Homecoming (A Boys of Fall Novel) (15 page)

Mrs. McD made you breakfast. Your mom made you lunch. Are you hoping I’ll make you supper?

Oh. Actually I was hoping you’d want to take a drive. I’m sick of sitting and talking and eating and talking more and I like driving.

Taking me for a drive involves both sitting and talking. And I can’t guarantee I won’t bring a snack.
She could almost hear his exasperated sigh.

It’s different. Do you want to go for a ride with me?

Yes.
When her phone rang in her hand a few seconds later, it startled her so much she almost dropped it. And Sam’s name came up on the screen. “I said yes.”

“I know, but I wanted to say something and I don’t have the patience to type the words out on that tiny freaking keyboard.”

Jen was tempted to point out his phone had the ability to transcribe his voice into texts, but she didn’t bother. He hadn’t lost his New England accent and picked up a Texas twang over the last decade and a half, but his accent was just weird enough now so he’d probably end up frustrated and smash the thing against a wall.

“What didn’t you want to type?”

“I just wanted you to know that even though I had a long walk with Coach and then I saw my mom, I’m not asking you to go for a ride because of any comfort object crap. I’ve had a good day and I want to go for a little cruise and listen to the radio. And I’d rather do it with you with me. That’s all.”

“Okay. Then I’d love to take a ride with you.”

An hour later, she was in the passenger seat of his truck, wishing it was summer so she could roll the window down and feel the wind in her hair. It was a little cold for that right now. But the radio was on and he was telling her about the new and definitely not improved breakfast menu at the McDonnell house.

“No coffee? Who doesn’t have coffee for breakfast?”

He shook his head. “I drank orange juice. And not only did I drink orange juice, but it’s the kind with all the little bits in it. I don’t like bits.”

Then he told her about the coffee war and she laughed at the idea of Coach McDonnell giving up coffee. Something would give, and it wouldn’t take very long.

When Sam turned the truck up the road that led to the dam, Jen gave him a sideways, skeptical look. She wasn’t sure what he had in mind, but there would be no reenacting of their July encounter with her on the hood of his truck. For one thing, he wasn’t
that
tall. And for another, the difference between July and October was at least twenty degrees, if not more.

He pulled the truck into almost the exact same spot and put it in park. “Want to make out?”

“It’s a little cold out there, don’t you think?”

“Not out there. In here.”

She laughed, because there was no way he was serious. “Aren’t we a little old for that? And I’m not sure I’ve ever been flexible enough.”

“Oh, we can find a way.” He took off his seat belt and shifted in his seat before undoing his fly. Based on the bulge in his jeans, he was probably pretty uncomfortable, and Jen’s mouth went dry.

“I bet we can.”

“You need to get those jeans off first.”

After unlatching her seat belt, she bent over and untied her boots. She had to loosen the laces and then brace the heels against the rubber floor of the truck to get them off. “This totally isn’t fair. All you have to do is open the fly on your jeans and pull them down a little bit. I have to take mine off, which means taking my boots off. I need to start wearing skirts.”

“I shouldn’t have bought a truck with a center console,” he said. “I can’t get to you, so you’re going to have to climb over here. Right onto my lap.”

She gave him a
yeah right
look. “So in addition to the center console, you got the truck with the removable steering wheel?”

He frowned. “You get those jeans off and I’ll figure out the logistics.”

She finally got her boots and jeans off, along with her hoodie and shirt, though she left the bra and panties on because the idea of her bare ass on the seat of a pickup truck didn’t appeal to her. She could just pull the lacy fabric out of the way once Sam had a plan.

He turned in his seat and reached for her, but just as he started pulling her toward him, there was a knock on his window. Jen’s ass hit the seat with a jarring thump and she looked around Sam’s head and saw Kelly glaring at him.

Trying not to laugh, Jen picked up the hoodie and pulled it on over the bra. She could put the shirt on later.

“Back up,” Sam barked, and then he opened the door just enough to slide out. Jen wanted to point out that not opening the door all the way didn’t make a lot of sense due to them being surrounded by windows, but she wasn’t sure he’d appreciate the humor.

