Page 89 of The Hometown Legend

“She’ll take them all,” he said.

“Gideon,” she said. “You can’t do that.”

“If your boyfriend wants to pay, let him,” said the woman.

“Thanks,” he said, and the lady treated him to a little bit of open, frank admiration.

There. He was getting better responses from people all the time.

Rory looked scowly about it, but he took the dresses from her and took them up to pay.

Unlike the camping equipment, he didn’t mind the price tag.

Because Rory looked so—

She was beautiful. Like a window into something new and fresh. She wasn’t a window into something he’d had before, something he ached to reclaim.

She was like a promise of springtime.

And she was going to be wearing these for another man.

Well. He lost himself there for a second.

He paid, and the dresses were folded up in tissue paper and put into an elegant paper bag.

Rory took hold of the handles and carried the bag out in front of her as they walked back to the truck.

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“They all looked great on you.”

“Thank you,” she said. “But...”

“But what?”

“It’s just too much.”

“Why? Why shouldn’t somebody do something nice for you?”

“Why, though? Why are you doing it?”

“What do you mean why?”

“Because unless we were related, or you were my best friend, no one has ever done anything nice for me for nothing. They’d just lure me into a closet so they can trick me into thinking they were going to kiss me, and then pour beer on me.”

He stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. “You have to tell me what that means.”

She sighed heavily, and stared at a point just past him.

“When I was at college, there was a guy, and I was at a party. And he said that he wanted to make out. And I wanted to make out with him. Even though I was afraid. And I agreed to go into the closet and wait for him. He left me in there alone for almost an hour. And when I came out, there were guys waiting outside and they poured cups of beer on me. And everybody laughed.”

“What?” He stared at her, completely unable to believe that was true. What asshole would do something like that? What a... What a fucking idiot.

Rory had been waiting there to kiss him, and he...

It was unfathomable to him.

“I can’t even believe that,” he said.

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