“It just seems weird. I’ve never had to deal with them before.” Taking a pill. It seemed so, she didn’t know. It wasn’t something she ever had to think about before. But then, the last time she was sexually active, she was just in her early twenties and Marc had worn condoms without question.
Gretchen smiled back at her. “They’re not perfect. And there can be adjustment period of trying out different brands and options. So if the first one doesn’t work, try a different one. Some can make you really crazy.”
“Trent just really seemed interested in them.”
Flora’s hands were twisting around the steering wheel. “Well I think we all know what I think of that.”
She shook her head. “He’s just looking out for us. He’s right. They’re more effective.”
“He’s controlling. Do not get on the pill unless you want to. He can glove or get no love.”
Like today. They got no love. Which, okay that was because of the mysterious text. But still. If she had been on the pill, would they have rolled over and made sweet love? She didn’t know. “He’s a
do’er
. That’s all. And what harm is there in talking to my doctor?”
“None at all so long as it’s your choice and not his because he wants to be lazy.”
Gretchen smiled back at her and gave Flora a squeeze on the arm. “After you talk to your doctor, you’ll probably know more. You can decide then. I was on them for such a short period before and it was so long ago, I don’t even remember them.”
Flora pulled in Tonya’s trailer lot. “Home sweet home, honey.”
She leaned through the front seats and wrapped Gretchen in a hug. “I’m so happy for you!”
“I love you,” Gretchen was beaming already. “Thanks for coming today. And for buying all that.”
Tonya glanced over her shoulders to the dozens and dozens of packages. From maternity clothes to baby items. The three of them had gone out to dinner to celebrate and then shopped the store to pieces until they had three full buggies.
“I’m glad you took me.” Tonya looked to Flora and held her by the shoulders. “I love you.”
Flora rolled her eyes and then laughed. “You idiot.”
“That’s how you do it. Just walk in your house, go right for him and say it just like that.”
Flora’s eyes widened. “That seems intense. And not very sexy.”
“It’s real. What you and Jacob have is real and honest.”
Tears streaked down Gretchen’s face as she nodded. “Yes! Do it. Just like that. That’s so y’all.”
Flora shook her head. “The hormones are full on already.”
Gretchen shook her head, sobs now sniffing out of her. “No. Just happy. So damn happy for us all.”
Tonya patted her on the shoulder. “Let me get inside. I think the poor guy has been waiting long enough.”
“Good. Take a bath. You smell like a whore.”
She hopped from the backseat with a laugh and ran to the trailer, letting herself in the back door. She smelled, with full thanks to Flora, who’d tried opening a bottle of perfume and hosed Tonya with it instead. She agreed. She did stink. After several hours, the odor was still strong on her clothes.
It was quiet inside the house and she called out. Maybe he’d gone home after all. “Trent?”
No answer. She frowned and kicked her shoes off. Guess he just parked and walked home since it was so late. She squinted at the clock on the stove to see it was after two. Lord, she really did have to be at work in about an hour.
She stopped off through the refrigerator and grabbed the bowl of grapes off the rack. She should have just had Flora drop her off at the diner. She could have breakfast just about done by the time the morning crew walked in the door and she could come home and sleep for the rest of the day.
Course, she had expected to come home to Trent, since he’d been here every night. Then again, she hadn’t really paid much attention to the time. She rolled her neck and walked to the living room, intending for a shower. If she sat down anywhere, she’d crash and never get up. At least if she fell asleep at the diner, she’d wake up to Samantha banging on the back door.
“Hi.”
She screamed and jumped, spinning around with her heart pounding, pulse pumping. Trent sat on her couch. Leaned back with his ankle across the top of his knee. She covered her chest. “My God, you scared the hell out of me.”
His brow only lifted. “I’ve been right here.”
“I hollered for you when I walked in. Why didn’t you say anything?”
He only shrugged. “Where have you been?”
“Out with Flora and Gretchen.” She bent and picked up the tossed bowl of fruit and picked up the spilled pieces. “Didn’t you get my text?”
“I got your text. It said ‘with Flora and Gretchen. Won’t have cell.’” He kept staring at her. “That was hours ago.”
Her knees started shaking with her squat trying to get runaway grapes. She gave up and just sat. She was so tired. “We lost track of time.”
“What did you do?”
“Grabbed something to eat and then went shopping.”
“It’s two in the morning. Where did you go shopping? New York?”
She chuckled and popped fruit in her mouth that she could reach. “No. Wal-Mart. We lost track of time in there.”
“You’ve been in Wal-Mart this whole time?”
She blinked and met his gaze, noting his very real tone. Not a sleepy tone. A pissed one. “Except for the hour or hour and half when we ate.”
He just stared. “Why?”
Oh, um. She couldn’t say. “We were shopping.”
He lifted his chin as though looking over the counter. “I didn’t see you come in with any bags.”
Uh. “We were shopping for Gretchen.”
Back to the staring. “You’ve been shopping this long for Gretchen.”
“Yep.” Three women on the baby aisle. It was pure luck they still weren’t there.
“What did you buy?”
Hm. Damn. “Clothes.” There. The honest answer.
“Clothes.”
“Yep.” She pushed off the floor and stood before him, putting her hand on his shoulder. “I have an about an hour before I have to be at the diner.”
“You went shopping that long for Gretchen at Wal-Mart and you couldn’t have your phone with you?”
“Girls’ night.”
He shook his head. “What is that smell? Cologne?” He frowned. “Men’s cologne. What have you been doing?”
She frowned. “I just told you. We went shopping. Flora was smelling the perfumes and sprayed me several times on accident. It was no big deal.”