As Jen yanked her jeans up over her hips, she watched Sam’s back as he seemed to sway back and forth. It took her a few seconds to realize he was doing it as Kelly tried to see around him. She probably wanted to talk to Jen, and he was blocking her view.

“What are you doing?” she heard Kelly demand.

“I’m trying to give her some privacy to get herself together.”

Jen had to stifle a chuckle when Kelly threw up her hands. “Seriously? She and I have been best friends since kindergarten. I’ve seen her in her underwear more times than you have.”

“I’m trying to catch up.”

She heard Kelly snort. “Unless you plan on sticking around Stewart Mills for a good, long time, you’re going to want to stock up on Red Bull and something for the chafing.”

“Kelly!” Jen yelled, though dissolving into laughter probably took some of the sting out of the admonishment.

She shoved her feet into her boots without tying them and then, after taking a few seconds to zip up the hoodie, she got out. There was a good chance either she or Sam was going to pull a muscle or end up stuck somehow before either of them had an orgasm, anyway. And it was always nice to run into Kelly.

“You have an apartment,” her uniformed best friend was saying to Sam, and then she pointed her finger at Jen as she came around the truck. “And
you
have a house with two bedrooms. Why, for the love of my sanity, are you not in one of them?”

“Seemed like a good day to take a drive,” Sam said.

“This is not driving. This is parking.” She turned to glare at Jen. “And public indecency.”

“I should have let you do it,” Kelly said. “And then been here when the rescue squad had to come because there’s no way you were going to make that work with a guy this tall and a truck with a center console.”

“I guess now we’ll never know.” Jen smiled and shrugged.

“Sure we will,” Sam said. “We just need to try it when Deputy Killjoy here isn’t on shift.”

“Funny.” Kelly shook her head. “Whatever. I’m going to O’Rourke’s for a burger. I ended up on a traffic call and didn’t get lunch.”

“A burger sounds good,” Jen said, and Sam nodded. “A
bacon cheeseburger, actually. Coitus interruptus cancels out calories in comfort foods. It’s science.”

Kelly snorted. “Let’s go eat, then.”

As Jen walked around the truck, she heard Sam talking to Kelly. “Can you turn the lights and siren on?”

“No, you’re not getting a police escort to O’Rourke’s.”

“If I go first, then it’s more like a police
chase
than a police escort.”

“Get in your truck before I shoot all your tires out and leave you here while Jen and I go have burgers.”

Jen took her hoodie off and put the shirt back on. Since they were going to a restaurant, the last thing she wanted was to get hot and take the sweatshirt off without remembering her shirt was on the floor of Sam’s truck.

When he got in and slammed the door, she looked over at him. He was grinning. “I like her. She’s funny.”

“Hard to tell when she’s kidding sometimes,” Jen said.

“Well, she was kidding about my tires.” When she didn’t say anything, he raised his eyebrows. “Right?”

She shrugged, then laughed at his expression as he turned the truck around and followed Kelly’s cruiser back into town.

—

W
hen his mother opened her door on Friday evening and stepped outside, Sam tried to ignore the butterflies dancing in his stomach and smiled at her.

She’d obviously taken a lot of care with her appearance for this dinner, even if they were only going to O’Rourke’s. She was wearing jeans, but she’d put a black cardigan on over a blouse, and she had a little makeup on. For a moment,
he wondered if he should have offered to take her to a nicer restaurant in another town.

But he was glad he hadn’t when she gave him a tentative smile. “Hi, Sam.”

“Hi.” The strain of being in a car together for more than a few minutes might have been too much. They were doing okay, but they both had to work at it. “You look lovely.”

“Thank you.”

He held open the door of his truck for her and then drove the short distance to O’Rourke’s. She made small talk as he drove, mostly about a television show everybody seemed to be talking about. Sam hadn’t seen it, but he’d heard the talk so he encouraged the conversation because it killed the silence.

He heard the whispers in O’Rourke’s as he followed Cassandra and his mom to their table. It was to be expected, considering their history, but he admired the way his mom held her head high and didn’t appear to let the buzz bother her.

After they were seated, everybody lost interest and went back to what they were doing. Sam asked for ice water and a decaf, and his mom asked for the same thing. Then they read the menu and eventually decided on a flat iron steak for him and the spaghetti for her.

