Page 59 of How Dare You
“Are you okay with all that?” Rhett asks.
“I’m never going to let the interest level a man has in my life dictate the way I feel, even if it is my dad.” At least not anymore. I made my peace with his parenting style, or lack thereof years ago. I try to explain another way. “You know how when you’re a kid, you assume what happens in your house is what happens in everyone else’s house?”
He nods. “Because you don’t know any better yet.”
“Exactly. For years, it never even occurred to me that dads were supposed to spend as much time with their daughters as they do with their sons.” Rhett’s brows furrow and his jaw clenches. “It took a long time before I realized we had a specific dynamic. My mom is a lot more interested in my brothers than my dad is in me, but she still treats me like an obvious favorite. It can’t be great for them either.”
Rhett understands that I don’t want pity, or pandering, and probably most importantly he doesn’t try to tell me I need to give my dad more credit. He just listens, and with every passing moment I feel safer in his company. We keep on like that for hours. He asks about my brothers, growing up with Allie, what position I played in volleyball, and on and on. I find out he played baseball in high school, but I don’t believe him when he says he wasn’t very good at it. The day passes in an instant, conversation flowing between us in the easiest kind of rhythm.
Rhett
“Head’s up,” I say, tossing a flannel shirt at Devon. We’ve been sitting on the daybed all day, through lunch and dinner. She’s still in her tiny, silky pajama shorts and my t-shirt, and it’s starting to cool off.
She giggles. Devon giggles. “Just what I need,” she says, sliding her arms into the sleeves and letting it fall around her slender body.
After today, I’ve seen enough of Devon’s smiles that I’ve lost count. She’s letting me in, being casual and comfortable with me in a way she never has before, not even the first night we met or two nights ago when we slept together.
Then, she was trying to prove a point, giving me as much fire as she could while also taking her pleasure. Being physically intimate, but emotionally distant. Now, she’s laughing easily, sharing extra details, giving me even more information than I ask for on every question.
“Did you build this too?” she asks, tapping the teak frame of the daybed. Until she got here, I’d barely ever used it. Now, it feels like hers, just like her chair.
“This might be the only thing out here I didn’t build,” I answer. “I didn’t want to deal with hiring someone for the upholstery.”
“But there’s so much custom upholstery inside?” she asks, pointing toward the trailer.
“My mom did all that for me before I moved away, but all the outdoor furniture came after I no longer lived close to her.”
“That’s so sweet. And she did a really lovely job.” Devon smiles, and I know Mom would eat up the compliments if she were here. “But now you have a designer, so I can help next time you need custom upholstery out here. I’ve got a great workshop I use.” She throws the words out casually, like it isn’t the first mention she’s made of a future of any kind between us. She said I have a designer, but all I hear is I have Devon.
I watch her for a long moment, but she doesn’t seem to catch the significance. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“I know I was really harsh with you about it the other day, which I am sorry about as well, but would you ever seriously consider making your own furniture line?” she asks.
Devon apologizing is an odd experience, like seeing a fish out of water. She was as sincere as she always is, but I could tell it’s not something she’s accustomed to. I told her I forgave her, and the truth is, I can’t imagine a single thing I wouldn’t forgive her for if it meant I got to keep her in my life.
I doubt she realizes what a sensitive chord she’s struck with her inquiry, and I don’t want her to feel bad again, so I’m careful with my response. “I have. There are two dozen more concepts in storage back in Texas.”
She gasps, mouth turning into an easy smile. “I’d love to see them.”
“Hopefully someday you can,” I answer, but what am I hoping for? Devon to come out to Fort Worth with me to look in a storage unit? If I’m honest with myself, I know exactly what I’m hoping for, and that’s not it.
She pulls her knees tight against her chest, warming her bare legs. Even with the flannel, her tiny pajamas and my threadbare t-shirt don’t provide enough heat against the cooling desert air.
I get up and grab a few logs from the woodpile.
“Why haven’t you pursued it further?” she asks.
It’s another part of my life I left behind when I moved here, a failure I was happy to close the door on. I glance up at her between stacking logs into a pyramid in the firepit. Her navy eyes are sparking with the same admiration they carry whenever she inspects my work. She makes me want to reopen that door, if only to make things for her. I’d build her anything she asked for. A whole house-worth of furniture. Or even the house itself.
Devon may be a wound-tight ball of anxiety about Friday West, but it feels impossible that her business isn’t doing well. She holds herself to exacting standards that she’s not meeting, but by any other measure, she’s a force to be reckoned with. It takes a heavy swallow that feels like a literal swallowing of my pride and a deep breath before I respond, “I did pursue it further, last year actually.”
She bypasses the implied failure in my words and smiles warmly at me. “That’s wonderful. Did you enjoy it? Would you ever do it again?”
I laugh, her kindness lifting a weight off my chest. “At first, I loved everything about it. I was still working the engineering job, and I’ve always spent time in my workshop on nights and weekends. Sometimes building things with my dad, but usually on my own. My sister Casey’s the one who recommended I tried to make a proper business out of it.” With the fire lit, I move back to the daybed to sit with Devon, who turns to face me fully with rapt interest. “I got a cohesive collection together, which was the fun part.”
She laughs, knowingly. “I bet.”
“And then I had to get an actual business off the ground, while trying to keep my existing job. Crystal wasn’t a fan of the idea, and she was pretty angry about all the time I put into it.” The sound of her name in this quiet moment with Devon doesn’t sit right. Her memory doesn’t belong here. I’m grateful that I had an opportunity to be honest with Devon about what happened between us, but now I’d be happy to never talk about my ex again. “When I quit my job, I planned to pursue the furniture business full time, but when she left, I gave it up to move out here, and got work in construction instead.”