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“Yes. Even after we were over.”
I took a deep breath. “Okay. I’ll stop by sometime this weekend. I also want to see my grandma, but it’s hard. You know?”
“I’ll go with you if you want.”
“Really?”
“Absolutely. Just let me know when.”
“You’re the best.”
“I think you are you, too.”
Rhys kept looking at me, making my heart flutter and a rush of heat race through my body. Then Mrs. Jenkins returned to our table with our glasses of tea. Once she’d walked off again, I told Rhys that my grandpa was coming over to eat supper with my parents and me later.
“That’ll be a good time,” he said.
“Rachel and Jackson are also coming. Would you like to join us? You know my momma and daddy would be thrilled.”
“I appreciate the invitation, but I’ve got to get three of the B&Bs ready.”
“Another time, then?”
“Of course.”
“Speaking of time… I’m running out. I wish I could stay in town longer.”
“You could.”
“No, I can’t. I have rent to pay, which requires me to work.”
“What if I paid your rent?” Rhys winked at me.
“You’re something else.”
“I’m serious. If I did, would you stay for another week? We could keep having fun.”
“My need to leave on Sunday isn’t only about my rent, which I can pay. It’s also about my boss. He’s understood my absence for a week, but I don’t think he would for another one.”
“I know. It’s just that I hate for you to leave.”
The words between us stopped, but Rhys and I kept staring into each other’s eyes. The wanting look in his made another rush of heat race through me, settling between my thighs this time. Then, a song began playing on Gallagher’s sound system that Rhys and I knew all too well, just like the memory attached to it.
Hearing it sent him flying back into the past like it had me—evidenced by the matching “Oh God” looks on our faces. A moment later, Rhys grabbed my hand and held it while running his thumb over the heart-shaped locket tattooed on my ring finger.
As George Strait’s “Give It All We Got Tonight” continued playing, I fully recalled a summer night after Rhys and I graduated from high school. We’d finished eating supper at Gallagher’s and decided to cruise the backroads.
The day’s heat had dissipated, so Rhys rolled down the windows on Black Betty and turned up the music on the radio. We sang along with several songs while enjoying the scent of honeysuckle in the air and just being together. Then I leaned over and started running my tongue up and down Rhys’s neck, tasting his warm, salty skin.
It wasn’t long before he pulled over and parked on the side of the dirt road. I straddled his lap, and we kissed until we were breathless. Taking off our clothes came next, followed by us having sex in the front seat as this very George Strait song played.
Rhys’s condom broke that night, causing us both to panic. A few weeks later, we both smiled when the pregnancy test I took came back positive. For some reason, our fear of becoming young parents went away at that moment.
Rhys and I discussed telling our families about our exciting news and decided to do it three days later, after church—but I miscarried early that Sunday morning in my bathroom at my parents’ house. Rhys and I both cried when I called him to let him know what’d happened. Then he told me that he was on his way to see me.
I went downstairs long enough to tell my momma, daddy, and Rachel that I’d started my period and wouldn’t be going to church with them because I was cramping too severely. I also told them that I’d asked Rhys to come over to help me feel better. Under the same monthly circumstance, I’d done that many times before, so no red flags were raised.
Half an hour later, Rhys walked into my bedroom with a bouquet of freshly picked wildflowers, a large cherry limeade from Sonic, a brand-new heating pad, and a bottle of Advil dual-action pain reliever. I mirrored his weary smile, and then he stretched out beside me on my bed and held me in his arms—both of us grieving what we’d lost.
