Page 39 of Just One Chance
Avery fished a shrimp out of her bowl, piling grits on top of it before putting the whole bite into her mouth. She didn’t hurry. Shrimp and grits was a meal to be savored, after all. She’d let Melba ask her questions, but she didn’t have to make it easy on her. “So,” she repeated, when she’d swallowed her food.
Melba leaned her elbows onto the table. “I saw Tucker’s truck this morning,” she said. “Mite early for a visit, wasn’t it?”
Avery kept her eyes on her food. A part of her wanted to lie just to spite Melba. Nothing had happened with Tucker. But if it had, it wasn’t Melba’s place to tell her what she could and couldn’t do. But Melba only asked because she was concerned. And based on how Tucker had behaved the night before, she had reason to be. Avery swallowed her pride. “Nothing happened, Melba.”
Melba raised an eyebrow. “Nothing? Was he there all night?”
“Yes. But nothing happened. He showed up at my house and I could tell he’d been drinking. I didn’t want him to drive himself home, so I let him stay. But he slept on the couch.” Not that he hadn’ttriedto sleep in her bed.
Melba nodded her head, then looked at Avery’s phone, still sitting on the table next to her. “Well that’s a relief. I didn’t think you were the kind of woman that would share her bed with one man, when you’re actually interested in another.”
Heat traveled up Avery’s neck, pooling in her cheeks; Melba’s words struck a little too close to the truth. She reached up and flipped over her phone, face down onto the table. How had Melba seen what she’d been reading anyway?
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Avery asked. “I’m not interested in David. And things with Tucker are fine.” Well, fine-ish. Her night with Tucker hadn’t beenawful,exactly. When she’d invited him over, she’d definitely thought about where the night might lead. But then he’d shown up already halfway to drunk. He’d pressured her in ways that had made her really uncomfortable and had been sullen and rude when she’d insisted he sleep on the couch. She’d wanted to believe that Tucker was all in, interested in making their relationship what she’d always believed it could have been the first time around. But the night before had felt a lot like their old relationship. It might just have been the alcohol talking, but is that what she wanted? A relationship where she had to ask that question?
“Avery, what’s this about? This whole idea of getting back together with Tucker?” Melba reached over and squeezed Avery’s hand. “It didn’t work the first time around, sugar. What makes you think this time will be any different?”
Avery considered the question. The summer she’d met Tucker, she’d been working at the yacht club, putting herself through school, scrimping and saving every penny so she could afford to live out on the island and help her grandma cover the property taxes that made beach living so expensive. She’d always known Charleston was full of old money, but she’d never really experienced it up close. She’d grown up going to public high school, shopping at the outlets, eating seafood from the fish camps out on the islands. She wasn’t a King Street boutiques and Magnolia’s Sunday brunches kind of girl. She’d never felt like she was missing out, either. Not until that summer. She’d been scrubbing the dock right beside the King’s sailboat when Tucker had emerged from the bowels of the boat, a cold water bottle in hand. He’d passed it to her with a wide smile, showing his perfectly straight teeth. “You look like you could use this,” he had said.
Next thing she knew, she was wearing sundresses and wedge sandals, attending garden parties and symphony concerts on Tucker’s arm. Every weekend, it was something different, somewheredifferent. Restaurants she’d only ever walked past. Wine that cost more than she earned in a week. Benefits that took place inside mansions she’d only read about in history books. She didn’t miss the parties or the events. She’d never loved getting dressed up or pretending like she cared about people she knew she’d never see again. There were things she had missed, though.
“Is it about the money?” Melba asked.
Avery looked up. “What? No. It’s definitely not that.” And it wasn’t. At least not directly. The luxuries that came along with dating Tucker were a nice perk, but for Avery it was more about the opportunities that came from being associated with the King family. Avery had fought her entire life to get what she wanted. She’d fought to get into the magnet high school in her school district. Fought to get into the College of Charleston. Fought to save enough money to live where she wanted. Fought to get her dream job at the aquarium. But Tucker didn’t really have to fight. His name alone opened doors that would never open to Avery on her own. “It’s dumb,” Avery said, finally meeting Melba’s eye. “I know you’ll think it’s dumb anyway.”
“Try me,” Melba said.
Avery took a steadying breath and fiddled with her spoon, scraping it around the edge of her bowl. “I guess it’s about feeling important,” she said. “I felt special, you know? Tucker could have dated any girl he wanted. And he picked me.”
Melba tilted her head, her eyes narrowed. “I think you’re maybe putting that boy up on a pedestal where he doesn’t belong. He’s just a man, Avery. And one that broke your heart pretty solid if I remember correctly.”
“I know he did, but . . . he’s being really sweet this time around. It’s different.” Avery pushed thoughts of the night before out of her mind. One bad night didn’t disqualify all the other times Tuckerhadbeen sweet.
Melba cleared her throat but didn’t say anything else about Tucker. It made Avery nervous. With Melba, silence usually meant she had thoughts she’d decided were too mean to actually share out loud.
“Always choose kindness,” Melba had told Avery once, when she was a little girl. They’d been sitting on Melba’s back porch, Avery and her grandma, drinking Cheerwine from the old green fridge and talking about middle school. Avery was weeks away from starting the seventh grade and was convinced middle school girls were the meanest on earth.
“Child, you just be nice to everybody,” her grandma had said.
Melba had nodded her agreement. “You won’t be able to change how other people treat you,” Melba had said. “But ifyouare always kind, you can at least guarantee that when you go to sleep at night, you won’t feel regret.” As far as Avery could tell, Melba had always lived by the mantra, though often enough that meant sitting through conversations in silence if she didn’t trust herself not to say anything mean if she let herself say anything at all.
“Tell me about David,” Melba said, giving Avery a pointed look. “What’s going on with him?”
“Nothing,” Avery answered, a little too quickly. She’d been hoping for a subject change, but this one felt like jumping from one hot skillet into another.
Melba shot her a look and Avery rolled her eyes. “We got into a little disagreement the other night. But it’s fine. I apologized. He apologized. We’re friends.”
“What was the argument over?”
Avery hated to tell her. It wasn’t exactly going to help her convince Melba that Tucker wasn’t a week’s worth of bad news. She stalled by eating a few more bites of her dinner. When she reached for another slice of cornbread, Melba moved the pan away and shook her head. “Nope. Talk first. You’ll get more when you’ve said your piece.”
Avery huffed. “Why are you being so hard on me?”
“It took me three hours to make that supper sitting in front of you. I even walked down to Barley’s and bought the shrimp fresh. They were swimming at the bottom of the ocean six hours ago and now they’re in your bowl, thanks to me. I think I’ve earned the right to make a few demands, don’t you?”
Avery pursed her lips. If she didn’t love Melba so much, she might be annoyed. “David thinks I shouldn’t be dating Tucker. He says he doesn’t trust him.”
Melba smiled. “Does he, now?”
