Rebounds & Reunions (2/12)
June
“No. No! Lemon, stop. Stop! You’re going to br - dammit, Lemon!”
“Stop yelling at me, Wade!”
The shouting was hard to ignore, and both Zoe and George turned to look over towards Wade’s place as they stepped out of her house. However, they couldn’t actually see the owner of the voice or the object of his annoyance as both were standing behind the open hood of Wade’s car.
“What on earth?” George asked quietly. In response, Zoe simply shook her head.
By then, both Wade and Lemon had lowered their volume and Zoe could no longer make out what they were saying. Shortly thereafter, Lemon walked around to the open driver’s side door, smoothing her hands down the front of her old, dirty jeans and exhaling deeply. She sat down, leaving her legs hanging out of the car as she reached for the ignition. A moment later, the engine turned over, and Zoe heard Lemon’s excited cheer over the sound of it.
“I did it!” Lemon called out, as she stood up again. “I did it!”
Wade walked around to meet her, laughing as Lemon wrapped her arms around his neck and jumped up and down. He rested a hand on her lower back, and Zoe felt a pang of something at that as much as the joyful smile on his face. It had been a long time since Wade truly smiled at her.
Zoe shook herself and inhaled. Turning towards George, who was still staring at the other two with an unreadable expression, she forced a smile to her face. “Ready?” she asked.
“What?” George focused on her again. “Yeah, let’s go.”
**
“Ugh, Wade,” Lemon complained as she walked back into his living room. “Your bathroom’s disgusting.”
“Yeah, well. I gave the cleaning lady the day off,” Wade replied, not looking up from where he was picking out a tune on his guitar.
Lemon rolled her eyes and sat down on the couch. “I am never getting all this oil out from under my fingers,” she said with a sigh as she looked forlornly at her hands. After a moment, she shook her head and leaned forward to pick up her textbook and put it back in her lap. “So, where were we?”
“You wanted to make flashcards,” Wade reminded her.
“Oh yes,” Lemon recalled, clapping her hands in excitement. “I love flashcards.”
“God,” Wade muttered. “This is like Mrs. Turner’s 4th period geometry all over again.”
“Yes, it is. And I’ll remind you that you wouldn’t have passed that class if it wasn’t for me cracking the whip.”
Wade smirked. “Sounds kinkier than it was.”
“Stop trying to distract me and find some notecards.”
“Fine,” Wade replied. “But I’m also finding a beer.”
“Ooh, get me one too.”
“Lemon Breeland. First, mechanical labor, now generic beer in the middle of the afternoon. Full of surprises these days.”
“Oh ho ho,” Lemon called out after him as he walked across to the small fridge in the corner of the room. “I am not the dull goody-two-shoes you think I am, Wade Kinsella.”
A loud scoff was the only answer he gave, and Lemon turned around to face him, kneeling on the couch and leaning over the back.
“Well, here’s news for you: I cheated on George. With Lavon.” When he didn’t respond, she added quietly, “I figured it was time you knew.”
To her surprise, he barely reacted as he walked back over and held out a beer. She took the bottle and stared at him, waiting.
“Oh, was that supposed to shock me?” he asked nonchalantly.
“You knew?”
Wade shrugged. “I do live, like, a foot away from him, you realize? And he’s one of my best friends. I know when he’s trying to keep something a secret.”
Lemon’s mouth moved abortively for several seconds before she finally asked, “Why didn’t you say anything?”
There was a pause as Wade walked around the couch and sat next to her. He glanced over at her with a quick smile. “I don’t know,” he confessed. “Maybe I should have. I guess I just didn’t think it was my place. You’re both adults, and I’m hardly a, uh, a moral authority.”
“Why didn’t - why didn’t you say anything to George?” Lemon asked, nervously picking at a piece of imaginary lint on her pants.
“I…was pissed at him,” Wade said as if he was only just realizing it.
“Why?”
“You weren’t the only one he left behind.” Wade stared straight ahead, sighing as he lifted his beer to take a long swallow. “And…later. He just, everything comes so perfectly to him, it seems. Anyo - Everything he wants, he gets. I figured you musta been what he wanted after all, and you seemed happy. I didn’t want to be the one to mess you two up.”
Lemon narrowed her eyes. “That doesn’t sound completely truthful, Wade.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“How about that you had a vested interest in keeping George committed elsewhere?”
Wade cleared his throat uncomfortably. “I don’t know what - ”
“Oh, Wade. Yes, you do.”
