Trailer Park Heart

“Let me guess, you played Luke Skywalker?”

He snorted a laugh. “Yeah, right. Logan always made me be Darth Vader. He needed a nemesis. I had the, ‘Luke, I am your father!’ line down perfectly.”

I could easily imagine an eleven-year-old version of Levi bellowing out the famous line as he chased his older brother all over his family farm. The two of them would have been terrors together.

“Were you and Logan always close?” I asked him quietly, suddenly mourning the loss of a sibling for my son. He would never have a brother or sister to run around with. I’d shut that door a long time ago and while I thought I’d made peace with it, listening to Levi reminisce cracked fissures in my surety.

“Always,” Levi confirmed. “I can’t imagine a better brother. Yeah, we fought sometimes and there are some things he did that I find hard to forgive him for. But his heart was always in the right place. And he was always there for me.”

“What do you find hard to forgive him for?” The Logan I remembered didn’t do things that caused permanent damage. He was always thoughtful. He always went out of his way to make things right. It was how I knew he would have been an excellent dad for Max. He and I didn’t need a relationship for me to know he would have shown up for our son. Every single day. Just like he’d been there for Levi.

“Dying, for one,” Levi grumbled. “He shouldn’t have left us.”

Hot tears gathered in the corners of my eyes. I felt the truth of Levi’s words cut to my heart. Yes, they were true for Max, but I also felt them for Levi.

“You were another reason I had a hard time forgiving him,” he said.

I looked up to find his glittering green gaze already on me. My breath stuck in my throat and I couldn’t find words to ask him what he meant.

Me, because he was my first? Did Levi know?

Or me, because I was friends with him in a way I’d never been friends with Levi?

Before I could recover, Levi jumped up and asked where the bathroom was. Thankfully, Max answered and I didn’t have to try to formulate words or sentences or stop panicking.

I still couldn’t speak when he walked back into the room, but I’d at least been able to reposition my body so it seemed I was watching the movie.

And not him.

Twenty minutes later, Max’s snoring drowned out the sound of the TV. He’d fallen asleep staring at it and his head was at a funny angle, his glasses cockeyed on his adorable face. Smiling, I jiggled his leg and tried to wake him up.

“Max,” I said softly. “The movie’s not over, babe.”

He mumbled incoherently and rolled to his side. At least his snoring improved.

Levi chuckled softly and said, “I think he’s out.”

“It was a big night for him,” I laughed. “I’ve heard discovering Star Wars for the first time is no joke.”

“You sound unimpressed.” I felt his eyes on me, but I was too busy to look at him. I had a sleeping child to take care of obviously.

“Oh, no,” I answered, distracted. “I was so impressed. So very impressed.” I grunted as I tried to lift Max off the couch by picking him up from underneath his armpits. His arms flopped to the side and I nearly collapsed on top of him. “Max, why are you so big?” I asked no one.

Levi moved behind me, “I can carry him.”

“Oh, no—”

“Seriously, I insist,” he said. “I can take him to his bed, you just point me in the right direction.

“Uh…” Sure enough, Levi scooped him up like he weighed nothing, and I was left scrambling out of the way, so I didn’t get hit by one of Max’s flying feet.

“Which way?” Levi asked.

“Down the hallway,” I said, scurrying to my feet so I could show him. I pushed Max’s door open and hoped for the best. I couldn’t remember what it looked like this morning. Had it been clean? Had it ever been clean? “He’s in here.”

I turned the bedside lamp on and pulled down Max’s covers so Levi could lay him on the bed. My heart punched my breastbone in response to the sight. I don’t think I’d ever seen another person put my son to bed. If my mom did it, I was not home. Mixed emotions flooded my body like a pot boiling over.

Levi leaned over him to make sure he set Max down gently. He grabbed his glasses, folded them carefully and set them on the nightstand. And it was there that I lost whatever remnant of my heart had been holding out against Levi Cole.

How could someone so tall and muscly and stuffed with testosterone, be so completely soft and sweet? How could the same obnoxious boy I knew from my childhood be this kind, considerate man in front of me now. How could I ever reconcile the Levi Cole I thought I knew with the man I was getting to know?

“I’ll let you do your thing,” he whispered on his way out the door and my knees nearly buckled from the weight of emotion pressing down on my shoulders.

I waited for Levi to step into the hallway before I walked over to Max, tugging the covers to his shoulders and kissing the top of his head.

I sat there for a full minute, just brushing his hair back from his forehead and trying to make sense of my life. “I love you a million, Maximillian,” I whispered next to his cheek. His full name wasn’t Maximillian, but I’d been whispering that same phrase to him since I’d brought him home from the hospital.

“I love you too, Mommy,” he mumbled with his eyes closed and his hair already rumpled from sleep.

Tiptoeing out of the room, I crumpled against the wall. My breathing wasn’t steady, and my heart was trying to convince me it had just finished a full marathon. Even my hands were shaking.

“Get a grip, Ruby,” I whispered to myself.

The last seven years of my life had been so devoid of these feelings. Ajax was the only relationship I’d allowed myself to indulge in, but even that was… mild compared to this.

I had butterflies in the beginning with Ajax, but nothing like these, nothing like what Levi made me feel. I’d been smiley and happy and excited to see Ajax early on, but again, Levi had taken whatever amateur feelings I’d experienced with that sham of a relationship and squashed them.

That or my feelings had been taking steroids over the last two months.

Walking into the living room, I found him sitting on the long couch. He’d sat down in the very middle of it, making it seem small and inadequate for his size. His knee bounced rapidly, revealing nerves I didn’t think he was capable of feeling.

Our gazes clashed from across the small space and his lit on fire, burning so hot and so bright I felt them on me like a physical thing. I wasn’t even dressed in anything spectacular. Just some leggings and a large hoodie I’d had since high school. My hair was up on top of my head, knotted in a wild messy bun. I did have makeup on, but it was minimal. Yet, he looked at me like I was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, like I was special and precious and worthy.

The rest of my resolve dissolved. I couldn’t deny the hot surge of lust rocketing through me. I couldn’t deny that I wanted Levi fiercely. I couldn’t even pretend that I didn’t know what was going to happen next.

I did.

I was going to kiss Levi Cole. And I was going to enjoy every single second of it.

18

Mood Killer

Before Levi could ask me what I was doing, I crossed the room and climbed on his lap, my legs straddling his tapered hips. His look of surprise mingled with white, hot lust. I shivered from just that, from the way his eyes flashed, and his mouth parted and the way his hands automatically gripped the backs of my thighs.