Friday morning was my one morning to sleep a little later. I still had to take Max to school in the morning, but I didn’t start work until afterward. Rosie needed me to work the supper shift, since it was our busiest night of the week.

It felt good getting up at seven in the morning instead of four-thirty. Plus, I relished the days I got to drop off Max. Usually he rode the bus and my mom saw him out the door. Or kicked him out the door. One or the other.

Thankfully, Max was incredibly responsible. At only six, he knew how to get up with his alarm, get dressed, brush his teeth, manage his breakfast and gather his school things. He didn’t need my mom for much, except maybe tying his shoes.

I had been the same way as a kid. She wasn’t and still isn’t exactly the most maternal creature alive.

My heart clenched despite my resolve that this was good for my son. It wasn’t a bad thing to learn responsibility or how to take care of yourself. It had worked out for me.

Okay, it had mostly worked out for me… if you overlooked the whole teen pregnancy speedbump.

Still, I knew the majority of moms from Max’s first grade class stayed home. They drove their kids in every morning or at the very least walked them to the bus. They shared breakfast with them and kissed them goodbye. They made their lunches and packed sweet little notes inside. And then they spent their days drinking mimosas and having their pool boys stretch them after yoga while they waited for their children to come home from school.

Okay, I made up that last part. I didn’t know anyone in Clark City with a pool boy. But I’d worked a full-time job since the day I graduated high school and my imagination sometimes got the better of me.

What I wouldn’t give for a careless day to do as I pleased while I waited for Max to come home. Plus, the flexible bank account to not worry about how much I worked.

“Will you walk me inside, Mommy?” he asked as we pulled up to the unloading zone in front of his brick school building. Taking his request serious, I pulled through to the parking lot and found a spot close to the crosswalk.

I turned around and grinned at him. “Is it because I look so beautiful this morning?” In a rare morning of having extra time, I had gone above and beyond to look put together—or at least like I put effort into my looks. With my usual routine, I found it difficult to care what I looked like while I was getting ready in the pitch-black middle of the night. But Friday mornings were more laid back. I had time for a cup of coffee before I put on a bra. That seemed to make all the difference.

Besides that, the entire town seemed to eat supper at Rosie’s on Friday nights. It was the pre-football game tradition. I found that eyeliner helped when I had to do battle with some of this town’s biggest snobs.

He smiled back. “You always look beautiful.”

The guilty fist around my heart loosened. He always knew just what to say and when to say it. How did he do that? I swear, God had made him extra thoughtful just because He knew how badly I needed some genuine affection in my life.

“I’ll walk you in, baby,” I told him. “But you need to tell me why.”

He shrugged as he pulled on his backpack and prepared to jump out of the car. “I just like spending time with you.”

I forgot about feeling guilty that I couldn’t do this more often and melted into a sticky pile of motherhood goo. How was this sweet, adorable little boy mine?

Thinking back on my childhood, I knew my mother loved me. She’d even say it occasionally. Plus, she had worked so hard to give me a normal life, er, as normal as was possible. It wasn’t like I grew up unloved. I just… didn’t receive the kind of affection I knew other moms gave—that I gave now that I was a mom.

“There isn’t another reason?” I was hyper aware of how cruel kids could be. Poor Max had to put up with the helicopter mom inside of me that wanted to protect him from any kind of bullying.

Once upon a time, I swore my kids would grow up differently than me, that they’d never be trailer trash. But life hadn’t gone as planned and this was our reality.

I also looked at the world differently now. When I was a child, I had been painfully ashamed of my home. And my mom. Now, as an adult, with some perspective, I realized that our home didn’t define who we were. Just because we lived in a double wide that had seen better days, didn’t mean we were trash.

It would never mean that we were trash.

I was a hardworking single mom. I was quiet and sometimes shy and sometimes sassy. I was Ruby Maxine Dawson. I was not, nor would I ever be, trailer trash.

And the same was true for Max. He was kind and gentle, super smart and incredibly active. He was not trailer trash. He would never be trailer trash.

Meanwhile, fuck the haters.

Still, my mommy instincts flexed their cut biceps and poison-tipped talons. If someone was giving my kid a hard time, mama bear was about to roar. And then maim. And then probably figure out a good place to hide a body.

“Um, is because I love you a reason?” He batted his long eyelashes over the greenest eyes I had ever seen. Eyes that rivaled his father’s. His glasses did nothing to hide their vividness. If anything, the glass magnified just how very green they were—like freshly mowed grass in the summertime or pine trees after a good rain. I blinked, and his dad was right there, alive and in person. I blinked again, and it was Max and me, just like always.

