Judging by the edge to his voice filtered through his teeth, it wasn’t the first time he’d made that request.
 
Hayden was laughing in his face. And stupid drunk.
 
“Hayden, what are you doing?” I said, rounding the table to get to him. “I’m sorry,” I mouthed to Shayna, who smiled politely.
 
“Jules!” Hayden said, his eyes lighting up like we were all at a party. “We were just talking about you.”
 
“I’ll bet,” I muttered.
 
He slung an arm around me and I tried to use that to move us both along and away from their table, but it didn’t work that way. Noah’s eyes were dark and menacing, and I could only imagine what Hayden had mouthed off about.
 
“Did you know that these two are having a baby?” Hayden said loudly. “That’s fantastic.”
 
“Let’s go, Hayden,” I said, trying in vain to move him. He was surprisingly solid for a drunk.
 
“Just like we had a kid, Julianna,” he said, his words slowing. “Although I’m sure your kid’ll be perfect,” he said to Shayna, who darted a glance from me to the table and back to Noah. “Not like our daughter. I mean, she used to be. When she was born and had all that hair and perfect little fingers,” he said. I stared at him, mortified. “But now she wants to chop her hair sideways, dress like a freak, and have sex with God knows who.”
 
“Hayden!” I pinched him in the side, hoping he’d feel it. He didn’t. “Y’all, I’m so sorry.” I felt my eyes well up.
 
“Jesus,” Noah muttered, shaking his head. “Have some dignity, man. Go home.”
 
“But yours won’t be like that, sweetheart,” Hayden said, leaning toward Shayna, who scooted back more. “Because Jules just had me. You’ve got Superman here.” Hayden clapped Noah on the shoulder, which he shoved off with a jerk of his arm. “What could be more perfect than the man everyone wants.”
 
I closed my eyes, wishing the floor to swallow him whole.
 
“No one could ever live up to you,” Hayden said, refocusing his eyes on Noah. I got the distinct impression he’d just forgotten about Becca in that split second and was on another course entirely. “Not the perfect ghost of Noah Ryan past,” he continued on a chuckle. “Didn’t matter that I stuck around to raise my kid—”
 
Everyone moved at once. Noah stepped forward with lightning speed and I tried to move between them. Shayna’s stool scooted backward as she jumped to her feet. Ruthie hopped sideways to get out of the way.
 
Hayden had the idea all mixed up in his riddled state, and I knew it, and Noah knew it, but it triggered something primal that was already touchy.
 
“Noah, don’t, he’s drunk,” I yelled, turning my back to him and pushing against Hayden, dimly aware that we were developing an audience. “Stop this, damn it!” I yelled up into his face.
 
“Let him come, if he’s such a badass,” Hayden slurred, wrapping an arm around my neck possessively. Even drunk I could feel every muscle in his torso tensed and tight, wound and ready for a fight. It was an old hurt with him, his insecurity over Noah. His feeling that I never gave my heart to him completely. I thought it was a buried subject. Clearly, not so much. “Maybe I’ll show you once and for all the difference between a real man and a memory.”
 
As he said it, I felt Noah’s body against my back.
 
“You don’t want to go there, buddy,” he growled.
 
“Hayden—” I pleaded, but my voice was cut off as he pushed Noah back, jostling me in the process. His arm around me tightened and I wrestled against him. “Hayden, stop it!”
 
As Noah moved forward again, Hayden’s awareness of me morphed into more of an annoyance—something in the way of what he wanted. His grip on me turned into leverage to fling me aside, and like something in a slow-motion action scene I saw an empty table coming my way. Or more like it saw me coming its way.
 
Ruthie yelped as I crashed into it, and it probably looked and sounded worse than it was, as silverware and a metal napkin holder banged to the floor with me.
 
That was it.
 