His brows jerked down. Lips turned down with them. “The hell it is. You go out over half the night, you won’t answer your phone and come back and tell me you’ve been at Wal-Mart shopping for clothes for Gretchen this whole time and you expect me to believe that shit?”
She stepped back. “That’s what happened.”
“Impossible.”
“It did.”
“Why did Gretchen need clothes so damn bad she had to have them now?”
She opened her mouth, the truth on the tip of her tongue, but held it back. The father shouldn’t know first, shouldn’t he? “I can’t say.”
“You better say.”
Oh hell no. She backed up another step. All those words of warning from Flora over the past couple weeks flooded up the back of her throat. “No.”
“I’m warning you, Tonya.”
“Or what?” She crossed her arms over her chest. Sure the cologne looked bad, but the rest? He knew Flora and Gretchen and knew they could lose track of time like that.
“Tell me the truth or I’m out of here.”
She was at a loss for words. “You would throw away what we have because I can’t tell you something.”
“I would walk out because I can’t trust you.”
“I can’t tell you why, because someone else trusts me to keep my mouth closed. Why is that so hard for you to believe?”
“Because you lied to me for so long and I didn’t have a clue!”
She straightened and shook her head. “You know why I lied.”
“I know why you started the lie. I still can’t understand why you carried it off for so long with me. Why you continued to lie every couple weeks when I’d ask about him.”
“I thought we were past this.”
“We were until you quit being honest with me.”
She threw her hands up and walked away. “This is ridiculous.”
“This is a relationship. Or I thought it was.”
Oh hell no. “If this was a relationship, you would respect my privacy.”
“I share with you. You share with me. That is a relationship.”
“You just have to trust me.”
He shook his head. “I can’t.”
She reached in her back pocket and tossed him the phone. Flora wouldn’t be home yet. “Call Flora and ask her.”
He put the phone aside. “I’ll never trust a girl’s best friend.”
She shook her head and backed away. “I don’t even know you right now.”
“This is who I am.”
“No. This is not you.” This was not her sweet and loveable guy. Her charming best friend.
“I don’t keep stuff from you.”
Bullshit. That was the biggest load she’d ever seen. “I’ve asked about the girl in your past, but you won’t tell me. Explain that.”
“It’s the past. It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me. You’re ready to walk away from me because of something that happened with a girl years ago. It wasn’t too far in the past for that. What happened tonight—I can’t tell you now. I can tell you in a few days. Maybe even tomorrow, but I can’t tell you tonight. You just have to trust me.”
“I can’t trust you. This is what I was afraid of from the beginning.” His arms went up and he shook his head.
It was a slap to the face. She shook her head. “I had no idea that it bothered you this much. You never mentioned it.”
“Feels like a bomb is dropped on you, isn’t it?”
Her jaw was slack as she grasped for words. “Is this supposed to be revenge because I didn’t know how to tell you about Marc?”
“No. This is because you won’t tell me why you were out until two in the morning. Because you wouldn’t answer your damn phone while you were out shopping.”
“I’ve told you all I will.” She crossed her arms over her chest and stood her ground.
“Once we’re done, that’s it.”
“If that’s the choice you make, then so be it. I like you Trent. I like you a lot.” She rubbed her arms. More than that. She loved him. “You’re my best friend, but I can’t tell you this.”
He headed for the door.
“This is it. You’re leaving for good?”
“I swore to myself I wouldn’t go through this with a girl. I’m not going to.”
She wanted to know, she wanted to understand his past. “You won’t let me in either. How does that make for a relationship?”
The door closing was her answer. Tears itched her eyes and she swore she wouldn’t shed them, but she did. They streaked over her face before he even made it down the last few steps of her porch.
Her knees shook again, this time for a different reason and she dropped to the carpet, her stomach tightening and twisting. She clawed the carpet as she pulled her hands into fists and sobbed to her empty living room.
And she didn’t know who to call, so she called no one. Gretchen was delivering the good news to Lane. Or she should be. Flora better be saying the I love
yous
. Her best friends in the whole world were taking another step in life, having another perfect night and Tonya refused to interrupt them. She wouldn’t take their moments away because it looked like she was back to peddling.
Instead she just cried and sobbed as she picked herself off the floor, followed Trent’s path to the back door and drove to the diner. The roads were dark. The small town quiet in the early morning, predawn hours as she parked at the backdoor, got her keys together and headed for the doors, letting herself in.
She walked through her pattern. Her routine. Her constant rotation of things she did every single day of her life. Her thing. She hated it.
She stopped with her hand on the fryer knob, halfway with it turned to three twenty-five and just stopped.
My God, she really, really hated her life. Wasn’t just unhappy with it. Down and out hated it. Not her job. Not this diner. Her life. She grit her teeth. The tears not looking to stop anytime soon and she finished adjusting the temperature and walked to the refrigerator for the box of bacon.
This could be today. This could be two years ago. It was all exactly the same. Exactly. She lined bacon down the grill. The oven beeped out, sounded that it was preheated as she was on that second to last row with the bacon. Just. Like. Always.
She would put biscuits in. She would work. She would do bills. She would take a break while her girls ran the diner. She would walk back through and check things for lunch after that.
She could nearly laugh. And she did. A little at first. Then a little more. She popped biscuits in the oven, returned to the stove and her laughter sobered. It was time to do something with herself.
Something. Anything. Anything but this over and over. Starting tomorrow. She wouldn’t come in. She would sleep in tomorrow. Not because she was sick and was taking the day off but because she damn well felt like sleeping in one day a week. She flipped the bacon over and dropped back in her heels.