Page 17 of The Hometown Legend

Not from earlier. Not from back then.

He wasn’t scarred. At least, not that she could see.

He had tattoos. She’d noticed the tattoos from afar, but hadn’t been able to tell what they were. Up close she could see. Smoke, and fire, it looked like. A dragon. And on the other arm, water. Waves and a large sea serpent. She felt silly staring like that, so she didn’t manage to take a visual tour of the other arm before she looked up to meet his gaze.

Her mouth felt dry. Her heart was pounding hard. She hadn’t realized it, because she’d been all distracted trying to take in the differences in him. Trying to find something familiar.

“Gideon?”

“Yes.”

“I... Rory. Rory Sullivan,” she said. Still, she didn’t see any recognition. It wasn’t like they’d been friends but he had driven her to school every day. She hadn’t expected him to forget her completely. Was she really that beige? They’d...they’d talked on those car rides. She’d treasured them. He’d saved her. It had mattered to her. And today she’d thought... Did he not think about her at all? Had he not actually noticed her yesterday? “I’m Lydia’s friend.”

“Oh,” he said.

“My sister wanted me to come by and make sure that you were getting settled in okay. And to bring a bit more food. Since we figured it might take you a couple of days to get settled and assembled. I manage the houses that we rent out on the property. In addition to some around town.” She didn’t know why she added that last part. It wasn’t relevant to him.

He probably didn’t care.

She cleared her throat and pressed on. “Anyway. I just wanted to bring you this.”

“Thanks. Did you make the pie?”

“Oh. Yes. I did. We have blackberries in our garden, and...”

“You remembered ice cream.”

“What’s pie without ice cream?” she asked, smiling. Or trying to. “You found the coffee and everything, too, right?”

“If I hadn’t, I would never have answered the door. I wouldn’t have been upright.”

He was talking, but it was all clipped and short. Like he didn’t want her to accidentally get the idea he wanted to carry on a conversation.

“Anyway. Here you go.” She handed him the other basket.

He took it, and didn’t ask what was in it. “Just a second.”

He turned and went into the house and reappeared a moment later with a bottle of wine. “You can have this back.”

“Oh. Is that not... It’s not a kind that you like or...”

“Don’t drink. Thanks.”

“Oh. Yeah. No problem. I’m not the biggest... I don’t love wine myself. But a lot of people do. So I like to put it in the welcome baskets and... I guess I should ask.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Except she was worried about it.

Because she worried about a lot of things, and that seemed like a pretty reasonable thing to worry about. She imagined that you probably shouldn’t make assumptions about people’s alcohol consumption.

She’d always seen it as a nice thing, but...

“Don’t overthink it,” he said. “I just didn’t want it to be wasted in my cabinet, otherwise I would never have said anything.”

“Okay. I won’t overthink it. Well. That’s a lie. I will overthink it. Because I overthink everything.”

He shifted, and something about the way the light hit his face then gave her a small glimpse of the boy she used to know. “That’s a difficult way to live, Rory.”

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