Page 15 of The Making of Mila and Blake
“Home, if you don’t mind?”
“Hop in,” he says.
The sensation of déjà vu makes me feel disoriented as I slide into the passenger seat of Blake’s truck, the same one we drove around in two years ago. The truck we played music too loud in, the truck we took to Memphis, the truck we kissed in so many times. Blake tugs at his seatbelt and watches me out of the corner of his eye. Are the flashbacks haunting him too? The image of my body straddling his, pressed against the steering wheel as his lips passionately found mine?
“Blake, look, just take me into the city,” Jason pipes up from the backseat.
“Dad, shutup.” Blake glares at his dad in the rearview as he begins to drive.“And put your damn seatbelt on.”
“Jeez,” Jason says. Over my shoulder, I watch him tug on his seatbelt before pointing angrily at Blake. “You.Youneed to stop talking to me like I’m a goddamn kid.”
Blake slams on his brakes, harshly jolting all of us forward. He snaps his head around. “You’re right, Dad, Iamtreating you like a kid, because you won’t quit acting like one. Who’s the parent here? Because it sure as hell isn’t you.”
I stare down at my lap and toy with my hands. I don’t want Blake to feel like I’m listening, but of course I am, it’s impossible not to. The truck suddenly feels a whole lot smaller, the atmosphere charged.
Jason huffs but doesn’t reply, just makes some irritated wave with his hand. He slumps back, arms crossed, glowering out of the window. Blake starts to drive again, pulling out of the parking lot onto Fairview Boulevard, his knuckles pale as he grips the wheel.
I shouldn’t care about him anymore. I shouldn’t feel a pang in my chest at the hurt in his eyes, but God, I do. Blake looks destroyed right now.
“Are things really bad?” I whisper.
He shakes his head and says through stiff lips, “Not now,” and then flicks the volume dial up, filling the truck with music. I glance at him in surprise. It’s not a country song. It’s not his Spotify library. It’s just the roaring chart music of the radio, and if there’s one thing I will always remember about Blake, it’s that heneverlistens to the radio.
No one says another word. We roll along Fairview Boulevard, and I wonder why Blake is heading in the opposite direction from the ranch, but then he pulls off a few minutes later into a residential neighborhood. It’s an area of town I haven’t been to before. The houses are set back far from the street and buried deep amongst greenery. Young kids ride down the middle of the street on their bikes and Blake carefully maneuvers around them before swinging into the driveway of a small bungalow.
“Okay, Dad, you’re home,” Blake announces, pulling his keys from the ignition. He kicks open his door and jumps out of the truck, moving to fetch his dad from the backseat. “C’mon. Get out.”
I remain in the passenger seat, helpless, but mostlyconfused.Jason lived in an apartment in downtown Memphis when I met him. He’d left Fairview many years earlier when he and LeAnne Avery split, but now he’s. . . back? What the hell happened in the past two years? What brought Jason back to Fairview?
“I can do whatever the hell I want,” Jason says, and purposely refuses to get out of the truck despite Blake’s persistence.
“Mila, can you give me a hand?” Blake asks, and I spring into action. I meet him at the back of the truck, wondering if he expects me to haul his dad out of the vehicle. Did he forget I don’t lift weights like he does? I’m not sure how much help I can be, but luckily, Blake wrestles his dad’s keys from his pocket and passes them to me. “Open the door for me, please.”
Taking the keys, I dash across the patchy lawn and stick them in the lock. I rattle them around– Jesus, howstiffis this lock?– while Blake manhandles Jason out of the truck. He guides him toward the front door just as I manage to shove it open.
“Dammit, Dad, c’mon!” Blake growls. “Stop fighting me. Let me grab you some coffee.”
Jason sighs in defeat and heads inside his house. Blake and I follow behind, closing the door.
Similar to his modern yet messy apartment in Memphis, his home here in Fairview lacks. . . well, everything. Decor, personality, warmth. Every wall is blank, the furniture basic. It’s like a ghost lives here. Do empty beer bottles count as decorative items?
“This is so unnecessary,” Jason says. He sinks into the dingy cushions of the couch. “I’m so sick of you butting your head into my business. You act like I have a problem, but I don’t. It’s not like before.”
“It’s exactly like before,” Blake retorts. He turns on the TV and switches over to ESPN, then hands his dad the remote. “Now sit there and watch the baseball recaps. Don’t move.”
Jason rolls his eyes, but appears to make himself comfortable. I think if he attempted to take off out the door, Blake might body slam him to the ground. Jason probably figures the bruises aren’t worth it.
Blake catches my eye and gives me a pointed nod over to the kitchen. We leave Jason on the couch and cross to the kitchen, where the counters are cluttered with fast-food wrappers and the sink is loaded with dirty dishes. It grosses me out way more than I care to admit. The cremated noodles burned onto the bottom of a wok make me gag.
“I know,” Blake says with an exhausted sigh. “Sorry. He’s lost his way again.”
I cover my mouth with my hand and avoid letting my gaze find its way back to that cesspool of a sink. “What happened? I thought he was sober.”
Blake reaches into a cupboard to grab a coffee filter, then fiddles with the coffee machine, his back to me. I lean against the counter and watch the movement of his shoulders. “Yeah, that time we went to Memphis? All that motivation of his only lasted until winter.” He dumps a scoop of coffee beans into the machine, turns it on, then slowly angles toward me. “I should have known it was too good to be true.”
I glance sympathetically over to Jason on the couch. He really was in good spirits back then, seeming content and determined to remain on a sober path. “Why is he here? In Fairview?”
Blake scoffs. “Ha,” he snorts, no humor in his voice. “It’s a long story.”