In time that didn’t seem possible, Noah lunged at Hayden and spun him on the spot, wrenching his arm behind him and planting his face on the table. With his other hand he yanked Hayden’s head up by the hair so that he was sure to see me, and leaned down, his face contorted with something unrecognizable to me.
 
“That your idea of a real man, asshole?” he growled into his ear, his voice seething. “Throwing her around?”
 
Ruthie and Shayna rushed to either side of me, taking an arm.
 
Hayden’s eyes slowly adjusted on me, still reeling from the shock of moving so fast and not seeing it coming. I saw the dawning in his expression.
 
“I’d never hurt her,” he said, his voice cracking.
 
“No, you just wear her like a trophy,” Noah said, barking in his ear. Which wasn’t really true, but my current position on the floor wasn’t the place to pipe up on that. “Beat down her dreams so far that she doesn’t even remember she had them.”
 
What? My head spun, wondering where that came from.
 
“Was that just your thumb on her?” Noah hissed in his ear. “Or did you join forces with her mother on that?”
 
I scrambled to my feet ahead of Shayna and Ruthie’s helping hands, the words burning in my ears.
 
“Noah, I’m fine,” I said. “Let him go.”
 
He yanked on Hayden’s hair a little harder, pulling his head into an awkward position. “Feel like a real man now? Get your point across?”
 
Hayden’s face was blood red, and there were angry tears in his eyes. He was too drunk to really know the scene he’d caused, but not drunk enough to not feel the embarrassment.
 
“Noah,” I repeated, which fell on deaf ears. I wrapped both hands around his arm and tugged, putting my face right next to his. “Noah!”
 
His head jerked in my direction, and the eyes that met mine were glazed over. Realization hit a second later, and he stood upright again, moving me behind him with one hand before releasing his grip on Hayden.
 
“Are you okay?” he asked under his breath, and I nodded.
 
Hayden jerked upward and stumbled sideways, searching for dignity and anonymity at the same time. I grabbed his arm and turned him around so we could walk away. All I wanted was away.
 
“Don’t bitch about your daughter or trash her in public,” Noah said, his voice thick with simmering aggression. Hayden tensed and paused mid-step but didn’t turn around to face him. “Be glad you’ve gotten to know her at all.”
 
Heat flashed from my neck to my scalp on the stab, and I looked away as his gaze landed on me.
 
“Let’s go find your buddies,” I said to Hayden, wondering where they’d been for the floor show.
 
He pulled his arm free, refusing to look at me. I knew he was horribly humiliated, and horrified that he’d pushed me down. Even in his current state, he was coherent enough to remember that. Never since I’d known him had he ever gotten physical with me, and I’d definitely seen him a lot worse off.
 
“They left,” he grumbled.
 
“They left you here?”
 
He shook his head, running fingers through hair that was sticking up in all directions. “I met them here.”
 
I blew out a breath. “Well, you aren’t driving.” I glanced at Ruthie and she nodded. It was time to call it. “We’ll take you home.”
 
Ruthie took over walking Hayden out while I paid our bill. When I chanced a look toward their table again, Shayna was picking things up to leave as well, and Noah wasn’t around. She looked distracted and distant. I walked back over there and smiled politely the way I’d come to expect from her, and she touched my arm.
 
“Are you okay?” she asked, sounding genuine.
 
I nodded. “I’m fine. I’m—really sorry he came to hassle you. He’s going to be so mortified tomorrow when he remembers this.”
 
She shook her head with a smile. “You don’t have to apologize, Jules. It wasn’t your fault.”
 
Kinda was.
 
“Well, it was my ex-husband being a douche, so—”
 
She smiled but her eyes didn’t, and the hands that shouldered her bag trembled a little. “Well, Noah didn’t have to rise to the bait, either,” she said. “That was his choice.”
 
I raised an eyebrow, remembering the flash reaction. “I’ve never seen Noah get so—” I stopped. “But then I’ve never seen him be an adult before, so what do I know?” I said, attempting a chuckle that fell short.
 