“Tell me how the football is going,” she said, and he noticed when she took a sip of her water that her hand was trembling slightly.

The tremor was almost imperceptible visually, but it touched him so deeply he took a sip of his own water to buy himself a moment to compose himself.

She wanted so badly for him to forgive her—to be her son again in a way that meant something. He could see it in her nerves and the way she looked at him. She knew how
badly she’d failed him as a mother, and it was the fear of hoping and failing that made her hand shake.

He remembered his talk with Cody about his dad, and how he’d told the boy the situations were different because Roland Leavitt had been an abusive son of a bitch, but Bill Dodge had been sick. The drugs had changed him and cost them Cody’s mom.

Sheila Leavitt had been sick, too. For her, it had been alcohol and fear, but the addiction had ruined Sam’s childhood and cost her her son. And, like Bill, she knew she could never right the wrong, but maybe they could move forward from the past.

“The team’s doing well,” he said when he realized the silence had stretched on and she looked as if she feared he wasn’t going to answer. As he expected, Neil’s offer popped into his head again. Even though he’d been given time to think it over, he was going to need to make a decision soon or he’d drive himself crazy. “They’re good kids.”

“It’s good you could come,” she said. “For Coach McDonnell. I owe him everything, you know. Because he saved you . . . when I couldn’t.”

Sam ran his hand over his mouth, not looking directly at her. He
really
didn’t want to do this here. “You had to save yourself first. And now you have and here we are.”

“You have no idea how much I wish I could go back and do it all differently.”

“You can’t.” He hadn’t meant for the words to sound so harsh, but he couldn’t miss the way she flinched. When he reached across the table and covered her hand with his, he could feel the tremor still. “You don’t
have
to. We both made it out the other side and we’re going forward from here, remember?”

She nodded, managing a smile that seemed more happy and less nervous reflex than her previous ones. “Together.”

“Yes.” He squeezed her hand before sitting straight in his chair again. It was tempting to tell her he had a chance to settle not far away, but it would be cruel to get her hopes up and then disappoint her. It was best, for now, to pretend nothing had changed. “Before I go back to Texas, I’m going to get you a better phone so we can talk and do videos and stuff, okay?”

She looked nervous again. “I’m doing okay, but I don’t know if I can afford that.”

“I’m going to add you to my plan.”

“A family plan.”

He understood why she said the words in such a quiet voice. It was a stupid thing most people probably took for granted, but for them to share the word
family
—even if it was just a cell phone plan—was profound. “Yeah. We’ll have a family plan.”

She was smiling when the server brought their dinner, which Sam was thankful for. Despite having covered some steep emotional ground, they weren’t attracting attention and that’s what he wanted. Not that he gave a damn what they said about him, but he just wanted a normal dinner with his mother.

“This is delicious,” she said after taking her first bite.

“I don’t think O’Rourke’s has a subpar dish,” he said. It certainly wasn’t the steak. “I’ve been wondering about something. Have you ever thought about leaving Stewart Mills?”

She looked genuinely confused by the question. “Why would I do that? Where would I go?”

“You could go anywhere. Wouldn’t it be nice to live
someplace where everybody doesn’t know your past business? To have a clean slate with no history?”

“I admit I’ve thought about it a couple of times over the years. But it’s scary, you know? It’s not like I have a savings account, so I’d just be going out into the world hoping I can get enough work to keep me from living in my car. That kind of worry and stress isn’t good for my sobriety.”

“I can understand that.”

“And everybody knowing my past isn’t always a bad thing, believe it or not. I didn’t have to answer questions about myself or explain why I don’t have a husband or why I had pictures of a son I hadn’t seen in fourteen years. And I can see how far I’ve come in the way this town treats me—the way they look at me and talk to me—and I draw some strength from it. Does that make sense?”

The first time he’d come back to Stewart Mills, he’d been hyperaware of the fact most of the people he ran into knew he’d grown up in a shitty home and gone bad himself for a while before joining the football team. Now they called him Coach Leavitt and knew he’d made a good life for himself and that he’d stood by the town when they needed him. They didn’t know it was a lonely life, but he could understand his mom measuring how far she’d come by how the people of their hometown looked at her.