Page 188 of Rock Bottom Girl

She nodded.

“Hell, I was a dumbass in high school, but I wasn’t that big of a dumbass.”

“Sorry, Jake,” Amie Jo called in a sing-song voice, hanging out of the backseat window.

“I’m sorry for holding something you didn’t do against you for two decades,” Marley said, drawing my attention back to her.

My head was spinning. It was a lot to take in for a guy who’d spent the last several days in misery.

“So I just have to ask one question. Whydidn’tyou ask me to Homecoming?” she asked. “You kissed me. You seemed interested.”

“I had one weekend a month when I’d go visit my mom back in Jersey. That was the weekend. Besides, didn’t you have some secret boyfriend—oh, shit.” Realization washed over me.Amie Jo, that diabolical teenage puppet master.

Marley’s head snapped around in the direction of the car so fast I thought she might add whiplash to her list of injuries.

“Oops! Forgot to mention that part,” Amie Jo said cheerfully. “Sorry!” Homer licked her in the face.

Marley rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to me.

“She’s basically Machiavelli,” Marley sighed.

“Did you all hit your heads?” I asked.

Marley ignored me while I tried to get a good look at her pupils. “I love you,” she said. “So much. So big and wide and more. You’re the ‘more’ I’ve been looking for my entire life. And I love you, and I hope you still love me even though I was a jerk and told you that you didn’t know what love was.”

Homer barked from the car as if he were answering for me.

“Do you think there’s a chance you could forgive me?” she whispered.

“That depends. Do you think you could be happy living here with me?” I asked, running my finger over her collarbone.

She nodded. “Yeah.” Her voice cracked. “Really happy. Like really, really happy.”

“Baby.” I swiped the hot tears off her cheeks and leaned down to kiss her.

“Ouch,” she said when I touched her swollen lip.

“Sorry.” I kissed the corner of her mouth.

“Woo-hoo!” Amie Jo and Zinnia celebrated from the back seat.

Ned beeped the horn. “Don’t forget to ask him,” he screeched.

“Oh, uh, yeah. If we’re made up and everything, would you mind if my family came for dinner tonight? We burnt our turkey.”

“The more, the merrier,” I told her. “Now what the hell happened to you?”

“I told you. Zinnia and Amie Jo and I got drunk and fell out of a tree.”

81

Marley

The lights were low. The kids, including my nieces and nephew, Jake’s nieces and nephews, and Libby and her foster siblings were watching a Christmas movie in the living room on the floor while Homer snored on the couch. My pants were unbuttoned after thirds of everything.

Lewis was opening our ninth bottle of wine, and Jake was holding my hand under the table while he grilled his mom’s boyfriend on his background.

Everything was just about perfect. Amie Jo and my sister were shitfaced and commiserating in the corner about how hard perfection was to maintain.