Page 70 of The Hometown Legend

Then she all but hustled him out the door.

“You should’ve called first.”

“I don’t have your number.”

“They’re going to think this is weird.”

“Why is it weird?” he asked.

“Nothing. Well, no, something. Because, of course, people don’t think men and women just hang out.”

“You’re Lydia’s friend.”

Something that looked vaguely like hurt filled her eyes. He frowned. “I didn’t say that to hurt your feelings.”

“No. It didn’t hurt my feelings... No. It’s fine. Why would that hurt my feelings?”

“You look hurt.”

She looked at him for a long moment. “I don’t think anyone has ever cared if I look hurt or not.”

“Surely your sisters do.”

She closed her eyes. “Yeah. I have a bad habit of acting like they don’t count. I tend to focus on all the people I don’t even like that much, anyway.”

“I think we all do that.”

They walked toward his truck. “I do understand if you’re busy today,” he said. “If you don’t have time to do this, you don’t have to.”

“My job is pretty free-flowing. I have rental stuff to check on, but not every day, and I’ve been phasing that out because I’m leaving.”

“That’s understandable. So what you’re telling me is you have a lot of free time.”

“Yeah. So sure, I’ll come and check out this obstacle course thing.”

“Oh,” he said. “It’s not up. I thought you might want to help with that.”

“I didn’t say I wanted to become a builder. I said I wanted to become a legend.”

“You want to climb the mountain, right, Rory? If you want to climb a mountain, you gotta build some strength first.”

“Oh, my gosh.”

“You know I was in the military. I can be your personal drill sergeant.”

“And what do you get in return?”

He looked at her. And the first thing that echoed inside him wasmore time with you.

He couldn’t explain that.

Not even to himself.

But there was something easy about Rory when people were so rarely easy for him anymore.

“I find it hard to believe that people were ever mean to you,” he said as they drove out to the main highway.

“Why?”

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