“He has a hot fuse,” she said. “I’m sure the military created some of that, but he also has a lot of baggage.” She looked down and palmed her still-flat belly and then looked back up at me with those same distracted, distant eyes. “And he wears that baggage twenty-four-seven, so I’m used to it pissing him off on occasion.”
 
I wasn’t sure what she meant by that, but something in me wanted to put her at ease. She looked troubled. And was likable, damn it.
 
“Well, I’m sorry that Hayden ruined your evening.” And me. And Noah’s baggage. I glanced around at the crowd that was left, wondering if any of them were regulars at the diner. God, Johnny Mack would have a field day with gossip like this. “Hopefully Noah’s dad won’t get wind of it and this can all die down.”
 
She chuckled at that. “He’s quite the character.”
 
There was a definition.
 
“Quite.”
 
“You know, even Noah thinks he’s acting weird,” she said. “I told him that he’s just been gone too long to know.”
 
“Exactly,” I said, moving as I spoke. I spotted Noah coming from the restroom and didn’t want questions. Or advice. Or resolutions. Or pity. I didn’t want any more conversation with him, period. “He’s just odd. That’s all there is to it.”
 
She laughed, and that time it was real, transforming her face into rainbows and sunshine. I said my good-bye and made my way to the door around the long way so that I wouldn’t pass him. I caught his look across the room anyway. I couldn’t read it, but it lit my skin up.
 
 But he wasn’t walking to me. He was walking to Shayna. I had to admit, I could see the attraction. She was genuine, and sweet, and beautiful. And impossible to despise.
 
I, on the other hand, was walking to the car to bring home my drunk and slightly obnoxious ex-husband. I was one lucky lady.
 
He was leaned up against Ruthie’s car when I got outside, with his arms crossed and his lips in a tight line.
 
“He wouldn’t get in,” Ruthie said, throwing her arms up. “I give up, he’s too big for me to shove in, and these heels aren’t spiky enough to poke holes,” she said with a smirk and a head tilt.
 
“Get in,” I said, leaving no room for argument. “You’re going home. I’m going home. This night has officially kicked my ass.”
 
“I didn’t mean to push you, Jules,” he said, his voice belying his stony expression.
 
I met his eyes, and they looked worried. “I know,” I said. “But if you’d just kept your mouth shut it would have never come to that.”
 
“I had to meet him.”
 
I sighed and closed my eyes, disgusted. “And a handshake and a hello wouldn’t do it for you?” I rubbed at my face and opened the front passenger door since he was leaning against the back one. “Get. In.”
 
He gave me one last imploring look, and got in, all his puffed up-ness deflating in defeat.
 
I got in the back, and Hayden was snoring before we even made it to the highway.
 
 
 
• • •
 
 
 
My eyes felt gritty and heavy, the result of staring at my bedroom ceiling instead of sleeping. It had crisscrossed beams that made a cool pattern, but not that cool. My brain just wouldn’t shut down.
 
Becca had made her curfew, which normally would have me feeling all kinds of happy toward her, but I wasn’t finding the happy. Not with her, not with her dad, not with Noah. Not even with myself when I thought about how unfair I’d been to Patrick.
 
He wasn’t an emotional attachment, no, I didn’t allow myself those. But I did like him. He was funny and witty and fun to be with. He was a good guy, and I’d been a real bitch. I wasn’t proud.
 
Becca, however, kept coming back to the forefront. Most of the night I’d spent working out the scenario. Working on my initial approach. It wasn’t going to go well, I knew that instinctively, and once she was pissed she would tune out everything else. Therefore, anything I needed her to soak up had to be up front.
 
Becca, I love you. There’s more to protection than birth control. Condoms protect your life.
 
Yeah, no.
 
Do you love this boy? Because having sex will affect all of you, not just your body.
 
