“Mama and Daddy take Thanksgiving seriously. They’d have my hide if I tried to get away.”
So he had forced himself to pretend to care about the feast, the whole ‘I’m thankful for’ that circled the living room. Family members he’d never met before gathered in the tiny house until Calum could hardly breathe. Tiffany at least had the decency to distract the others so he could make an escape to the porch where he, Charles, and cousin Eileen smoked their cigarettes in silence.
Calum went to the Christmas pageant during his fourth month of exile. He didn’t care that it was his birthday or that he wasn’t particularly religious. He had to support his girlfriend. Rett had confided in him that she was nervous, always was before the show, despite portraying the Virgin Mary every year since she was thirteen. She delivered her lines in a wobbling voice that with time grew stronger, clearer.
She caught his eye in the watching crowd, winking almost imperceptibly, and laid the tiny baby in the manger. Miss Julia’s niece allowed the town to use her infant as Jesus. It was as uninteresting as Calum had expected, though he hadn’t expectedmuch from a small-town production about the story of Jesus Christ. But Rett made it worth paying attention to.
Calum stared at the shadow clambering through his window, letting in the frozen night air. She’d gone with Kellie Marie and Sofia to the ice cream shop as a celebration of another successful pageant. Rett wasn’t meant to be there in his bedroom two hours after the production. But she was. She was falling onto his bed beside him, grinning at him through the dark.
“What—?”
“I wanted to be with my boyfriend on his birthday. Jesus isn’t the only one who should be celebrated.” She paused, stretching to kiss him with icy lips. “He can wait, anyway.”
“That’s blasphemous,” he whispered, and she giggled and kissed him again.
The townspeople would die with the scandal.
Icy wind blew through the open window, and Rett shivered as she cuddled closer. Damp hair tickled at Calum’s skin, but he didn’t mind it at all. Not when it meant she was there at his side. He ran his fingers over her arm, felt every goosebump bursting to life, then pressed his lips to her forehead.
“I want to stay in Oak Creek,” he whispered into her skin. “After I graduate, I want to stay here with you. I… God, Rett, I love you.”
“You better not be lyin’ to me, boy.”
“I’d never lie to you,” he murmured, kissing her again and again. “Never.”
Fire consumed him from the inside out when she stared at him, as she stretched up to brush her lips to his, as she whispered back the words he never knew he lived for: “I love you, too, Calum.”
eleven
Rett
IT WAS A SECRET between the two. Rett knew it was only a matter of time before the secret got out, but until then, she was going to enjoy the peace. She had feared Calum’s aunt or uncle walking in—or God forbid,Tiffany—but they’d remained uninterrupted.
No one cared when Rett walked out of the Stones’ house the following morning. It was too normal a sight to cause any scandal. Instead, Miss Claudette only smiled that gummy smile from her porch swing, and Mister Larry offered a ‘Morning, Miss Loretta.’ Miss Julia nodded on her usual brisk morning walk. No one knew.
Rett sighed again, sprawled across her bed on Christmas morning, and grinned up at the ceiling. She didn’t feel anydifferent, except maybe the thought that something was right. Some part of her had been smoothed down until it fit perfectly in place. Calum was just as awkward as she’d been, and that made it easier.
“Retta, it’s time for church. Come join us please.”
“Mama?”
Eliza paused in the doorway, hand on the doorknob. “Yeah, baby?”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.” She fell quiet, tilting her head. Her eyes narrowed as she stared at her daughter. “Is there somethin’ you need to talk about?”
“Not right now.”
“Okay, well. Get yourself ready, baby.”
Rett waited until her mother closed the door to let out a nearly inaudible squeak. It was a secret only for Rett and Calum. No one else knew. It was just between them, and she wished it could always stay that way. It was something that changed her—changed them both—in a way she never expected. Something larger than themselves.
Dressing in a simple navy dress with white lace trim, Rett quickly pulled her hair into a tight braid. A pair of Mary Janes and she was ready. Pastor Williams always gave her a look full of judging if she wore makeup to the Christmas sermon. He’d even told her two years ago that Jesus would be ashamed of her vanity.
Jesus would be ashamed of the night she spent with Calum.
Rett followed her parents through the doors of the church, shaking the pastor’s hand on the way. Kellie Marie waved from the middle of the fourth pew. Sofia and her sister, Penelope, played a round of thumb war in the seventh. Rett stifled a giggle when Sofia lost.
