decide to take my sweet time and use the back roads to get home. The wind coaxes my hair to tickle my face before ridin’ the current back behind me, and soon, the rush of air all around drowns out my contentious thoughts. I hum along to Garth Brooks’s “Ain’t Goin’ Down” on the radio and try to not think about what’s next.
The turn that will take me home is comin’ up, and for a moment, I’m tempted to drive past it. Maybe I’ll drive out to that bar and see if I can piece together what happened. But just as soon as that thought starts to bloom in my mind, I swat it away.
Retracin’ my steps before a tribulation hit has never helped before. And just in case someone is lookin’ for me to even whatever score I may have started last night, or to drop a bill for damage at my feet, it’s better to stay away. By some miracle, I managed to drop my work truck off and find my way home, so I’ll just be grateful for that and keep on movin’. I can’t have done anythin’ too bad if it wasn’t on the news, right?
I take the turn that leads home, chucklin’ at the sign at the entrance for the Sunshine Trailer Park that now has the word sunshine crossed out with fresh spray paint and a more festive shithole sprayed underneath. Changin’ the name of that sign is like a rite of passage in this town. I wonder if we’ll ever see a day where the owner just gives up and lets the vandalism be.
There are so many cameras and floodlights on that sign by now that I bet it can be seen from space, and yet somehow, someone still manages to mess with it.
I turn into my parents’ humble neighborhood where the trailers are small but neat and the lawns are tidy and green. Well, all except ours. Daddy is in some kind of argument with the neighbors catty-corner to us, and he’s refused to cut the grass ever since. I couldn’t tell you why, and he won’t talk about it. These days, Mama and I just shrug it off and gently offer to trim the blades of green down ourselves, and hopefully the subsequent animosity, but Daddy just ain’t there yet. I’m givin’ it another month or so.
Pullin’ up, I park behind a gray SUV that’s too nice to belong to anyone in this part of town, and I wonder if the neighbors are bein’ investigated by the feds again or if maybe someone around here has some well-to-do relative that stopped by to see how the other side lives.
I turn the Jeep off and climb out, cussin’ at the swelterin’ heat and humidity as it tries to cling to me on my walk from my car to the front door of my parents’ trailer.
“I’m home,” I say as I pull open the screen door and hang my keys on the hook next to the front door. “Don’t worry, Mama, your second favorite church hat is safe, because I handled Patty the Prat in my own special little way,” I call out with a mischievous smile.
I look over and freeze in my tracks at who I see sittin’ at the table.
My startled gray gaze lands on yellow hair and a chiseled body with lavender-colored skin, the watercolor tattoos of flowers runnin’ up his arms and dippin’ into the sleeves of his T-shirt and peekin’ out on the sides of his neck. Butterscotch eyes take me in as movement to his right catches my eyes next. White and gray skin, black hair, and ash-colored eyes brighten as they settle on mine, and every alarm bell inside of me rings in warnin’.
They’re here.
And from the looks of things, I’ve either officially lost my mind, or somehow, they spiked my mama’s lemonade from breakfast, because they look just as strange as before. Sexy as hell, yeah, but strange.
No matter what, I’m screwed two ways to Sunday.
6
“Medley, you’re back!”
My eyes swing to my mama. She’s sittin’ at the kitchen table with both men, and to say that they don’t fit in this trailer is an understatement. The small space seems even smaller now with them propped against the Formica table, surrounded by pale yellow walls and the smell of Mama’s favorite citrus cleaner.
Protective instincts immediately kick in. Snappin’ out of my shocked stupor, I hurry over to my mama and take a protective stance in front