Page 40 of Just Friends

The local barbeque restaurant isn’t a far walk and is already teeming with tourists, locals, and hikers alike. The air is heavy with humidity and the smell of sunscreen and unwashed bodies, mixed with the tangy scent of vinegar barbeque sauce as we make our way through the throngs of people waiting outside the restaurant. Luckily, Wren’s brother owns the place, so he saved us a table on the patio under the dangling Edison bulb lights.

My thighs slide against the wooden planks of the picnic table bench. Wren smiles at me from across the table, pushing her curly strawberry bangs off her forehead.

“You made it!” she yells over the sound of country music playing loudly over the speakers.

“Did you manage to evade Holden?”

Alex settles next to me on the small bench seat, his thigh pressed against the length of mine. We’ve sat this close thousands of times before, under blankets and in back seats of cars and in situationsjust like this, so I will the butterflies to stop flapping in my stomach and calm my nerves, forcing my shoulder to relax against his broad one. Instead of feeling tense and heavy like earlier in the truck, it feels calm and normal, and the knot in my stomach loosens further.

“He cornered me at the Hiker Talent Show,” she groans, her pale blue eyes rolling.

“And?”

“He told me he was calling the cops if I didn’t clean them up by tomorrow morning.”

“So what are you going to do?” I ask, taking a sip of the heavily sweetened tea the waitress just dropped off at our table.

“I left the talent show and bought plastic spoons at the market.”

A laugh sputters from Alex, and I can’t help but grin at him, pressing my shoulder into his. “There’s no way she would give up that easily,” I tell him.

“Absolutely not,” Wren says, her palm smacking against the table and rattling the weathered boards. “You know he sent June over to my house last month when I was working in the garden and had her tell me he was passed out in the backyard. And when I went over to check on him, he ambushed me with a water gun.”

“Is June his wife?” Alex asks, looking between the two of us.

“His daughter,” Wren answers. “Though how he convinced anyone to procreate with him, I’ll never know.”

“Wren,” I scold, and a reluctant grin lifts her lips.

“Okay, you’re right. That’s too far. But he’s a miserable, grumpy old man.”

“He’s not that much older than us,” I say with a laugh.

She waves my comment away. “Enough about Holden Blankenship. How was your shift at the store?”

I lean back on the bench, crossing my ankles one over the other. “We walked in on Cam and Ellie making out in the storeroom.”

“Oof.”

“Oof is right,” Alex grumbles. “His hand was up her skirt.”

I nudge his shoulder with my own. “Alex, when a man and a woman really love each other—”

“They go fishing,” he interrupts me, his chocolate eyes twinkling like twin stars in the night sky.

My lips twist to keep from smiling.

“Is fishing an innuendo?” Wren asks, her gaze bouncing between the two of us.

“No,” we answer in unison, voices blending together as seamlessly as the stitches on the handmade flannel quilt we ate our picnic breakfast on this morning.

Wegetrainedoutof the concert. The drizzle starts just before the main act comes out and switches to a downpour sometime after his fifth song. My cream floral top is almost transparent, sticking obscenely to my skin, the ties between my breasts drooping and the bell sleeves heavy with rainwater. My denim shorts are damp, riding lower and lower on my hips as Alex and I run through town, making a mad dash for the truck, puddles splashing all the way up to our thighs. I’ve got my sandals in hand, my bare feet slapping against wet pavement.

Wren and Stevie, who met us at the concert after we finished dinner, had both found closer parking spots. We lost them in the crowd a while ago, each promising to stop at the farm to say goodbye before we left tomorrow.

When we round the bend to our hidden parking spot, I slip in mud, my legs sliding out from beneath me. Alex’s hands are at my waist before I can fall, hauling me against his chest.

His breath is hot on my ear as he asks, “You okay?”

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