“You know Ryker is fucking fine. You can see from where you’re sitting. You’re changing the subject.”

  I shrugged, then took a drink of the beer I was holding. “We went on a few dates. What do you expect me to do? Profess my love to her? Have a dramatic good-bye? We aren’t you and Tallulah.”

  He muttered a curse. “You can lie to yourself all you fucking want to, but I’ve known you all my life. Not once have I seen a girl get under your skin. Not once have I seen you react to one this way. You love her. Don’t admit it. Don’t say it. But that don’t make it not true.”

  I glared at him. Why wouldn’t he leave this alone? Let me fucking be. Jesus! I was done with his meddling.

  “I don’t love her,” I said.

  He rolled his eyes. “Really? Okay. Let me ask you this. Do you think about her every day multiple times?”

  Yes, but that wasn’t because I loved her. I didn’t say anything. He had no point.

  “Do you stare at your phone and want to call her just to hear her voice? When you are with her, everything seems right. All the bad shit goes away. You feel lighter.” He stopped then and shook his head. “Don’t answer. I already know the truth and so do you. But let Ezmita go. Let her be the one that got away.”

  He walked off then and I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees. There was no such thing as the one that got away. It was choices. Everybody made them. I was making one now. I was letting Ezmita live her life. She wasn’t sitting around thinking about me. She was moving on. I’d seen the guy she’d been talking to. They had been standing close, and there had been something there. He worked there and he’d be around her all the time. He wasn’t moving away. He liked her. I could see that easy enough. It had been there in the way he looked at her.

  The idea of her with him drove me fucking nuts, but what could I do? I wouldn’t be here. My life was about to become football. It would own me, and when I wasn’t practicing, I’d be in classes, having to keep my GPA up. I wouldn’t have time to come back on weekends. Hell, I wouldn’t have anywhere to stay. My home wasn’t here. I didn’t have a home. My mood soured even more.

  I drank the rest of my beer, then got up to go get some more. I might as well drink until I didn’t care that Ezmita would fall in love with some guy who wasn’t me. She’d make him laugh and beat him at Madden. She would snuggle against him, and he’d get to enjoy how damn good she smelled. It would be the guy at the store or some other guy. It just wouldn’t be me. I needed the whole damn keg to deal with this.

  I spoke to those who stopped to talk to me as I made my way to the keg. I pretended to care what they were talking about. I answered questions about Ole Miss, and someone put another drink in my hand. I drank it, then went to get another.

  There were more people arriving and some faces I didn’t know. The field was back to life, but it wasn’t like old times. Those would never be again. This was new times… for everyone else. The beginning of an era I had no part in. I drank to that, I drank to Ezmita falling in love with some unknown guy one day, I drank to leaving this town, and I drank to Hunter. After all, that was the reason we were here.

  At some point, things became fun. I enjoyed talking about the past. I laughed and I think I danced with some girls, but I wasn’t sure who. Everything had become a blur, but at least I didn’t feel lost anymore. I didn’t feel anything.

  * * *

  “Stop,” I said, sitting up from my reclined position in the passenger seat of my truck.

  Walker McNair frowned but did as I asked. Ryker or Nash would have asked me questions or ignored me. I was glad they’d given me Walker as my designated driver. He was a good kid. I guess. I wasn’t fucking sure. He was sober, so that was something. He was better than me.

  “You gotta puke?” he asked, pulling over on the side of the road. I opened the truck door and struggled to get out.

  I ignored McNair and worked hard to focus. She was here. I would recognize her anywhere. There she was. Walking toward me. Good. I could stand still until the world stopped moving. She was coming to me.

  I Was Ready to Let Him Go CHAPTER 40

  EZMITA

  “Ezmita!” Asa yelled as if I was far away. When I reached him, I grabbed his arm as he started to lean too far to the left. He stunk of beer and smoke. Not cigarettes but a bonfire. The field. They had gone back to the field. He stumbled toward me, and I grabbed him to keep him from falling on me and knocking us both to the ground.