“That’s my favorite reason,” I told him.

We hopped out of the car and walked hand in hand into the school building. A few other parents escorted their kids along with us, most of them kindergartners still struggling with the beginning of the school year.

Just inside the front doors, we passed reception. The three office ladies, of varying age and size, huddled together at the front desk, whispering. I was on cordial terms with them as they stood between Max and me should he need to get ahold of me during the day. They were a necessary relationship I maintained for the sake of my son. And I genuinely liked one of them—Becky Calvin. We had gone to school together. She was a year older than me and while we were never exactly friends, there was a mutual respect between us thanks to a lifetime on the outside of popular circles. Her dad was the Baptist preacher in town and she was one of the good girls that high schoolers rarely gave any time.

I liked her though. Plus, she balanced out the other two secretaries. Mrs. Fellows, the dinosaur shrew that had been at the elementary school since before my time. I had recurring nightmares where she marched me through the hallways, tugging on my ear, announcing to everyone that I had head lice and to keep a wide berth lest I infect the whole school. And the other secretary, Gladys Corrington, while younger than Marge Fellows, was ancient compared to Becky and me. Also, she thought she was better than everyone because her husband was on the town council.

I smiled at Becky when I caught her eye as I walked by. She waved me down and lunged forward, arms slightly flailing. “Ruby, hi!” she gushed.

We were nice to each other, but not usually this excited to see one another. I tugged Max over to the receptionist window with me. “Hey, Becky. How are you?”

She smiled, a red blush tinging the apples of her cheeks. She had nearly translucent skin to match her rich red hair and freckles. She was still single and even though she was pretty in the Snow White meets Ariel kind of way, she wasn’t the typical female catch for Clark City. The men here liked their women tall, tanned and trampy. Becky wasn’t any of those things.

“Hi, Max.” She grinned at my son.

“Hi, Miss Calvin.”

“What’s all the commotion about?” I asked, nodding to the other two secretaries with their heads nearly touching as they whispered excitedly about something.

Becky glanced back at them and when she looked at us again, her cheeks were an even brighter red. “Oh, you know…” And then she giggled.

I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

Her eyes bugged. “Haven’t you heard?” she whispered conspiratorially. “Levi Cole is back.”

My heart that had been gooey and warm just seconds ago dropped to my stomach like an icicle falling off a gutter. “What? Like today?”

“Last night.” She nodded enthusiastically, emphasizing her point. “That’s what Ava Truitt’s mom said. Denise said she saw him last night getting gas at the Pump and Pantry before heading in the direction of the Cole farm.”

“Huh.” It wasn’t so much a response… more like a disgusted sound I made while grinding my teeth together.

Becky’s eyebrow raised. “Not a fan of our rebel without a cause?”

“Oh, he has a cause.” I put my hands over Max’s ears quickly. “It’s that giant stick he always had up his ass.”

Becky’s eyes widened comically before she burst out giggling. “I can say it’s nice to know someone not completely charmed by Mr. Charming himself.”

“Are you not a fan either?”

She fanned her face. “Oh, no, I’m a big fan. Major fan.” Winking at me, she added, “I’m just happy to know you won’t be competition.”

I laughed out loud because, well, that notion was completely ridiculous. “He’s all yours.” I nudged Max to walk toward his class again, but then something nibbled at my curiosity. “Hey, Becky, how do you know he’s single? What if he’s only home for the weekend or something before he has to go back to his wife and kids?”

She rolled her eyes and reached for some papers on her desk. “Common knowledge, my friend. The Coles called Levi home to take him to task. Word is they want him settled down and ready to take over the farming operation so they can retire. It’s like a straight up ‘come to Jesus’ moment for him.”

I smirked, conspiratorially. “You’re the expert on those, so I guess you would know.”

She snorted and turned to Max. “Have a great day at school, Max.”

“Thanks, Miss Calvin.”

I dropped Max off, giving him three extra kisses. I stood outside the doorway for a while, watching his class through the narrow window. My mom instincts were on high alert and I just wanted to make sure all was well with him.

He seemed fine. He walked into the classroom, talking and laughing with several students, was cordial to his teacher Mrs. Hayes and sat at his desk with a happy expression on his face.

Maybe I was paranoid.

Maybe it was all this talk about Levi and the Coles. The thought of them was dragging bad memories to the surface, memories I had long ago buried and tried to forget about. It had been seven years since I’d had to deal with them and I wasn’t excited about the prospect of seeing any of them again.

