And I was terrified of that. Terrified of what it meant. About me, about my decision-making. All of it. Everything about Dylan felt risky.
Calling him was an invitation to something dangerous.
Not yet, I heard his voice in my head, that dark purr. But soon.
There was a knock on my trailer door and I jumped like a scalded cat, yanked from my utterly impure thoughts.
“Hey, Annie. I think a package arrived for you.” It was Kevin outside my door. Just Kevin. I put a hand against my throat and felt my heart pounding hard.
“There’s got to be a mistake,” I said, opening the door. “There isn’t anyone who would send me a package.”
“Well,” he said, looking down at a small box, wrapped in regular post-office brown paper. “It’s addressed to ‘Layla-slash-the new cleaning lady.’ And you’re the closest thing I got to a cleaning lady around these parts.”
Layla.
That box was from Dylan.
Kevin held it out toward me but I couldn’t get my hands to move. I could barely get my lungs to move. He’d sent me something.
“You want me to pitch it?” he asked, dropping his hand to his side with a shrug.
“No!” I cried. “No, I’ll…I’ll take it.”
Of course I would take it.
It was a package from a man I could not stop thinking about. It was a bad idea, I got that, but what was just one more bad idea? I was kind of on a roll these days.
“Here you go.” He handed it to me and left, walking back across the dirt path to the other side of the trailer park.
I closed the door and put the box down on the table and slid into the settee. The handwriting on the top was a woman’s handwriting. Weird. But whatever.
I grabbed a knife from my drawer and slid it between the edges of the cardboard, cutting open the brown tape that sealed it shut.
Inside was a phone charger. And a note.
For the phone. For emergencies, the note read in very different handwriting than what had been on the box. This was a man’s handwriting. Sharp and slashing across the white paper in dark ink.
I hope you are all right.
A phone charger. For emergencies. The breath I’d been holding shuddered hard out of me. I had no idea what I thought was going to be in there, but a phone charger was not it. I grabbed the note and phone from my cupboard and went into my bedroom where I plugged the charger into the wall and hooked it up.
Manners dictated I say thank you. I had to contact him.
You know, because of manners.
A dark thrill, a sort of giddy misgiving, rolled through me.
I pulled up his number on the phone but instead of calling him, I texted.
I got the charger, I wrote. Thank you. So much.
I deleted the so much. No need to go overboard.
You’re welcome, he wrote back.
I pulled my bottom lip between my teeth and waited for him to say more. But the screen stayed the same.
Either write something or put it down, I told myself. Because this is ridiculous.
In the end I put the phone back in the drawer and shut it.
But I thought about it—about Dylan—for the rest of the night.
“Hey Kevin,” I said, walking into the office a week later. Kevin sat directly in the path of the rattling air conditioner in the window, playing computer solitaire. “I’m going to need more garbage bags and a new rake.”
“There isn’t a rake in the shed?”
“There is, but it’s broken.”
“You can’t fix it?”
And I thought I was cheap.
“Nope.”
“A shovel won’t work?”
I sighed. “No. Kevin. I really need a rake. And some hedge trimmers. Heavy-duty ones.”
“Why?”
“I’m going after the kudzu.”
Kevin nodded, impressed maybe by my antagonistic nature toward the creepy mummy plant.
“I’ll get that for you tomorrow,” he said. “You done real good out there. Most people don’t get past the flies and the garbage.”
“Well, I figure the garbage had to be the worst part.” And it had been disgusting, but I did it. I shoveled it. Bagged it and cleared it.
“Amen to that,” Kevin said. “And here.”
He slid the key to the shed across the counter.
“You saying I’m not unsavory?” I asked, smiling.
“That’s what I’m saying. And take the day off. Too hot to work anyways.”
“But…” We don’t talk about money. That had been one of Hoyt’s rules. About how much we got. Or what we need. We don’t say a word about any of it. It’s low. Vulgar.