  “Easy,” I said, not sure I could hold him up if it came to that. Glancing behind him at his truck, I checked to make sure he wasn’t driving. A guy who looked sober was in the driver’s seat, and he waved at me. “Hi,” I said, then looked back at Asa.

  “You have a little too much beer at the field tonight?” I asked him.

  He laughed. “Yeah. I think so,” he said.

  “Well, why are you out of the truck? Looks like you need to go home.”

  He laughed loudly this time. “Home? I don’t have a fucking home.”

  I winced. I hadn’t meant to say that. I wasn’t thinking. Then he grabbed my face with both his hands and looked at me. “You could be my home. I’d be happy then.”

  I stood frozen a moment, then grabbed his wrists and eased his hands off my face. “Uh, okay, yeah, you need to get back in the truck,” I told him.

  He looked around and then back at me. “Why are you out here alone?” he asked. “It’s late.”

  “I went for a run,” I told him. “Now get in the truck. Let me help you.”

  He grabbed my hand. “Come with me,” he slurred.

  I chuckled. “Can’t do that. You need sleep. You’ll feel differently in the morning.”

  “Yeah, like shit,” he agreed. “I’ll feel like shit.”

  I had never been drunk, but I was positive he was correct.

  Asa climbed back into the truck then. I didn’t have to help him, though I doubted I could do much. He outweighed me significantly. When he was seated, I pointed at his seat belt. “Put that on.”

  He gave me a drunken grin. “I think I love you, Ezmita Ramos.”

  I said nothing. I just stood there.

  He was drunk and leaving tomorrow. He’d not texted, called, or come by in over a week. Asa didn’t love me, but hearing him say the words hurt. It hurt because when I heard those words from someone I loved, I wanted them to be special. Used with a respect for the power that those words held.

  “Oh boy,” the guy driving said. “It’s time to get you to Nash’s. You need a bed, dude.”

  Asa let his head fall back on the car seat. “Yeah. I do.”

  I closed the truck door and then walked away. My heart hurting yet again because of Asa Griffith. I was ready to let him go. I wanted to not get hurt by him anymore. I thought I was making progress this week, but then he sliced me open with three words that should have never been said.

  The truck drove away, but I didn’t turn to see it go. Tomorrow that truck would drive out of Lawton and head to Mississippi. I wouldn’t see it at the gas pump, or see it driving down the street. I didn’t know when he’d come back here. Where he’d go when school was out.

  He was starting a new life. I had been the last part of his old life. The realization made the sadness worse. When I reached the store, I didn’t walk around to the house. I wasn’t in the mood to go home just yet. I headed for the bench in the back where Papa hid during the day to read. If he thought Momma didn’t know he was hiding to read instead of working, then he was delusional.

  Just as I sat down, the back door to the store opened and out walked Malecon. Not who I wanted to see. I wanted quiet, and he was not quiet or peaceful.

  “You hiding from your mom?” he asked.

  “No. Why?”

  “Because this is where your dad hides, so I figured you were doing the same.”

  “Oh,” I replied, hoping he’d go away now.

  He started breaking down the cardboard boxes piled up by the garbage.

  “Can you do that tomorrow?” I asked.

  He looked back at me. “Have you met your mom?” he replied.

  Good point. I sighed, then stood back up. If he was going to be out here, I might as well go inside.

  “He’s not worth it,” Malecon said as I began to walk away.

  “Who?” I asked him, sounding as annoyed as I felt.

  “The guy. The one that has you looking like your heart is broken. Guys aren’t worth it. Trust me. I am one.”

  I shook my head. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Stop acting like you know me. You don’t.”

  He slid a flattened box into the recycle container, then glanced back over his shoulder again. “I don’t have to know you to know that some guy, probably the snake handler, has you in a funk. I have three sisters. I know that look.”