“Fine, alright?” Wade exclaimed in annoyance, standing up and stepping away from the couch. “God, Lemon, why do you always gotta push?”
“Because I want to be honest! And I want people to be honest with me! I’m so tired of all the lies and - and the secrets and the ‘don’t want to hurt you, Lemons.’”
Wade deflated as the anger seeped out of him. He turned to face Lemon again, swallowing and blinking once, before walking back over and sitting down again.
“I didn’t want George to be single,” Wade admitted quietly. He paused, and after an encouraging nod from Lemon, he continued. “I didn’t want him to be an option for Zoe.”
Lemon curled her legs up underneath her, resituating herself to rest her head against Wade’s shoulder. With a soft sigh, she reached out and took hold of his hand.
“You have real feelings for her. I don’t think that’s happened in a long time. Not since Tancy, maybe. Or maybe - I don’t know - maybe never, really.”
Wade didn’t answer.
“Sucks, doesn’t it?”
“I hate it.”
Lemon laughed quietly, and Wade exhaled once in pained amusement himself. Silence came over the room again then, and Wade squeezed Lemon’s hand.
“What about you? You’ve obviously got - what are they called - unresolved feelings for George. Any for Lavon?”
Lemon hesitated. She shook her head, causing Wade to wince as the bone of her skull dug into his shoulder.
“No,” Lemon said slowly, uncertainly, only to add a more sincere “No.”
“None?”
“The thing I had with Lavon, it was - I can’t explain it. One of the most profound experiences of my life, and something I needed so, so badly then. But it was never meant to last, and I think we both knew that.”
“Well…good,” Wade said. “Because I think he might be into someone new.”
“Really?” Lemon asked, sitting up and looking at Wade. “Who?”
Wade paused, thinking it over as he pressed his tongue to his lower lip. “Um…Tancy.”
“No!” Lemon responded in shock. “Your Tancy?”
“I don’t know for sure,” Wade reminded her, holding his hands up in surrender to reinforce that fact. “It’s just a suspicion.”
“Are you…OK with that?”
Wade nodded. “Totally. Are you?”
“Yeah, actually. I could really see them together.”
“You’re not gonna get all matchmaker now, are you?”
Lemon scoffed and shook her head. “I don’t think he’d appreciate that.”
“Great.” They stared at each other for a moment. “So can we study now?”
Lemon’s eyes widened in shock.
“I want to be done with this conversation now,” he explained. “Notecards are the lesser of two evils if the alternative is talking about feelings.”
**
Zoe walked into the kitchen, smiling as charmingly and innocently as she could. She made it through the entire movie and dinner with George in Mobile (where he was frustratingly gentlemanly and didn’t even put his arm around her, which actually didn’t bug her all that much considering she was pretty distracted herself). And she made it all through the night after that (alone in her house, checking out the window every twenty minutes or so and still missing Wade and Lemon’s goodbye when she finally left at close to one o’clock in the morning, not that it really mattered to Zoe one way or the other). And she made it through her entire shift at the practice, despite the fact that Brick barely talked to her anymore (just one more piece of the fallout from George calling off the wedding, and that she was willing to admit hurt. She had gotten used to having Brick as a friend and colleague and pseudo-father, and she missed it).
But now, she couldn’t ignore it anymore. Because Wade wasn’t at the Rammer Jammer when she’d stopped in after work. No one had seen him all day. And when she subtly asked, she discovered no one had seen Lemon all day either. And she had to know.
“Lavon!” she said, pleased with herself for sounding fairly casual.
“What do you want?” he asked suspiciously.
Maybe not so casual.
Zoe redoubled her efforts, gesturing with a no big deal, dismissive kind of wave. “So, I was just wondering.”
“What?” Lavon clearly wasn’t buying it.
“Wade and Lemon,” Zoe blurted. Then she quickly made a face, shook her head and blew out a breath simultaneously. She kind of worried she looked like she might be having a seizure. “What’s that about, huh?”
“No,” Lavon said. “No. No. No.”
He stood up and walked into the living room.
“I’m just curious,” Zoe called after him.
“Lavon Hayes is not getting sucked back into the crazy. You got what you wanted. Now leave that boy alone.”
“Don’t you care? I mean, Lavon. It’s Lemon. Lemon!”
Lavon didn’t answer, and Zoe threw her hands up in defeat. She turned around and stomped back out of the kitchen.
Chapter Three