They were going to rip out my heart and stomp on it.
And I was right.
It was a good kind of hurt, though.
“I was out back, drinking a beer with my daddy as he told me that my mother had decided to leave him,” she said softly.
The microphone picked up her pain, though, and radiated it through the entire stadium for all to hear.
“I asked him what the point of love was if divorce was possible after being with someone for thirty some odd years,” she said, wiping a lone tear. “Then his reply to me was to pull my head out of my ass.”
She burst out laughing through her tears, and I wanted nothing more than to go up there and pull her into my arms.
But I left her there to tell the story that I knew she needed to get off her chest.
“After a moment of shocked silence, I berated my father for his bad language, and he gave it to me straight.” She smiled, the corner of her lip kicking up higher than the opposite. “He said, ‘Blake Boston Rhodes. I didn’t raise no dumbass. You’ve got a man that’s one bad ass son of a bitch. Even tougher than I am. You wanna know why? Because I saw the way he looked at you.’”
She’d deepened her voice, even going as far as to put a little twang into her connotations.
“After a moment of shocked silence on my part, I asked him what he meant. And his reply was, ‘Honey, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist. Your mother and me, we had a good time. We lived, we loved, but what we had wasn’t pure like what you and that boy have. What you have will withstand the challenge of time. He’d move fucking mountains for you. All you have to do is let him in. Tell him what you want. And when he comes and asks for your hand in marriage, which I damn well know he will, I’ll tell him no. Then he’ll come and take you from me anyway. That…that right there is what tells me he wants you. He doesn’t care that the woman he loves is the daughter of Shank Rhodes. He cares that you’re happy, and you’re you. That’s what he cares about. So when he asks you to be his, you’ll be the smart girl I know you are, and you’ll say fuckin’ yes.’”
I coughed, laughing with the rest of the people in the stadium as she recounted what her father had said.
I remembered, though, what he’d said to me only one day later when I’d asked him.
“Yes. A thousand times yes. Because I know you’ll treat her like she deserves. But you tell her I said no, because she needs to know I’m there to protect her if she needs it. And know I’ll always be watching you, even if I’m dead and gone. I’ll find a way to kick your ass from the other side of the grave, boy. Fuck up, and you’ll see.”
“Then he’d given me a hug, and brought me another beer where we proceeded to get drunk and celebrate him being a ‘free man’ as he liked to call it,” she laughed. “I’ve never been drunk in my life, but that night, for him, I did it.”
Then, as if in a freakin’ movie, every single member of the SWAT team’s pager started going off.
Blake’s watery eyes focused on my face, and she smiled the first sincere smile I’d seen from her in days.
“And there, boys, is what my daddy lived for. The thrill of the chase, and the excitement of catching the bad guy. Don’t waste time. Get out of here and be safe,” she ordered quietly.
As if in a daze, I stood and, in front of thousands of people, I blew her a kiss. One in which she caught and placed upon her heart.
Love you, I mouthed.
She winked and mouthed back, I love you, too.***“Have you told her yet?” Miller asked.
I glanced up from my perch on the porch steps of the Chief’s home and shook my head. “Nothing to tell.”
I took a sip of my beer, which turned into more of a gulp rather than a sip when I thought about how unfair I was being.
Blake deserved to hear it all, yet I couldn’t find the courage to tell her.
“There’s something to tell. She needs to hear it. Shit like this,” Miller shook his head. “It has a way of coming out. Every single time. Someone’s going to slip, and she’s going to find out what part you played in it. She’s going to know that you were the one that…” I held up my hand to stop Miller’s diatribe.
“I know,” I sighed, rubbing my eyes the best I could with a bottle of beer in my hand. “I fucking know.”
“He doesn’t have to tell me anything. I already know it all,” a soft, tear filled voice called from the opposite side of the railing.
Behind where we both had our backs.
She’d come around the back of the house, most likely to find a little alone time, yet she’d walked into the middle of my pity party.
Miller slapped me on the back as he passed, heading back inside to the reception that was being held in Lou’s honor.
I turned around, placing both hands on the porch railing, beer bottle hanging from one finger I had looped around the lip.
“What’d he tell you?” I asked softly.
She looked stunning in black.
I just wished I hadn’t had to see her in this dress so early in our relationship. She said she only wore it for funerals and that broke my heart.
Her blonde hair was half up, half down, cascading down her back in a long sheet.
Her eyes were rimmed with coal black, and her mascara, as well as eye shadow, was heavier than I’d ever seen it.
She looked just as good now as she had when we’d left the house earlier that morning.
“Everything,” she whispered, looking out over the hundreds of cars that lined her uncle’s street. “He told me everything…and I don’t blame you. Not at all.”