Second Hand: A Tucker Springs Novel 2

herself, and a fresh loaf of bread and a rack of cooling cookies waited for me on the counter. I took her out to dinner that night and gave her a walking tour of the Light District, pointing out shops she might like to visit.
“Since you’ve already run out of things to clean at my place,” I teased her.
She tweaked my nose, but she smiled too. “You’ve really cleaned up the clutter, I see. That’s good. They say if your house is cluttered, so is your life.”
I thought of the ring burning a hole in the back of my drawer and said nothing.
When I came home the second night, she had several bags on my kitchen counter from her shopping adventures, and she took me on a tour of where she’d bought them. “I got this bag at the cutest boutique on the corner by that coffee shop, and I got your father a new golf shirt and a pair of loafers for church. But wait until you hear this. I got this”—she pulled something out of a bag and presented me with my very own panini press—“for free! It was at this pawnshop, where the owner had the most darling little dog. I tried to pay him, and at first he was all set to take my credit card, but then all of a sudden he gave me this funny look and a wink and told me redheads got one item free today. I thought he had to be joking, but he wouldn’t take so much as a penny no matter how I tried to pay. Oh—Paul, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I lied. “Just tired from the day.”
Mom patted me on the shoulder and kissed me on the cheek. “You poor thing. You go soak in a hot tub and let me fix you some dinner.”
I took a shower, not a bath, but I stayed in there a long time, thinking of the time we’d had sex there. I’d thought of him all day, in fact, and all night, and all the time ever since he’d walked out the door. He hadn’t so much as sent me a text, and I hadn’t texted him either.
All because of that ring, that stupid, stupid ring.
While I was getting dressed, my phone rang. I leapt for it, thinking it would be El, and I tried to scramble an apology together, anything to get him back again, even though I still wasn’t quite sure I’d actually lost him. Or had him in the first place.
My breath caught as I realized it wasn’t El—it was Stacey.
“Hey there,” she said when I greeted her. She sounded like she’d been crying. A lot. “I was wondering—could I come over? Just to talk?”
No. No, because I don’t want El to find out you were here. “Um, my mom’s here.”
“Oh.” That should have sent her off, no problem, so the fact that I could all but hear her trying to decide if she should still come over meant something big had happened. “Oh. Maybe you could meet me somewhere for a little while? There’s something I need to say to you, and I can’t do it over the phone.”
No. No way, not in a million years. My grip on the phone became sweaty. “Mom’s got dinner on.”
Why couldn’t I say it? Why couldn’t I tell her no? Why was I even considering telling my mom something had come up and I’d be right back?
Why was that ring in my drawer? What the fuck was wrong with me?
“I want to come back to you,” Stacey blurted out, her voice breaking on a sob. “Larry’s cheating on me. I never should have been with him at all. I never should have left you. Please, Paul, can I please come home? I want to come home.”
No. No, no, no, no, no! “Um . . .”
“Please,” she whispered. “We can get married at the courthouse right away. I’ll do whatever you want, only please take me back.”
No! But another voice whispered, as desperate as Stacey, Yes, oh yes, thank God, just tell her yes so everything can go back to normal.
“Paul?” my mother called from the kitchen. “Paul, honey, dinner’s ready.”
“I have to go,” I blurted into the phone, and hung up before I could change my mind.
Then I turned the phone off and buried it in my bedside drawer next to the ring.
“Paul, sweetheart. You look worse than when I sent you in to have your soak,” Mom chided when I came to the dining room table. The lights flickered and the smoke alarm began to bleat. I got up wordlessly, climbed on a chair, took the battery out, and went back to my seat.
I stared at my plate for several seconds, hearing my mother’s voice of concern as if from very far away. Eventually I lifted my head, looked at her, and said, “Mom, would you love me no matter what? No matter who I said I was or”—what my orientation—“whatever I thought would make me