Page 42 of Really Truly Yours
The typically rhetorical question brings time in the cramped room to a standstill. Gray hauls in a giant breath. “I care.”
My breath unwinds.
Donny swivels, glowing with undisguised hope.
The shining moment doesn’t last. The pair return to arguing like true relations. Donny maintains his position on tarps, and Gray argues there is no circumstance under which Donny can spend the night in the house, tarp or no. Rats and squirrels and nasty possums could crawl up in bed with him if he tries to stay.
I hate to tell Gray this, but the rodent thing is not hypothetical.
As far as the current dilemma goes, I’m Team Gray. He suggests a motel. Problem is, there are only two in this town, and I pray he would never leave any relative of his in either one of those.
Finally, beneath a withering stare—although it’s comical how thoroughly Donny is enjoying the exchange—Gray relents with an exasperated puff of air. “Fine, Donny. I’ll go to Dan’s and see what’s available.”
Donny beams. “Thank you, son.”
My lungs lock up again, only releasing when Gray pretends the loaded word never happened.
The recliner squeaks. “Hey, you are coming back, right?”
Gray gingerly grabs the wonky doorknob, watching the motion as he rotates it with care. “I said I was.”
“Just checkin’ you didn’t get your boxers in a wad and decide to storm out again. ‘Sides, you and me need to talk, son.”
There it is a second time.
Gray’s mood is difficult to decipher. “We’ll talk, Donny. Sydnee?” He jerks his head toward the yard. He looks so discombobulated I don’t take offense at the high-handedness.
I meet him on the front stoop. His car key bounces up and down in his palm. “Come with?”
How a grown man, six-foot-plus-multiple-inches, healthy, whole, and unfair-to-womankind handsome, manages to look this needy I will never know. My stomach curls into an unfamiliar ball, those butterflies banging to get out of the tighter space.
I back up. “Can’t. Need to see if I can log in to the system. Work, you know?”
He sweeps his hand along his neck. “Right. I forgot.”
“You’re not really thinking he can stay here tonight, are you?”
“Of course not, but either way, the thing needs to be covered as best as possible.”
“So what are you going to do?”
He stares up at the roof. “Go back to Dan’s and then…heck, I don’t know, Sydnee. I guess just pray for the best.”
I watch Gray drive away, calmly for a change, adding my prayers to his.
Checking my phone, I see that Sam has returned my call—after the crisis has passed, naturally.
I tell Donny I’ll be back in a little while and then head home. In the kitchen, I wash and slice an apple and heap a spoonful of crunchy peanut butter onto a plate before I sit down with my laptop.
Lucky me, my internet is working again. I shove the food down, log in, and adjust my headset into place. Call after call, I somehow manage to spend more time focused on the street out front and the clock in the corner of the screen than on the work at hand. I make multiple dumb errors, even drawing an unusually nasty four-letter word from a caller.
It’s all Grayson Smith’s fault.
Speaking of. At three o’clock, I have no choice except to conclude he isn’t returning.
I’d run away too if I could.
Mentally, I reach for Donny’s problem and put it back on my plate. He’s been texting for the last two hours and I believe has reached the same conclusion.