Becca was a savvy girl, and unfortunately had inherited my ability to spot bullshit from a mile off. While all of my points were valid, none of them completely covered my real agenda in the two actual sentences she might hear. Which was basically Having sex before you’re ready and with someone you don’t actually love or even know all that well just to get it over with is a bad idea, and, oh, yeah, you can catch a life-threatening disease or end up pregnant with life-altering decisions at the age of seventeen.
 
Deep breath.
 
If only I could do that. Write it in a card, or better yet, text it to her. That would increase the likelihood of it being read.
 
I swung my legs down and rubbed my tired eyes, thinking orange juice sounded good and knowing we didn’t have any. I wondered if I should send her to the store before she got angry with me or just do without. She wouldn’t be up yet anyway, since it was only eight o’clock on a Saturday.
 
I trudged downstairs to make coffee and was surprised to see her curled up on one of the couches, pillows piled around her, reading a book.
 
“You’re up early,” I said.
 
She looked up with a yawn. “Had a scary dream so I thought I’d come down here and read.”
 
I felt the old heart tug. “And the pillow brigade?”
 
She grinned. “My protection against the evil forces.”
 
I laughed, heading around the kitchen bar to the coffeepot. “I remember the days when you’d come jump in bed with me after a nightmare.”
 
“Don’t think I didn’t consider that.”
 
It was an easy morning, no animosity, no drama, no attitude. Why did I want to go and ruin that with parenting? I rounded the kitchen island to get the coffee going, knowing full well she hadn’t been that helpful.
 
“So, what are you reading?”
 
Becca held up a copy of The Great Gatsby.
 
I raised an eyebrow. “On purpose?”
 
“For school,” she explained. “Supposed to be done by Monday.”
 
I chuckled. “And you started it—?”
 
“This morning,” she said on a sigh that lent itself much better to the attitude I knew would be coming.
 
“Ah. Good luck with that.”
 
I got the coffee gurgling and just stood there, not quite knowing where to begin. Yes, I did. Of course I knew where to begin, I just didn’t want to begin. I was operating on no sleep and too much drama and wasn’t in the mood to dive off into a battle of wills. Not that there was anything saying I couldn’t wait to battle it out later. I didn’t have to kick off the morning with it.
 
I perched on the armrest of a sofa, not wanting to invest in complete comfort till I had my steaming mug in my hand.
 
“So, how was your night?” I asked. “Didn’t get to talk to you last night.”
 
She raised her eyebrows, mocking me. “Yes, I beat you home, missy.”
 
I chuckled and rubbed my eyes, remembering the drama of bringing Hayden home and how he kept hugging and apologizing at the door.
 
“Yeah. Regular party animal.”
 
“Did you and Aunt Ruthie have fun?” she asked, deterring off of herself.
 
I opened my mouth and closed it again. “Sort of,” I said, finally. “At times.”
 
“What does that mean?” Becca said on a laugh, setting the book in her lap.
 
“Well, the night had its moments,” I said. “Good and bad.”
 
She gave me another haughty look. “Sounds like you were a party animal.”
 
I shook my head and laughed quietly. “No. Not those kinds of moments.” I wasn’t about to tell her that her dad got stupid drunk and tried to brawl it out with my high school boyfriend, or any other highlights for that matter. “What did you and your friends end up doing?”
 
Becca shrugged and picked her book back up. “Went to a movie, walked around the mall, just stuff.”
 
Just stuff. Love that.
 
“Get anything at the mall?” I asked, knowing how to find the details if I wanted to.
 
“Yeah, that little kiosk by the food court with the leather stuff and jewelry? They had bracelets two for one, so I couldn’t resist.” She grinned and held up her wrists to show off two beaded and braided leather strips. I got up to look closer and smiled.
 
“Cool,” I said. “Very you.”
 
“That’s what I thought, too,” she said, smiling to herself.
 
I kissed her forehead and messed up her hair before I headed back to the kitchen for my coffee, batting around my options. On the one hand, I didn’t want to ruin a good mood. On the other, being a parent sometimes just had to suck.
 