  “Good night, Malecon,” I said, then started walking toward the house.

  “You can’t trust those religious sorts that handle snakes. They’re crazy as hell,” he called out after me.

  And… I laughed.

  JULY 31, 2020 Go Give ’Em Hell

  CHAPTER 41

  ASA

  I parked my truck for the last time in the driveway of the place I used to live. Boxes were sitting on the cement in front of me. My father had sent a text message that he had my things boxed up and waiting on me to come get them before I left. Nash pulled up in the old farm truck I’d bought from his dad with the money I’d made working this summer. He’d refused to take money for letting me stay at their house, but he said he’d sell me the truck for two grand.

  I took the key to the truck my dad owned and left it in the seat. Nash walked up to me, and we silently started loading the boxes of my life into the back of the farm truck. It took about five minutes with us both working at it. When we were done, I turned and looked behind me at the house.

  Memories of Mom were there. Some good, many bad. Dad wasn’t here, and I figured he’d left to avoid me. I was fine with that. I didn’t want to see him, either.

  “She wasn’t happy. He made her life hell,” I said to myself… to Nash… I wasn’t sure.

  Nash put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed tightly. “She’s at peace now,” he said.

  “Yeah. She finally got away from him,” I agreed. “Let’s go.” I turned and went to get in the driver’s seat of my truck. Nash climbed in the passenger seat.

  “This thing smells like stale beer and cigars. It’ll be a real lady magnet at Ole Miss,” Nash said, grinning.

  “Yeah, that’s why I bought it.”

  He laughed then.

  I was going to miss him. We’d never spent so much time together as we had this summer. He’d helped me through some tough shit and I owed him.

  “Thanks for this summer,” I said.

  “Yeah, well, you were a pain in the ass. Just glad you’re leaving,” he replied.

  I laughed and headed back to his house to let him out.

  “You gonna go see Ezmita before you drive away?” he asked me.

  I had debated on that all morning. Last night I’d been drunk, but I remembered telling her I loved her and then just leaving. Real smooth. “I think so. Probably,” I said.

  “You’re going to. Besides, McNair said you told her you loved her. You can’t just leave it at that.”

  “I was drunk.”

  “Drunkenness brings out the honesty in folks.”

  “Shut up,” I said, not wanting to keep talking about this anymore.

  “Fine.”

  I pulled into his driveway and parked. He opened the truck door, then looked back at me. “All jokes aside, you’re always welcome here. When you need to come home, the door is open.”

  I nodded. “Thanks, man.”

  “Now, I’m going to leave before we get mushy and shit. Go give ’em hell,” he said, then climbed out of the truck and closed it.

  He waved and I waved back before pulling out of his driveway and heading toward the Quick Stop.

  I tried to pay at the pump, but Mrs. Ramos came outside waving her hands. “I said free gas!” she called out to me.

  “Yes ma’am. Thank you,” I replied.

  She nodded and went back inside. I searched the windows for Ezmita and found her at the counter, looking directly at me. She lifted her hand in a wave. I waved at her to come outside. Nash was right. I was going to see Ezmita before I left.

  I finished just as she was walking out the door.

  “Hey,” she said. “Heading out?” Then she looked at the truck behind me. “Didn’t recognize you in that truck.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I bought this one from Nash’s dad. I left the truck my father owns with him. Didn’t want any ties.”

  She nodded in understanding.

  “Can you talk? I mean can you take a break?” I asked, feeling awkward and hating that.

  She glanced back at the store, and I saw one of her sisters inside. “Yeah, Rosa is watching things.”

  “Want to get in?” I asked.

  She nodded and walked around to get into the truck.

  I climbed in and saw her scrunch her nose.

  “Sorry. It smells bad.”

  She nodded in agreement.

  I moved the truck to a parking spot and then cut the engine again. I wasn’t sure what I needed to say or how to say it. We sat there in silence a moment. I almost thought she’d say something, but she didn’t.

