He slid an arm around her and kissed the top of her head. “See, Wynn. This is why I’ll never marry, right here. Because I was both lucky and unlucky enough to have the perfect woman for a mom.”

She shook her head and patted his chest, her lips fighting a smile. “Crazy boy of mine.” Towering a foot over her, Thompson was a skinny twenty-six-year-old ex-addict, ex-con who lived at home and worked for her, but you could hear in her voice that he was still the little boy she’d taught to tie his shoes. “I’ve hardly seen Ruthanne, Boyce. Y’all are sharing the place now that your daddy’s gone, I see.” The twist of her mouth said everything she thought about my father, and probably a bit about my mother as well. “How’s that going?”

“S’all right.” Not. At least our schedules were off enough that we barely crossed paths. She hadn’t even noticed yet that Pearl moved out yesterday. “I’m probably going to be leaving town soon… I haven’t rightly decided where to yet.”

“So Randy said.” She looked up into my eyes.

I hadn’t remarked the years on her until that moment. Her sons’ shenanigans had taken their toll, but she’d never lost the faith and optimism I remembered from my childhood, and the increased smile lines just served to make her look kinder.

“You’ll do well in whatever you decide, Boyce. I see your brother in you.” Seeming to know she’d just knocked the breath out of me, she patted my arm and turned back to her son. “See you later then, Randy. Y’all boys have a good night. You both deserve some fun.”

• • • • • • • • • •

“So Pearl moved out and now you’re taking her on a date?” Thompson chalked his cue and sank two balls.

I watched him line up his next shot and threw back half a Shiner. “Not exactly. Her group is taking her barhopping to celebrate her turning twenty-one. I’m just… tagging along. As her designated driver.”

“Hell, man—twenty-one? Thought Pearl was in your and Rick’s year? She’s barely older’n Amber—and Amber’s still got two or three years left at A&M.” His little sister was the only Thompson kid to go to college. He sank one of my stripes and cussed.

“Pearl moved up a year.” I lined up my shot and sank one ball in the far corner.

“And the folks you’re tagging along with—they’re all grad students? Scientists? Fuck, Wynn. That setup would intimidate the shit outta me, and I’ve been to prison.”

He’d nailed it. Not much unsettled me, but being the soon-to-be-jobless mechanic among a bunch of academics—got that word from Pearl—was fucking intimidating. But she’d never asked me to go out with her—in public—before. Hell if I was saying no.

“Brit swears there’s wedding bells in your future.”

Scratch. “Dammit, Thompson.” I glared, and he chuckled. Christ. Why couldn’t Brit limit spouting her damned ridiculous speculations to me? “Since when have you and Brit been getting cozy?” I asked, which shut him up right quick. They’d had a falling out when she’d defected to his little brother in high school. Brit went where the weed was back then. Meth wasn’t her poison, and she wanted nothing to do with it, which meant she’d stopped wanting anything to do with Randy.

“She’s stopped by the shop a time or two since I got out.” He replaced the cue ball and sank his last two solids and then the eight ball. “Nice to know how I can finally beat you at pool, man. Mention the word wedding and you go down like I jerked a knot in your tail.”

I grabbed the triangle to rack the balls. That word didn’t rattle me as it related to Pearl, except in the utter impossibility that I would ever be good enough to make her mine.

Pearl

“Most people are away at college when they turn twenty-one, Mama. I’m a college graduate.”

She wrung her hands. “I understand that, mija. I’m only worried about your safety. You’re telling me you’re going to go out and drink excessively, on purpose… it’s just not like you.”

I sighed. Getting wasted on a regular basis wasn’t something I’d ever done—that much was true—but I hadn’t abstained altogether. Even if alcohol hadn’t played a prominent part in my college experience, I’d done my share of partying and suffered the crappy hangovers to prove it. Not that I was going to confess that.

“Boyce will take care of me.” I raised my left hand and placed the other atop the Better Homes & Gardens on the coffee table. “No alcohol poisoning. No driving drunk.”

Her jaw locked.

“What?”

“What about him? What good does it do for you not to drive drunk if he may do it?”

Jeez. “He won’t. This was his idea, Mama—he promised to be my designated driver for the night, and there’s no one I trust more.”

“I see.” She arched a brow, looking at me, but then she blinked, lips parted, dark eyes locked on my face. “What’s happened between you and that boy in the past few weeks, Pearl?”

I was tired of denying his importance to me. There was no reason to hide it, not anymore. Not after living with him half the summer. Not when he was leaving, maybe forever. “It hasn’t been just the past few weeks, Mama. Boyce and I have been close friends for a very long time.” Close friends who’d shared moments in his bed that made my toes curl in my boots just thinking about them. “I trust him completely. You can trust him. I’ll probably be hammered when I get home, but I’ll get home.” Safe and sound, he’d said.