Page 101 of Don't Cross the Blue Line
“And your mom loved you enough to sacrifice so you could have options.”
What’s going on? Can he read my mind now?
“The only thing you owe her is to love what you do and to do it to the best of your ability.”
I nod. “I’m trying.”
He stands.
He holds out the manuscript.
“Take it home. Read it. All of it. And when you’ve finished—when you’ve read what that woman wrote about the man in those letters—come back and tell me she was exploiting you.” His eyes hold mine. “Tell me she’s nobody.”
It feels like a dare.
Game on, Coach.
Eighteen
Beckett
The manuscript sits burning a hole in my passenger seat. I’m in the Blue Ox parking lot, engine running. The flickering streetlights pour through my windshield, providing enough light to read it.
I’m not ready. After everything that’s happened this past week, I’m not ready for one more thing. To read Sutton Blake and know it’s Everly. To hear her voice in the words. To see the way she views me.
I’ve always been a villain in her story.
And when you’ve finished—when you’ve read what that woman wrote about the man in those letters—come back and tell me she was exploiting you.
That could mean anything.
I put the car in Drive. I don’t go home.
The porch light is on. It always is. Maybe that’s a universal fact about mothers—that they never really stop leaving the light on.
I knock. She’ll be up—my mom doesn’t sleep before eleven. Her evenings are typically occupied by mystery novels in the living room chair, a warm cup of tea, and the television on mute. It’s always been that way, even when I was a kid. She’d tuck me in for the night, then head down for her nightly novel. Sometimes, on a rare night, she’d let me stay up with her, watch my dad play on the little TV.
It never occurred to me she might have been waiting for that call.
The door opens. Light pours over my mother’s shoulder, reading glasses on the top of her head. She wraps her cardigan around herself—always a cardigan, always some shade of blue, the uniform of a woman who has spent a lifetime keeping warm on a budget.
She takes one look at me and knows. She always knows. Whatever frequency distress broadcasts on, my mom has the antenna permanently tuned.
“Come on in, sweetie.”
Not What’s wrong? Not It’s late. Just the door opening. The unconditional availability of a mother who’s watched her son come home wrecked more than once. She knows the drill—probably from way back when she married my dad.
The house smells like lavender dish soap mixed with mom’s tea. Clean and warm. I settle onto the sofa. The TV is muted on HGTV, reruns of that old curb-appeal show with the girl with a funny name. Something Decker.
“Tea?” Mom asks, already moving toward the kitchen. Not waiting for the answer, because the answer is always yes and the question is a formality. This is the ritual. I come home broken, she makes tea.
She sets the mug in front of me and sits. She settles in, her eyes on the screen, giving me time.
Waiting.
“So…Coach told me something tonight. About Dad.”
She pulls her gaze from the TV, lips parted in surprise. “What did he tell you?”
