at, and he comes and gets you. He even figured out how to use Venmo after taking a tech class for seniors at the community center.”
I laughed as we stood, but as my cousins walked out, Sebastian took my hand.
“Hey,” he said with that smile, pulling me into him. He smelled like whiskey and trouble. “Any chance I can convince you to stay tonight?”
“I work at six in the morning, and Bettie will have my ass if I’m late.”
“Psh, you send her to me. I’ll deal with Bettie and her biscuits.”
“I’m positive there is nothing Bettie would like more than for you to deal with her biscuits.”
He chuckled, but he inched closer until our noses brushed.
I caught myself before I let him kiss me, closing my eyes, lowering my chin. He pressed his forehead to mine.
“You okay?” he asked.
We have a baby. Her name’s Priscilla. Do you want to love her? Do you want to love me?
I shook my head. “I just know if you kiss me now, I’m not going anywhere.”
“I missed the part where that’s a problem.”
With a sad sort of chuckle and my lungs a fist around my heart, I stepped back. “Call me tomorrow. I want to see you, just us. No surprises.” Mine is too big as it is.
“Even if the surprise is another box of kolaches?”
“I’ll allow it.”
He watched me for a minute with soft bliss on his face that killed me. “Tomorrow, then.”
“Tomorrow,” I echoed with a smile, a split open heart, and the hope that the anticipation didn’t actually kill me.
5
The Eyes of Texas
PRESLEY
The next morning, the breakfast rush finally slowed down enough to regain a sense of time, and I wove through the tables and past the booths singing Elvis just a little too loud, egged on by the smiling customers.
Nothing got me going like an audience.
“It’s Now or Never” played on the jukebox, and I did my best to ignore the irony of the lyrics as a reflection of my personal situation. Because if I didn’t tell Sebastian soon, I was going to implode.
I knew every word of the song and had since I was maybe eight when I convinced myself that Elvis was my grandfather.
It was, of course, mathematically impossible as my mother took every opportunity to point out. But as a little girl, standing in front of my grandmother’s curio cabinet devoted to The King, I decided that was the fact of the matter, and I wouldn’t be convinced otherwise—why else would I be named Presley? My little girl brain couldn’t imagine another answer. There were no men in my life, and Elvis seemed like the absolutely perfect fill-in.
My grandfather died before I was born, so I never knew him as anything more than a story. Elvis just made more sense—not only could my mother and I sing where my grandmother was tone deaf, but we had the look. Raven hair, blue eyes, pouty lips and all. So every Sunday afternoon, I’d stretch out on the floor of the living room to watch old Elvis movies. Grandma had them all on VHS and got me every album he ever made on cassette. She’d sit me in her lap and tell me stories about him, about the concerts she went to, the movies she saw with her friends. With that, I was obsessed. I’d found posters and t-shirts and all kinds of stuff that dubbed me the weirdest kid in the third grade.
And I let my freak flag fly, making sure to remind them that they didn’t have famous grandfathers. I’d even sing for them to prove my point.
This didn’t help my cause.
But today as I cha-cha’d around the dining room with an arm burgeoning with dirty dishes, it won me all the tips. My, how times had changed.
When the song ended, I curtsied to scattered applause.
“Do ‘Jailhouse Rock’!” someone called.
“Put a quarter in the jukebox and you’ve got yourself a deal,” I said on my way toward the back.
“Yes, ma’am!” I heard as I pushed through the swinging door and made to unload my burden.
“If you keep that up, we’re gonna either have to start charging admission or pay the Presley estate royalties,” Bettie said, shuffling from the office with a smile on her ruby red lips.
The hundred-pound, ninety-year-old icon was everything I wanted to be when I grew up. Her silvery, chin-length hair was perfectly curly without looking like she’d bothered to touch it, and she always had on crazy, quirky glasses to frame her bright eyes.