“Are we donating to the clothes drive this year?” she asked as I came back in.
 
I sighed, feeling that familiar Winter Carnival annoyance like a fly buzzing in my ear. Only this year, more so. I attributed that to Noah’s return, stirring up things I’d pushed down for years.
 
“Do you have clothes you want to get rid of?”
 
“Only so I can make room for new,” she said with a cute little grin.
 
“Well, as long as your priorities are in place.”
 
“I was asked to help with a float this year,” she said. “Lizzy’s mom and dad are doing one with their four-wheelers, like I think they are connecting them or something.”
 
Of course they were. The Cleavers. On four-wheelers.
 
“Oh, cool, that’ll be fun,” I said, pretending it would be.
 
“Why haven’t we ever done that?” she asked. “We could have done something with Dad’s truck.”
 
Because I’d rather be buried alive. “I don’t know, Bec, I guess we never jumped on it in time.” How old would she be before that excuse stopped playing? “Go through your clothes and get me a bag if you want to donate.”
 
She shrugged. “Okay.”
 
I sank onto the couch next to her with my coffee, sitting sideways to face her while pulling a pillow on my lap. Comfort moves. She put her book down again, looking at me questioningly.
 
“So, I heard that you have a new boyfriend,” I said, a small smile in place, hoping to nail that let’s-talk-girl-stuff ambiance.
 
The change in her eyes, however, told me I didn’t. Or that girl stuff wasn’t a place she wanted to go with me, at any rate. I saw the walls come up.
 
“Did you?” she said, her voice edgy.
 
“Yes, and don’t be mad at Ruthie,” I said, tugging on her oversized T-shirt.
 
“Of course not,” she said. “Why would I be mad when someone lies to me? Can’t imagine.”
 
“She’s looking out for you, Bec,” I said. “She felt that I needed to know what was—”
 
“If I wanted to talk to my mother about it, I would have,” she said, tossing her book on the coffee table. “I thought I was talking to a friend that I could trust.”
 
I licked my lips as the dig hit home.
 
“Aunt Ruthie is a friend, Becca, but she’s also an adult who knows that sometimes you have to make tough choices to take care of people you love.”
 
“Well, she won’t have to worry about that anymore,” Becca said, pushing the blanket off her lap and swinging her pajama-clad legs down. “I’ll keep my crap to myself.”
 
“Becca—”
 
“Seriously, Mom,” she said, facing me with the most mature expression I’d ever seen on her. “Of all the people I thought I could trust to keep their mouth shut, it was her. Now I have nobody.”
 
I flinched. “Excuse the hell out of me? You have plenty of somebodies, Becca. You have Ruthie, you have Nana Mae, your dad, your friends—me.” I narrowed my eyes at her. “You always, always and forever have me.”
 
“Only if I’m saying what you want to hear,” she said quietly.
 
“That’s not true,” I said, my mind frantically pulling at itself, wondering if it was. Something was eerily reminiscent.
 
“Whatever, Mom,” she said, getting up.
 
“Becca, please, sit down,” I said. At her look, I gestured to her seat.
 
Instead of sinking back down, she walked around the coffee table to the opposite sofa and sat, pulling her feet up to her chest and gazing absently at nothing.
 
It was going well.
 
“Like it or not, sweetheart, you aren’t an adult yet,” I said, adjusting my position to face her. “There are things I need to know.” At her silence, I took a swallow of coffee, relishing the burn on the way down. “Like who this boy is?”
 
“I’m sure you already know that,” she said flatly.
 
“How long have you been seeing him?” I asked.
 
She closed her eyes and gave a tiny head shake, as if she couldn’t believe the conversation. Seeing as I’d felt that way the night before, I didn’t care.
 
“A couple of weeks.”
 
“A couple of weeks,” I repeated. “And you’re asking about birth control?”
 
