy once, it pained her to think of his own loss of innocence in such a brutal way.
“Do you want to come in for a sec?” she asked.
He shrugged, still petting the dog. “You ready to go, or do you need a minute?”
“I’m ready. I still don’t know where we’re going, though. I didn’t have any makeup.”