Page 24 of Wright Together

“Oh, I usually do.”

Then, I pulled him inside before he could argue.

I ordered heaps of food and cold Mexican Cokes. Whitton insisted on paying, and I didn’t even argue since it was going on the company per diem.

“To fun,” I said, holding up my glass bottle of Coke.

He clinked his glass against mine. “To fun.”

The food arrived ten minutes later with meat, potato salad, and macaroni and cheese piled high on oversize Styrofoam plates. We dug in, and it was just as incredible as I remembered. I hadn’t been here in years. My throat closed up at the thought.

“Well, you were right. It’s incredible,” Whitt said. He licked the sticky sauce off of his fingers.

“I know.”

“How’d you hear about this place?”

“Gram used to bring me here all the time. She knew the owner before he passed and his son took over.”

“Are you close with your grandma?”

“I was,” I said, emphasizing the past tense.

His face fell. “Sorry. I didn’t know.”

“Yeah. She passed last year.” I swallowed back the lump in my throat. “It was a lot. I still miss her.”

I nearly choked on those words. I hadn’t spoken about my grandma to anyone. She’d practically raised me, been my safe harbor, and when she got dementia, the world turned upside down. Her loss had made everything exponentially harder.

“I’m sorry, Eve.”

His hand reached across the picnic table and covered mine. Electricity shot through me at the touch. The pads of his fingers sent shock waves through my system. It would have been easy to lean into that, but I didn’t want sympathy. Sympathy made me uncomfortable in the same way that adventure made him uncomfortable. I didn’t need to be vulnerable with anyone. I could handle it.

I pulled my hand back with a laugh. “Yeah. It’s fine. She was in her eighties. What can you do?” I jumped to my feet. “You done?”

He nodded, and I snatched up his plate to toss it. But not before I saw the look on his face that said I was a mystery he was trying to solve. I dumped our plates in the trash can and felt Whitt follow me. I really didn’t want to make a big deal out of this. Not when I’d just gotten him to relax some. I was about to put on some heavy bravado when I heard the worst thing in the entire world.

“Evie Jo? Is that really you?”

I groaned. “No, no, no,” I muttered under my breath.

But I turned around anyway to see Rusty Cook eating up the short distance with his long legs. I straightened at the sight of him, my back going up to protect myself. He was a man in his fifties in tattered overalls and a flannel underneath with oil-rig-tanned skin and greasy hair, pulled back into a ponytail. And unfortunately, I’d known him most of my life.

“Evie Jo, thatisyou.”

“Hello, Rusty.”

Whitt looked between us, adjusting his posture so that he appeared even taller than he was. As if he could be a physical shield between me and this man. I didn’t know how he’d read me that quickly, but I hadn’t wanted to see anyone that I knew from home. Not with Whitt at my side. Not when I was dressed like I didn’t belong here anymore.

“Shoot. I almost didn’t recognize ya,” he said with a head tip in my direction. “Look at that fancy outfit. Ya look like a classy lady.”

“Thank you.”

“Who’s ya friend?” Rusty asked.

His expression wasn’t exactly kind as he looked at Whitt. No one around here liked outsiders. And Whitton, with his fancy suit and shiny shoes, definitely didn’t belong.

“Rusty, this is Whitton. We work together. Just here today for business. We actually have to get going.”

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