Trailer Park Heart

I side-eyed him. “Oh, yeah? Lots of casual hookups for you over the last seven years then? I heard a rumor that you went home with Kelly Fink last weekend.”

Making a face, he quickly shook his head. “Kelly Fink? Are you serious? No.” He made the face again. “Just no on so many levels.”

“Rumor is, she drove you home.”

He jerked his chin toward an antique store near Pug’s. “I live above the Shiny Penny. She didn’t drive me anywhere.”

I pretended not to feel totally relieved. “Okay, what about the last seven years? Surely, there were girls.”

He fidgeted and wouldn’t meet my eye, but his nervous laugh was what really gave him away. “There was this girl I kissed once upon a time. And I guess, I was always looking for that connection. So yeah, there were a few girls over the years.”

He couldn’t mean me. He couldn’t mean he’d been pining over me for seven years. My heart jumped to my throat and started doing jumping jacks. “She must have been some kisser.”

He shot me a bashful smile and I nearly died right there. A man like Levi Cole wasn’t supposed to be bashful. He was supposed to be fully confident and totally sure of himself. God, this whole other side of him was going to end me.

“She was.” Running his hand over his shortly cropped hair he said. “And I got a taste of her again recently. Turns out it was worth the wait.”

“Is this a trick?” the paranoid part of me couldn’t help but ask. I couldn’t seem to catch my breath or see straight through the frantic butterflies beating wild wings in my chest.

He laughed, and it was genuine and rumbly and wonderful all at once. “What reason could I possibly have for tricking you?”

My gaze inadvertently flickered to Max, a thousand reminders why I should cut this off with Levi surfacing. “Shelby Trainer’s pool sophomore year rings a bell.”

“I told you to put your swimming suit on.”

“I was an insecure fifteen-year-old and you wanted me to parade in front of our entire class in a swimming suit.”

“I didn’t want you to parade,” he argued.

My hand landed on my hip. “You convinced the entire class to have a bikini contest. It was stupid. And chauvinistic.”

He shrugged, and all traces of that remorse faded fast. “I was also a fifteen-year-old kid if you remember. And you weren’t cooperating.”

“You threw me in the pool, Levi! In khaki shorts and a white shirt!”

He looked off, as if remembering. “I know. It was better than a bikini.”

I pushed his shoulders with two hands and he caught my wrists, holding me to him before I could step away. “This is why we can’t be friends, Levi.”

“This is why I want to be more than friends, Ruby.”

A shiver rolled through me again and I shuddered at the feel of his warm hands and hot words. God, I was never going to survive this man coming back to town. I should probably text Coco and prepare her to take on Max full time.

His brows drew down and he took in my outfit with fresh eyes. “Are you cold?”

Absently rubbing my arms, I started to say, “No, I’m fine—”

But he was already taking off his jacket and wrapping it around my shoulders. It was so warm and soft. I sucked in a deep breath, surprised by the heat also curling through my insides, and accidentally inhaled the scent of him lingering in the collar. I pressed my cheek against the smell and heat, unable to stop myself from leaning into this man that was both an enigma and the enemy.

“Is that better?” His voice was low, gentle… kind.

I met his green eyes in the fading light and felt something burst to life inside me. It sent tingles buzzing to all my extremities, making me feel slightly lightheaded. There was no word for the feeling, no existing definition that could possibly explain the sharp sensation of internal change that hit me like a bus out of nowhere.

“Th-thanks,” I managed to whisper. “It feels… nice.” Unlike whatever was happening on the inside of me. That wasn’t a nice feeling. It was worlds flipping upside down and landscapes being rearranged by the finger of God. It was fire and ice and light that burned so bright it hurt to look at.

He smiled in the same way he spoke, with a tenderness so deep and genuine I actually winced. What was this?

And what was wrong with me? Was I so unaccustomed to other people’s kindness, I couldn’t resist Levi’s bare minimum gestures of civility?

“Mommy let’s go to the next one!” Max raced ahead of us. Levi and I fell into step side-by-side again.

“Do you like being a mom?” he asked, his voice that same, startlingly sweet tone.

“I love it.”

“Wow. No hesitation.”

I smiled, watching Max ahead of us, weaving in and out of a family dressed as pirates and princesses. “None. He’s my everything, Levi. I’m so lucky to have him.”

“But what about everything else? College? Your life? Didn’t you give that all up for him?”

I thought about his questions as Max did his Halloween thing, living his very best life. “Yes and no. I am disappointed about college, to be honest. And there are other things. I hate living with my mom. I’m worried about raising Max in this town, around these people. This is not how I planned for my life to go. But… at the same time, it’s so much better than I ever imagined. Max makes up for all the things that feel disappointing. Yes, we have to live with my mom in that park, but Max also gets the best of her. She’s the worst, nobody knows that more than me. But not with him. She’s kind and thoughtful, she takes him places and to do fun things. She’s delightful around him and that’s something I never thought I would see. And you know how much I hate this town, but the school system is great. He’s getting a good education and I like the class sizes and somehow he’s made friends with kids that seem to come from good families.”

“What about college?”

I chewed over the one thing I missed most about my imaginary life before Max. “There’s still time for that,” I finally admitted. “Right now, Max is the greatest thing I can do. He’s a worthy pursuit. He’s my big adventure. And he’s going to leave to have his own one day. Like, he just keeps growing up, no matter how much I try to convince him to stop.” I smiled at my words, gazing after my son with an intense mix of longing and hope. “I can do college then. My idea of life was this linear, logical plan that fit nicely in the careful box I’d crafted for it. But this messy, wild, unpredictable version is so much better, so much worthier of living.”

We were making good progress around the square, almost back to Rosie’s. Max ran back to show me his new loot every stop, but he was too excited about the evening to care what Levi and I were talking about.

Levi was silent for a long time. “You make it seem easy, Ruby.”

I tugged his jacket tighter around me and folded my arms over my chest. “It has never been easy. There hasn’t been a single day that was easy. I don’t think good things ever are. The hard things make the victory and the success so much better, so much more beautiful.”

He turned to face me, stilling me with a hand on my forearm. “Is that our story?”

My heart kicked in my chest just like it had seven years ago at Kristen March’s party. I like you, Ruby, he whispered graduation night. I’ve always liked you.