Rich Cole, the patriarch, rarely came into town anymore. And if his wife, Darcy, happened to wander through, she didn’t bother with any of the places where I spent time. Not that Rich and Darcy would have any idea who I was. I’d known their sons, but that was years ago, and they wouldn’t have heard anything about me. Except that maybe I was the poor daughter of a strip club manager. I mean, I guess I wasn’t a totally anonymous person around here.

It was Levi that was making me edgy. He’d always been such a problem for me, a battle I had to fight, an enemy that never quit. And I doubted he’d softened over the years. Especially if it had taken his mommy and daddy demanding his return to get him to come home.

RJ was probably right—Cole Family Farms would be upside down in a year. Levi would have to move into my neighborhood. And then I’d be stuck with the guy forever.

All the more reason to get the hell out of this town.

By the time I walked into Rosie’s and clocked in, I wore my uncalled-for irritation like an ill-fitting jacket. It wrapped around my shoulders and squeezed at the base of my neck.

“There’s some sunshine,” Rosie whistled as she walked out of the kitchen carrying two heavy plates full of breakfast things. “We’ve been waiting for ya.”

I looked at the clock. “Am I late?” The time showed I was fifteen minutes early, but now I worried that I had written my hours down wrong.

“Nah,” Rosie assured me. “We’ve just been waiting for you all morning.”

I bent my head down so I could wave at Reggie through the order window. “Hey, Reg.”

“Hey there. The day just got a whole lot better,” he said grinning. “How you doin’, beautiful?”

I ran a hand over my long dark hair that was tied up in a ponytail at the top of my head. Maybe the makeup had been a mistake today. It felt too much for some reason. I should have stuck to my usual tinted moisturizer and mascara. Eyeliner and lipstick? Who did I think I was?

A normal person with her life put together? Ha. Hardly.

“I’m good,” I told Reggie, quickly washing my hands beneath the sink next to the order-up counter, deciding not to let his comment get to me. “Love Fridays, don’t you?”

His smile stretched. “Friday is just another day to me. But you got to spend time with your little man today?”

I nodded, unable to resist an answering grin. “Yes, I did.”

“I can see it all over your face, Ruby. You’re always glowing after time with him.”

“He is my favorite.”

Reggie tipped his head back and laughed. “As he should be.” Reaching for something I couldn’t see from my angle, he repeated, “As he should be.”

I turned around and got to work, checking ketchup bottles and salt and pepper shakers. I would take over the small dining room after Rosie finished up and I didn’t want to rush her. The people of this town loved her. Sometimes I called her Saint Rosie for all the love and affection she got. To the good old boys in this town, there wasn’t a more drool-worthy, voluptuous woman than Ms. Rosie Sinclair. She was the kind of dark-haired vixen you imagined was once a pinup model. Even in her later fifties, she still had curves for days and days.

Even now, she was leaned over a table of old men, each of them enraptured by her beauty, gazing longingly. She was entertaining them with a hilarious story about one of their cronies. Something about his John Deere and a hay bale. It was like watching a snake charmer. She could have told them to stand on their heads and belch the national anthem and they would have done it.

God, I desperately needed some of that va-va-voom.

My dating action was more like a fatal kaboom. Casualties, loss of life, tragedy all around.

“Order up!” Reggie called from behind me.

I glanced at Rosie as she stretched her arm to add drama to her story. She wasn’t going to finish any time soon.

That’s why she hired me—I didn’t chat up the customers.

“I’ll take it,” I told Reggie. “Where does it go?”

“Table twelve.” He pushed the plate forward under the heat lamps. “Oh and take this with it.” The first plate was an egg white omelet and a bowl of fresh fruit. The second, a smaller plate of bacon.

It was a strange order for this crowd. RJ wasn’t here yet, so it wasn’t for him. The rest of our clientele preferred plates that could cause heart attacks. For a town full of farmers, I didn’t even think most of them knew how to identify fruit, let alone order and eat it.

I walked the plates to the corner booth where a man facing the wall sat, away from the rest of the restaurant. Shania Twain’s “Any Man of Mine” played overhead and I resisted the urge to dance along. It was one of my all-time favorite songs and I couldn’t help but wiggle a little and mouth the words. Shania always put me in a good mood.

“Egg white omelet,” I said with a genuine smile, sliding it in front of him. “And it looks like a pound of bacon on the side.”

He turned his head, already smiling. “I’m trying to quit it,” he was saying. “But Rosie makes the best bacon in the whole—”

Our eyes met, the frozen moment clashed, and if I hadn’t already set the plates of food down, I would have dropped them. Levi Cole. As I lived and breathed.