  “I’m sorry about last night,” I said. “What I said, I drank too much.”

  “It was your last night with your friends. You probably needed to drink,” she replied.

  “Ezmita,” I began, and paused.

  “Asa, this doesn’t have to be hard. We say our good-byes and you leave. I don’t want this to feel awkward and weird.”

  “But it is hard. Not because I told you I loved you while I was drunk but because I’m leaving and I don’t want to leave… you.”

  “Don’t. Don’t say things like that. You told me that you didn’t want to hurt me. Well, when you say things like that, it hurts me. So please, just say good-bye and go.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to hurt you. I just… I need you. I was drunk and I should have never said that to you while I was drunk, but it doesn’t make it less true. I love you and I don’t want to lose you.”

  She sat there staring at me silently. I waited for her to say it back or maybe for her to smile. I didn’t want her to hurt because of me. I wanted to bring her happiness the way she brought me happiness.

  “That may be true, but it doesn’t change anything. You are moving away. I’ll be moving away too next semester. Our lives are on two different paths, and we have a lot to experience. This summer… the times I spent with you were special, but it was here in Lawton.”

  “Come to Mississippi,” I blurted out. “Come be with me.”

  She gave me a sad smile. I didn’t like how that felt. “No. I’m not following you. Football at Ole Miss is your path. I don’t want to go to Mississippi. I want to find my path and what I want to do in life. I can’t be that girl. I can’t let your dream determine mine.”

  I understood what she was saying, and although I wanted her to have her own dream to chase, I wanted her to be with me. “You can’t find your dream at Ole Miss?” I asked.

  “Asa, once I would have. I was wrong then. I’m eighteen years old. I can’t fall in love and start changing my plans because of it. You were right about not being able to do exclusive relationships. You don’t want to do them, so you can’t do them.”

  “No! I changed my mind about that. I want one. With you.” Did she not understand that? “I love you.”

  She reached for the door handle. “I love you, but I love myself, too, and I need to let you go. For me.” She opened the door, then looked back at me. “Go play football and start a new life. One that makes you happy. One where the pain you suffered here fades away.”

  I watched her get out of the truck. I felt like she was taking my heart with her. I wanted to beg her, but I heard her and I understood. This wasn’t about me. It would be selfish to beg her. When she looked up at me, my chest ached. “Good-bye, Asa Griffith.”

  I would drive away from her, but I couldn’t say good-bye. It was too final.

  “You’ll always be the one,” I said instead.

  She closed the door and stepped back.

  Then I drove out of Lawton, Alabama.

  Acknowledgments

  Britt is the numero uno of those who need to be acknowledged. He went above and beyond with taking up the slack while I was locked away writing.

  Ava and Emerson had to hear “Mom is working. I can’t right now.” For the most part, they didn’t complain. Emerson had her moments. Ava was a trouper, though… although she’s been on this ride since 2011 and knows the score. Writing this during the Covid lockdown was a challenge. There were rarely quiet moments in the house, but the girls managed to allow me enough time to write.

  My older children, who have moved out of the house, were great about me not being able to answer their calls most of the time, and they had to wait until I could get back to them. They still love me and understand this part of Mom’s world.

  My agent, Jane Dystel, always has my back, and I can trust she’ll support my decisions. Having an agent is like a marriage. I’m thankful I have the best.

  My editors at Simon & Schuster: We went through some changes during the process of this book, and I was lucky enough to have those on my team who helped me make sure this story was the best it could be. Jennifer Ung, who I started the book with, and Nicole Ellul, with the help of copy editor Jen Strada, who walked into it just in time for the major editing to take place. It was a smooth process, and it’s all because of these ladies.

  Abbi’s Army ALWAYS. Y’all are what keeps me sane when I release a new book. Thanks for always supporting me.

  My readers—without you, there would be no one to read my stories. I get to write because y’all read. I love you all!

  More from this Series