“Who told you that?” he interrupted.
“I’m not stupid. I know that you didn’t like me on sight. That you thought I was frivolous and silly. Some rich lady from south Shreveport with her first-world problems.”
Griffin made a face. “You presumed a lot.”
I smiled. “It’s okay because there is more to me than what you see. See ya tomorrow, Griff.”
Climbing out before he could answer, I hurried toward the back stoop.
“Hey,” he called out, showing me Ruby’s keys in his hand. “Can you catch?”
I nodded, knowing that I wasn’t going to catch the dang keys. I was always picked second to last in gym class. Sarah Roberts was always last. Mostly because she had one leg shorter than the other.
Griffin launched the keys with an underhanded lob. And miracle of miracles, I caught those bad boys. My smile told that story, and Griffin sort of chuckled. “Okay, Maddie. See ya tomorrow. And don’t forget, only my friends call me Griff.”
I blinked.
He pointed at me. “Which means you call me Griff.”
I went into my store feeling pretty decent for someone who had failed so badly.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
RUBY
When I pulled into my driveway, I found Ed Earl sitting in the front porch swing. And for a moment he reminded me of a steaming pile of horseshit on the pristine lawn of an English estate.
Very offensive to the senses.
It had been a long day requiring three pep talks with Cricket and a lot of haggling over the price of a set of Wedgwood with a plump older woman who thought she deserved half off because one dang cup had been set on the nearby 50-percent-off table. Capping off my Monday was a missed assignment that caused my homework grade to drop to an 87 percent and a conversation with Griff over Juke that made me uneasy. My family had tried to talk Juke into rehab several times, only to have him bounce back, but it was obvious that my cousin was struggling and needed some intervention.
So to find Ed Earl waiting on me wasn’t like a nail in the coffin of my day. It was a damned wrecking ball plowing through what was left of my decent mood. Which was not much at all.
I parked and climbed out, slamming my car door extra hard. “You can just get yourself up and take yourself home. We’ve got nothing to say, Ed Earl.”
“Aw, come off it, Roo. I’m tired of chasing you.” He stood, the swing slapping his large calves. Ed Earl was a tall drink of water and mean as a cottonmouth—a lethal combination in a criminal. A daunting one in a cousin.
“Who told you where I lived? Because I’m going to kill them,” I said, coming around the front and climbing the steps. I had no intention of letting Ed Earl in . . . or of talking to him beyond getting him off my porch and out of my life.
My gaze snagged upon a bud vase sitting beside the welcome mat. A cluster of yellow carnations. I swallowed hard, waylaid by the simpleness, totally off-kilter from the significance of such a flower on my front doorstep.
Why does everyone want roses all the time? They’re so overdone and overpriced. I like the bright ones, the ones with ruffles, the ones that announce they’re happy to the world.
I can get you those, babe. Say the word and your world can be daisies and yellow carnations.
Word.
“That was there when I got here,” Ed Earl said, nodding his giant bowling-ball head toward the tiny vase.
I reached down and lifted it. No note. But it didn’t need a note.
Digging my house key from my bag, I thrust it into the dead bolt, twisting and pushing so I could get inside quick and shut the door in Ed Earl’s stupid face.
But he had steel-toe boots and the reflexes of a cheetah or some other fast, vicious creature and prevented my evasive tactic.
“What’s with you, Ed? You can’t take a hint?” I turned on him, my own version of a dangerous creature. I wanted to punch him until he screamed, until he felt every bit of the fear, loss, and hopelessness I had felt every night I had lain on that shitty cot, one eye open for Raya D., the meanest bitch in Long Pines Correctional, who had taken a disliking to me when I wouldn’t give her my stupid Valentine’s cookie. I wanted to extract the hate I had carried, rolling it on itself, into a seething ball. Then I would shove it so far down his throat, he’d turn purple. But the thing was, I couldn’t find that hate. Maybe it was gone. Maybe I couldn’t locate it because I had allowed what Ed Earl had done to me to happen. I had played my part and not been strong enough to push him to the ground and put my foot on his throat when I’d had the chance.