She rubbed her face and kept her hand partially covering her eyes. “We aren’t talking about this,” she said, as if to herself.
 
“Oh, but we are,” I said, her attitude spiking mine. “Do you know that safe sex isn’t just about avoiding pregnancy?”
 
“Fully aware, actually,” she said, still resting her face in her hand. “There are these balloon thingies. I think they’re called condoms.”
 
I swung my feet down and set my mug on the table with a thud, causing a tiny splash to spill over the edge.
 
“You have some nerve talking to me like that, little girl,” I said, her mouth setting off my ire the way it always did.
 
“I’m not a little girl, Mom—”
 
“Oh, when you get snarky with me like you think I’m your equal, Becca, that shows me just how little you still are,” I said. My tone brought her hand from her face, and I saw the tiniest worry over what she might lose in her eyes. “You want to be treated like an almost-adult, act like one.”
 
Both her hands went to her face on a deep sigh, then she dropped them. “Fine, what do you want to know?”
 
“Why keep this boy a big secret?” I asked.
 
“He’s not.”
 
“Really? Then why not bring him over here? Introduce him.”
 
She scoffed. “So you can put him through the Spanish Inquisition? No, thanks.”
 
“I don’t do that.”
 
“You totally do that,” she countered. “You do that with my friends that I’m not going to make out with, so God help the ones I do.”
 
“Becca,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm and rational. “You are considering something far beyond making out. Something that should be special with someone you love.”
 
“Oh, my God, Mom,” she groaned. “Are you seriously trying to sound like an old woman?”
 
I gaped at her. “Are you seriously trying to be a brainless twit? You want to throw yourself away just to say you’ve done it?”
 
“Jesus,” she muttered, pressing her forehead against her knees. “I don’t want to do anything. I was just asking some questions in case it came up.”
 
Right.
 
“Well, if he’s someone you’ll consider falling into bed with if the subject comes up, why don’t you bring him around?” I asked, knowing full well that wouldn’t happen. Especially not now.
 
“So you can ask him a million questions?” she said, raising her head. “Hover over us in case we accidentally kiss? Have a meltdown if we go upstairs to watch TV?”
 
“Oh, you won’t go upstairs,” I said, sitting back and pulling my feet under me.
 
“Well, of course not,” Becca said, melodrama now in full gear. “Because that’s rule number 553 of the Julianna White book of etiquette. Never, under any circumstances, have a boy in your room. His sperm might jump out and infest you!”
 
I dropped my head into my hand. “Becca—”
 
“You must have been a dream child for your parents,” she said. “Did you keep a log of your gold stars, too?”
 
I looked up and stared at her, feeling my skin create a million goose bumps. “No,” I said quietly. “I was no dream child. And I’m not expecting you to be. But when I find out that you are talking to someone else about sex when I didn’t even know there was a guy in the picture, and then you tell me it’s only been two weeks—baby girl, I worry. Somewhere along the way, you got the idea that sex is all physical.”
 
“Oh, my God, Mom,” she said, rising to her feet. “No, I don’t. But that’s what you hear because all you hear is you. This is exactly why I didn’t come to you.” She gestured around her. “I didn’t want a lecture on love and birds and bees. I’m not stupid, Mom.”
 
“I never said you were stupid.”
 
“No, you said I was a brainless twit,” she said, snatching her book from the table.
 
Of all the things I’ve said in her life, that’s what she remembered.
 
“Bec—”
 
“I’m not a five-year-old, either,” she said. “If you’d actually listen to me, and hear me for once, you’d know that—yes, okay, maybe I’m asking questions and I’m interested but I’m also not an idiot. If I was an idiot, I wouldn’t be asking about birth control.”
 
I met her gaze and let a few beats pass. “I just don’t want to see you do something foolish and ruin your plans, baby.”
 
Becca let out a long breath and shook her head, walking up the stairs. “Whose plans, Mom? Mine or yours?”