Page 11 of Small Town Secrets

From her few spare moments watching the movie Encanto with Whitney, Laila recognized that the word “abuela” meant “grandmother” and joined him in laughing.

That said, this was a date, and she already had a child, while he’d just indicated a need for some biological children of his own. So, she raised a brow and mumbled over the rim of her coffee cup. “No pressure, or anything...”

He patted her between the shoulder blades and chuckled, his light touch sending unexpected sparks through her body. “Relax. I have a younger brother and he’s already got two kids. I’m mostly off the hook. My mom’s just never happy, that’s all.”

He swung a big smile her way, one that suggested sarcasm about his mom’s unhappiness. While appreciating being “off the hook,” his smile prompted her next genuine laugh.

An easy silence took over and they both turned to Whitney, now attempting to run up the wrong end of a slide, as the two other kids waited way-too-patiently for her to move out the way.

Laila and Ramos shared a joint quiet chuckle before he spoke again. “At the wedding, you mentioned Whitney’s dad isn’t around?”

The fluttery light feeling in her tummy evaporated, replaced with something far heavier, which made forming a reply take longer than she would have liked. “Yah. I did.”

More silence dragged out. She figured he wanted her to elaborate, but even after four years, shame and heartache still consumed her every time anyone asked for a recap of her and Whitney’s story.

Much to her despair, Ramos seemed to grasp the weight of her stalling, his torso twisting in her direction, as he eyeballed her from side-on. “Mind me asking what happened?”

Yes. She did mind. But then his tone held a soft edge that offered her a way out if she didn’t wish to explain—the annoying thing about that being his steady presence and his “way out” succeeded in compelling her to answer all the same.

Seven

“Mike. Whitney’s dad’s name is Mike, and all I know, all I can really say about him is that he simply disappeared.” Laila shrugged as if that empty account of things didn’t hurt. Truth was, she really did have no other explanation.

Adrian’s twisted and confused features had her fusing her attention away from him, back to the playground where Whitney still played. “Whitney was a surprise and the result of a completely unplanned pregnancy. Mike and I, we’d been together for two years, which I guess is forever when you’re young and in a town like Harlow. Yah know, by most people’s standards here, we should’ve been married with three kids already—”

She gave a sarcastic laugh, and he shuffled beside her, sipping at his coffee cup and resuming his air of being unstirred. “If you’d been together two years, the math on three kids doesn’t quite add up on that one.”

She gave a light huff and added, “Not if I managed to squeeze in a set of twins, but either way, welcome to small town life. As you can imagine, we were both shocked when we found out about Whitney, but we seemed to adjust well enough early on—right down to the quickie wedding and a pinky promise that we would get through this together. But things changed just after Whitney was born, and Mike got laid off from his job as a factory hand at a food processing warehouse one town over.

“She couldn’t have been much more than three months old before we were at the edge of bankruptcy, with no way to pay the rent and bills. That’s when Mike started referring to Whit and me as ‘dead weight,’ that we were holding him back, and he didn’t have time to deal with us while trying to find a job.”

“He sounds like a real charmer.” Adrian shook his head and turned to face her. “Did this guy ever have any redeeming qualities?”

“Only if you’re a naïve young woman with not much life experience. A woman who hasn’t learned how to ask for any of her needs to be met.” She sighed, and decided to go ahead with her story, despite this not being her ideal topic. “Like I said, Mike changed a lot. Like the life had been sucked right out of him or something. Nothing made much sense, except that Whitney was relying on me. So, less than a few months after giving birth to her, I took things into my own hands and asked for my old job back at the twenty-four-hour grocery store. Deep down I didn’t trust Mike to take care of Whit on his own, so I arranged for my parents to look after her while I worked. For better or worse, Mike hung on for a couple more months before up and leaving. No goodbye. No letter. No explanation. Just me returning from work one day to an empty home.”

“That’s not exactly a scene anyone wants to walk into.”

A lump took up space in her throat, and she peered down and nodded at the coffee cup in her hand. “No shit. At first, I feared the worst and was frantic trying to find him. Had he died? Harlow being so remote, maybe his car ran off some road somewhere and no one would ever find his body. Except, five days in, a stack of money disappeared from our joint bank account, and he blocked me from all his social media profiles. And just like that, a few weeks passed before the divorce papers came from some out-of-town lawyer.”

Another laugh pushed past her lips at just how ridiculous the story sounded out loud. Growing up, she’d had the perfect family. The perfect life. But she and the relationship with Mike had been central to all that was wrong with her life now. An unplanned pregnancy. Young love gone wrong. A runaway ex...

“Mike refused to speak with me. I didn’t have the head space or the money to drag things out, and to this day, he still fails to make payments on Whit’s child support. So, I take care of everything. And still, I question whether our troubles were all Mike, or all me. I still don’t know what I did to make him hate me so much.”

She’d had dreams. Always assumed she’d have years to find her way and get settled in life before slowing down to have a child. She’d always assumed she’d be financially secure first, that there’d be room for her to stay at home at least for those early years.

But babies needed to eat first and foremost. They needed shelter and warmth. So those basic needs came before any of her dreams, in the hopes that the rest would come when she’d paid her penance for those past mistakes.

“Here I am, four years on.” She pressed her lips together and gave Ramos an Oh, well sort of shrug. “Still working in that grocery store and hoping my degree will dig us out of that pit.”

Adrian’s face held a tight kind of stillness and he side-eyed her. “Did you ever find out where Mike went?”

She dropped her gaze to his hands clenched around his coffee cup, the white strain over his knuckles giving her the laughable thought that he might sucker punch Mike if he just happened to be around right now.

“Beyond some initial searching”—she shook her head—“save for the hassle of not getting child support, I’m glad to have him gone. Given the way he was, I’m going to go right ahead and assume he’s still miserable, unemployed, and probably forever single or hopping from one bad relationship to the next. If there’s one thing I want Whit to understand about love, it’s that she should never have to convince anyone to stick around or pull their weight. Her dad included.”

Adrian’s stare shifted ahead, his brow flexed in a hard line, a strong current of emotion evident in his eyes. So much so, she took a deep breath and sought to ease the tension. “Look, I’m sorry, I gave you a hard time over getting me to agree to this date. At least maybe now you understand why.”

“Right. And what I’m up against should I choose to proceed?” His stare narrowed some more, before he angled his attention back to her and the strain across his face released into a sly smile. “It’s okay, I enjoy a challenge.”

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