Never mind that. I knew I’d done the right thing. West and I weren’t friends. He pitied me, and getting close to him was a terrible idea. This was for the best.
The only thing was, I wished he hadn’t known how crappy my family life was, on top of having seen that ugly scar.
Marla rushed into the hospital room ten minutes later. Tufts of her bottle-blonde hair were still in rollers, hanging on her head like window washers on skyscrapers. She looked exhausted. I couldn’t blame her. Grams had been deteriorating throughout Marla’s two-year employment at a rapid speed. Marla was approaching her mid-sixties herself and hadn’t signed up to assist women with special needs.
I jumped up from the bed opposite Grams and threw myself at the caregiver.
“Thank God you’re here.”
“Came as soon as I could, honey pie. What’d the old bat do now?”
“I can hear you!” Grandma Savvy shook her fist at Marla.
“I found her pressin’ her hand to the blazing hot stove this morning. I had to pry her out of the kitchen kickin’ and screamin’. She won’t agree to a CT now.” I dropped my voice to a whisper, staring at the floor, “What do I do, Marl?”
“Why, I think we both know the answer to that question,” Marla said softly, squeezing my arm. She and Karlie had been trying to hammer it into my brain that Grams needed to go to a home. I’d thought if I made an effort, I’d be able to maintain her quality of life without sending her away.
She deserved to spend the remainder of her life in the house she’d built with Grandpa Freddie, where she’d raised Courtney and me. In the town she grew up in.
“I’ll take over from here. You go work.” Marla slid a Styrofoam coffee cup into my hand.
I nodded, taking a sip and saluting the cup in her direction. “Thanks. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“Prolly the same thing you’re doing now, but much less efficiently. Now go.”
Twenty-five minutes later, I parked the pickup by my house and sprinted down the road toward the food truck.
By the time I got to work, a film of sweat made my clothes cling to my skin. West was operating both our stations when I stumbled inside. There was a fifteen-person line by the window and two customers shuffling on the sidelines, complaining about an order West had gotten wrong.
Delirious from heat and panic, I peeled my hoodie from my body and threw it to the front seat of the truck, relishing the air on my damp skin in my white, short-sleeved V-neck. I shoved West out of the way from the window with my butt, taking over.
“I owe you one,” I dropped my voice to a whisper.
“Two.”
“What?”
“Twice I’ve saved your ass, and it hasn’t even been a month. Your favors are piling up real quick, Texas, and I’m going to cash in on them. Soon.” He flipped fish on the grill, rolling a green apple candy stick in his mouth. It always made him smell delicious. Like Granny Smith and winter.
“Any chance you can stop bein’ a prick today?” I growled, hiking the plastic gloves up my fingers.
“Not even the slightest,” he said nonchalantly, but I thought I detected something else underneath his relaxed stance. An underlying exhaustion. The same boy I saw in the parking lot, staring at nothing, waiting for the day to end.
“Good talk.”
“Communication is key, baby.”
“I’m not your baby.”
“That’s a relief. You’d make me a no-show dad, despite my good principles.”
Principles? Ha.
Luckily, we didn’t have time to bicker for the next four hours. We worked nonstop before we sold out of everything. West St. Claire may have been a bad boy, but he was dang good for business.
When the endless line of customers was finally served, I took a deep breath, turning around and grabbing the edge of the counter behind me.
As soon as I looked at him—really looked at him—the air left my lungs.
“Holy crap. What happened to your face?”
His entire face was slashed up, like someone had put scissors to it and tried to cut him into ribbons. The scratches under his eyes implied that same someone had also attempted to gouge them out. He had nasty red, purple, and yellow bruises all over his neck, like he’d been choked, and his lower lip was double its usual size.
My guess was he bled buckets last night. He belonged in the ER no less than Grams did.
“Fell down the stairs,” he said grimly. Sarcastically. Why did I think I was going to get a straight answer out of this guy?
“What’s your excuse?” His hooded eyes drifted to my injured arm. I tilted my head sideways, not sure what he meant, before realizing I was standing there with a short-sleeved shirt and that he could see my entire purple arm.
I let out a frantic yelp, bolting to the passenger seat to grab my hoodie. I knocked a few pans and spatulas on my way and tripped over an empty case of soda. I fumbled with the hoodie, trying to get it on me as soon as humanly possible, but the more I tried to figure out if it was upside down or not, the more flustered I got.
Finally, West plucked the hoodie from between my hands, turned it inside out, and pulled it over my head, his movement flippant, almost lazy.
“There.” He yanked my hoodie down, giving it a final tug, like he was dressing up a kid. “Nothing like a nice parka in the middle of a fucking Texan summer.”
“It’s not a parka.” I wrapped my hands around my waist, shaking all over.
I couldn’t breathe.
He saw my scars.
He saw my scars.
He saw my ugly, stupid scars.
Jarring, red, and bumpy, they were hard to miss, and I wondered if any of our customers had lost their appetite as I’d served them.
I was surprised I didn’t throw up in West’s lap as soon as he brought it to my attention. Maybe because he seemed so unfazed about it, and already knew so much about me, it wasn’t totally shocking.
“Texas.” His tone was low. Unruffled.
“I … I … I have to go,” I mumbled, turning around, getting ready to bolt out of the truck. He snatched me by the arm, pulling me back in effortlessly. I jerked and cried, desperate to leave, to never face him again, but his clutch on my arm tightened, almost to a bruising point.
He backed me into the trailer, until I had no choice but to accept that I wasn’t getting out of there before we talked it out.