Page 65 of Dahlia Made A List

I stared Grams down from my seat across the table from her, but she just lifted her chin, as though daring me. To do what, I had no idea.

“I’m a little tired of your shenanigans, Wyatt Weston.” She slapped her hand on the papers in front of her. “No, that’s not right. I’m disappointed.”

I blinked back at her. No way I’m taking the bait. We’re supposed to be handling the drive-in deed today, fuckin’ finally. I’d sit in this chair until they pried my tired ass free, and even then I’d have that deed in my greedy hand.

“It’s that look, Wyatt. Your granddad had that same stubborn look you’re wearing right now and, god bless him, but he pissed me off then as much as you’re pissing me off now.”

That set me back in my chair. Grams was free with her opinion, but something in her tone needled me. “Not understanding your point here, Grams.”

“Of course not. Too busy wrapped up in your own head.” She reached across the table and pulled my hand to hold between both of hers. “But if you thought about what I’m saying? I bet you’d understand. You wanna pretend you don’t care what anyone thinks. ‘Anyone’ being your family. Your parents, your brother. But you do care, and you always have.”

I jerked my hand, but she held firm, her hold relentless, her eyes steady on mine. “Think about it. You have that flashy Firebird hidden away in the garage at the drive-in while you tool around town in a big black truck. Same big black truck as a hundred other men in the county. You let Waylon and your parents think you’re scraping by as some sort of handyman, but you own half the homes on Redbud and more besides.”

Her eyes drilled me, her hold on my hand reaching deep until I wanted to fidget like the confused eight year old I’d once been. The one who couldn’t understand why his parents snarled in frustration. Why the teacher looked at him funny. Why something that came so easily to his classmates seemed impossible for him.

“Do you even know why you do it?”

Stubbornness. I’d always assumed stubbornness when I bothered to think about the why at all. The answer to the assholes of the world? Be a bigger, scarier asshole.

She squeezed my hand again and I looked up to see a soft smile on her face for the first time. “I had the prettiest pale blue cardigan once. Your granddad told me I looked pretty the first time I wore it. He’d just started courtin’ me, and he was just about the handsomest man in the whole state, so if he said I looked pretty in that cardigan, I believed him.”

She pressed my hand to her cheek and her smile pushed into my palm. “I wore it constantly then. Every time he took me to dinner in town. When I met his parents. The first night he got a little frisky—”

“Grams!”

“But then the threads started coming loose. Right under the arm. I tried to mend it, but I never was much good with a needle. Before I knew it, the little hole turned into a giant one and there was nothing for it. I had to toss that cardigan. And the next time your granddad came for me, I couldn’t find a single thing to wear. Nothing that would make me pretty like I was when I wore the cardigan.”

She sighed. “So I dressed as best I could and headed out to meet Sherman at the door and I swear I held my breath. Been fifty years and I still remember that night as if it happened yesterday. I opened the door and there he was, tall and handsome and smiling at me like the cat that ate the canary. He tugged me close, leaned down and whispered in my ear so my mama wouldn’t hear.”

She leaned across the table, her palm cupping my cheek. “You know what he said, Wyatt? He said I was the prettiest girl he’d ever seen. And you know why, don’t you? Because the cardigan was just packaging. Your granddad saw inside, saw my heart and my soul and my hopes and my dreams and to him, I was the prettiest girl in the world and always would be. Whether I wore a pale blue cardigan or a fancy red dress, it was all just window dressing.”

Grams stood, stepped around the table and wrapped her arms around my neck, hugging me from behind. She bent down and spoke into my ear. “You’ve been hiding behind your own kind of window dressing since you were a boy. Keeping the real Wyatt tucked away. It’s risky when we show ourselves to the world. It is. I understand, grandson. But some things are worth the risk, don’t you think?”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Dahlia

Sweatdrippeddownmyforehead. With the hand not holding the dirty cloth, I swiped a drop threatening to sting my eye. I needed to figure out a new routine to match the new demands on my time. Between The List and derby and the Shameless crew, I stayed busy and my apartment suffered.

Wyatt had gone radio silent since our trip to the DMV; which meant today was officially Clean Everything Day, since I needed a distraction. Tossing the rag onto the kitchen counter, I took up the mop and set to work on the floors. They’d shine by the time I finished with them or I’d know the reason why.

Because being still would give my mind time to think. Would let my thoughts drift for the ten millionth time to Wyatt Weston. This was worse than an actual break-up. We’d not even really been together. I’d let Brandon live with me and hadn’t succumbed to obsessive housework when he left. Well, as long as you didn’t count the Brandon Purge.

I sloshed the mop water further into the kitchen. Maybe I should use a rag on the baseboards. What was the point of a clean floor if the baseboards looked grungy?

Or maybe I could call Maia and see what she was up to. Or Vida. Vida could fill a quiet almost as well as I could. Or, as well as I could when I wasn’t moping. But either of them would ask questions, expect me to talk, share. And as happy as it made my heart to finally have friends who cared about me, I wasn’t in the mood to share or talk. I just wanted to wallow.

I leaned on the mop and closed my eyes. The loneliness I’d never let myself name bubbled up. The quiet of the apartment. The isolation. Number Four on my list popped into my head.Adopt a dog and a cat.

I remembered that time in the truck when Wyatt asked me about the items on the list. I’d gone in order. I’d skipped Number Three, which he questioned, but then I’d been able to distract him with Number Four. Had he ever authorized me to have pets in the apartment? Not that I was going to reach out to him any time soon to get permission to have animals in the apartment now.

Because I had a feeling a dog and a cat would go a long way to soothing the hurt that wouldn’t seem to quit. It was starting to feel like Number Three,Find Someone To Love Me, might forever be out of reach. I could turn myself into a Crazy Fur Mom and soothe the pain of missing Wyatt that way.

I wrung out the mop and poured the dirty water over the edge of the landing outside the front door, took a quick shower and collapsed on my bed to stare up at the ceiling fan. I’d made a huge dent in The List and would be celebrating that fact soon with a dinner party at Minerva’s. But Number Three might just have to go on hold.

Part of me felt foolish to have even put such a silly goal on The List. I couldn’t control how other people felt, after all. Goals needed to be achievable. Not wishful. But when he’d appeared on the trail leading up to the yurt, my heart had leapt. Like something from one of the Shameless books, like something from a fairy tale or a fantasy or a girlish dream.

And the days that followed . . . I’d never felt closer to another human in my life. And I might have been rationalizing at the time, but even now, broken-hearted, the truth shone through. The List simply didn’t apply to him.

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