Page 28 of Trusting Blake
She yanks Blake by his elbow, and I can’t help but notice that there is something different about her. Her dark hair is as pin straight as always, her attire is immaculately formal, and her features are sharply intense. But not in the normal composed, strong way. No, for once, LeAnne has an edge of worry to her, her posture tense and anxious. “Let’s go. Now,” she orders.
Dad’s hand goes slack on my shoulder. He turns around. “LeAnne?”
All the color drains from LeAnne’s face as she almost flinches in response to her name. “Everett,” she breathes, as if in defeat.
Blake looks at me. I look at Blake. We are wide-eyed, waiting.
If I had to guess how Dad and LeAnne would react to bumping into each other, I would have guessed there’d be aggressive yelling and resentful glares, given the way they have both spoken about each other, but really, they both look like they’re facing the ghosts of their past.
“You need to leave,” LeAnne hisses after staring for a second, her voice finding its strength. But I can hear that she’s not angry – she’s concerned. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“You and I,” Dad says, gesturing at her, “need to talk.” The shock of seeing LeAnne has quickly faded, and I’m guessing that these are his true feelings rising to the surface. With his eyes still shielded behind his sunglasses, he edges toward her and keeps his voice as low as possible to avoid being overheard. It’s nearly a whisper, but the threat is clear: “But don’t youdaretalk to my daughter again.”
“Excuse me?” LeAnne’s entire demeanor shifts as she transforms back into the controlling, intimidating woman I know her as. She purses her lips, her sharp gaze full of spite. “How aboutyoukeep your daughter away from my son.”
Dad tilts his head to look at me, his curiosity piqued. Then he glimpses Blake, landing where LeAnne’s hand is still grabbing his elbow, and I become increasingly aware that the circle of churchgoers around us is tuned into this encounter. I imagine most Fairview locals know all about the history between their town’s two most-famous alumni.
“Hey,” Blake says, trying desperately to ease the thick wall of tension and doing his best to appear nonchalant, offering his hand to Dad with a pleasant smile that is nothing like his signature smirk. It’s very. . . polite, and very fake. We might be in the midst of a deeply bizarre situation but, hey, first impressions matter. “I’m Blake.”
LeAnne slaps his hand down and flashes him a look of betrayal. At this exact moment, a break in the crowd offers the paparazzi a direct line of sight to our awkward tableau.
“MAYOR AVERY, WHAT ISYOUR CONNECTION TO EVERETT HARDING?” is the one question that rings out above all others.
LeAnne, horrified, stares back at the jostling cameras as they click, click, click, snapping pictures of Dad and her in the same frame. She shields her face behind her hand, grabs Blake by his shirt sleeve, and immediately drags him away in the opposite direction. Her instincts are so fast that Blake and I don’t even have the chance to catch each other’s eye one last time to telepathically wish the other good luck for the shitstorm we’re about to be swept up in. Again, I think how what I’d like more than anything right now would be to take off in Blake’s truck with the music blasting to tune out everything but him and me.
Dad ducks his head low, places his hands on my shoulders from behind, and barrels me through the churchgoers toward Sheri’s van at supersonic speed, while more pushy demands from the paps echo in our ears. Sheri, Popeye, and Mom have somehow made it back to the safety of a locked vehicle, but a door unlocks as we arrive and Dad throws it open and practicallyliftsmeinto the backseat.
He shoves me along into the middle and Mom urges Sheri to “Drive, drive, drive!” She thumps her hand against the back of the headrest as if to spur her on.
“Okay, okay, I’m not a horse!” Sheri grumbles as she floors the gas. The crowd of churchgoers jumps back, pretending not to gawk at us as Popeye clings to his seatbelt, his bible on his lap, and I get crushed between my parents. We all duck, instinctively – even Popeye – as the paparazzi sprint into position to snap some final pictures before we disappear out of sight.
But before I’ve had chance to let out a sigh of relief. . .
“Mila,” Dad snaps, whipping his sunglasses off. “Who the hell is Blake?”
The atmosphere changes immediately. The focus is no longer on the ongoing crackle of tension between Dad and Popeye; it has completely shifted to me. Dad glares at me with an expectant look, and Mom turns to me, her perfect brows pinched together questioningly. Sheri catches my eye in the rearview mirror and there’s sympathy in her soft gaze – she was willing to keep my situation with Blake on the down low, but there’s not much she can do to save me now.
“Blake is LeAnne’s son.” Popeye clears his throat and twists around in the passenger seat to look directly at Dad. He doesn’t care to hide his disgruntled expression and I’m sure everyone at church will have noticed just how pissed he is at his family. “You remember she had a son,right?Before Mila came along.”
Dad doesn’t reply. His dark, tired eyes are burning straight through me. “Why did LeAnne ask me to keep you away from her son?”
“Wait. You spoke to LeAnne?” Mom asks in a sharp voice, leaning forward to look past me to Dad. “Back there at church?”
“She attends every week,” Popeye comments with unmistakable smugness in his voice now. “She stopped being a member of that other church down the street years ago. She and her boy have been coming to ours for a long time.”
Mom’s pale cheeks erupt into color, a vivid red. “And you didn’t think to mention that to us, Wesley? Sheri?Mila?” She presses her lips firmly together and aims her attention at me, as though I’m the one who has betrayed her, like I purposely ambushed her and Dad with an apparition from their past. Why am I in the firing line here! Did she forget it was Dad who insisted we all go to church in the first place?
Yet again I am crushed between the two of them, and I tuck my shoulders in tight, my hands laced in my lap. I’m thinking of an answer that makes sense, but I don’t have one. Luckily, Dad doesn’t care, because all he wants is an answer to his own question: “Mila, are you friends with her son?”
Popeye and Sheri exchange a look of concern on my behalf. They know I’ve been hanging around with Blake for the summer, they warned me weeks ago that my parents wouldn’t like it, and what have I done? Only gone and become Blake’s girlfriend, that’s what. But Popeye doesn’t know that part. I glance forward at Sheri; she’s chewing her lower lip as she drives, as though anticipating that our innocent little secret is about to be exposed.
I knew I’d have to tell my parents about Blake. I just didn’t imagine I’d be doing it while trapped between them in the backseat of a speeding minivan weaving its way to the ranch.
“Umm,” I say, twiddling my thumbs, “yes.”
“Well, friendship cancelled,” Mom declares, and I can’t help but be surprised at the edge in her voice as I sense her body pull very subtly away from me. Over the past few days, she has been subdued and emotional, but now her expression is tough and unfamiliar. “You can’t be friends withLeAnne’sson.”
“Why?” I angle toward her, crossing my arms in defiance. “Because you and Dad had an affair behind her back that neither of you were ever going to tell me about?” I challenge. “You expect me to stay away from Blake simply because you screwed up a long time ago.”
