would he invite me to coffee? He has to hate me.
“So you’re really getting those,” he says, eyeing the Dino-Nuggets as we stand in line.
“They’re not for me.”
“Oh.”
His face. I look away.
“Right. Not for you,” he repeats flatly. “And the magazine—are you getting that? But that would mostly be for someone else too, I guess.”
My eyes finally focus on what I’ve been staring at.
“Sorry,” he mutters. I wish he hadn’t. Apparently he’s too nice to enjoy embarrassing me—not like I haven’t earned it.
He turns to the candy rack, grabs a pack of gum, and throws it in his cart. I’m still bracing to implode from shame, but I can’t not think about that gum. I know that gum. I know what it tastes like in his mouth.
I should have gone straight home after my shift.
I pay for my groceries and wait awkwardly by the customer service desk while he pays for his, though I’m not sure why. We can’t possibly still be going for coffee. Maybe I should save him the hassle of trying to make up an excuse and just tell him I’m not feeling well, which would be 100 percent true. Stupid Dino-Nuggets. I can’t believe I said
“My car or yours?” he asks.
I almost drop my bags. There’s no logical explanation for any of this. “Yours.”
“Mine’s sort of a mess,” he says.
“I don’t care.” He has no idea what a messy car is. In Mo’s car right now there are at least ten Taco Bell bags that I’m refusing to throw out for him, not to mention a giant puffball of a wedding dress taking up the entire backseat. And just thinking about coming up with a lie as to why I’m not driving my Explorer makes me tired.
We walk from the fluorescent-lit store into the night. It’s post-rain black and steamy, and the puddles look like pools of ink when the moon reflects. Warm water spills over the edge of my flips and wets my toes.
“Piper was doing that the other day, and it reminded me of you.”
“What?”
“Walking through every puddle possible,” he says.
“It’s a compulsion,” I say, and veer left to wade through the next one. “I can’t not do it.”
“I noticed.”
In the car, the smell of him is so familiar, like rain and night, it feels like I should be allowed to reach out and touch his forearm. I still don’t know why I’m here, but I don’t care anymore, and that’s scary.
Starbucks is empty, except for a few middle-aged types staring into laptops—thank goodness, nobody I know. And the barista looks vaguely familiar, but I think it’s because she used to come into Mr. Twister. I don’t think she recognizes me.
Reed insists on buying my coffee. I don’t want him to, but I don’t want to insult him either, so I let him and take mine with an extra packet of guilt.
“You get to choose the table,” he says to me, as if getting to pay for coffee is a perk, and hands the barista a ten.
“That one,” I say, pointing to the corner booth farthest from the window.
It isn’t until we’re several sips in that the awkwardness begins to lift.
“So, work is pretty lame now,” he says. “Flora isn’t as much fun as you were.”
“Thanks, I guess.”
“You didn’t have to quit, you know.”
I smile, but it’s barely lip-deep. We both know I had to quit. I take another sip for something to hide behind.
“So, you’re working at Myrna’s Country Craft?” he asks.
“Yeah. How did you know that?”
“This is a small town, Annie.”
My lungs stop pulling air midbreath. The sound of my name wrapped in his voice—it’s amazing and terrible. Mostly terrible. I want him to say it again.
“I may not be from here, but I’ve got family in the grapevine,” he says. “Vicky and my grandma report gossip like it’s their job.”
“Yeah,” he says softly. He’s peeling the cardboard sleeve off his cup, smoothing it out over the table. It’s one of those pointless, fidgety things to do when you need your hands to be busy. I start doing the same to mine.
He’s trying to press the ridges in the cardboard flat, but it wants to curl. I love his painter’s hands, red from turpentine and speckled with cream. I could watch him fidget all night.
At least neither of us say the stupid things that shouldn’t be said. He doesn’t say congratulations. I don’t say I’m sorry. Not again.
“And I know about your sister.”
I can’t think. My heart is in my throat.
“Why did you tell me you were an only child?” he asks.
“Well . . .” I falter. Well, what? “I am now,” I finish lamely.
He stares at me and I look away. I want to ask him if he knew when we were together and was just waiting for me to tell him, or if someone told him after we broke up. Not that it matters. Either way, he thinks I’m a liar.
“People treat me differently when they find out,” I say.
“I wouldn’t have.”
We settle back into silence, but this time my mind is racing to come up with a question, anything to keep him from asking about Lena or Mo or other prod-able wounds. “So, how’s Soup?”
“Good. I have a new niece.”
“I was wondering if Vicky had the baby yet. Did everything go okay?”
“Yeah. They named her Candace, and she never cries except when I’m holding her. Then she screams like a maniac.” He grins, forgetting himself, forgetting me, for a moment.
I picture him holding a screaming infant, remember Piper throwing her croquet mallet into the woods, and have to laugh. “Keep up the good work, Uncle Idiot.”
“I will.” His smile is rueful. “I seem to be having a hard time pleasing the women in my life lately.”
Too much. It’s meant to be a joke, but I feel like something pierced my skin, sliced through breast and muscle and rib cage, right through my heart. I’m a monster. “No,” I say, but my voice is weak when I want it to be firm. “You did—”
“Forget it,” he interrupts. “I don’t want you to.”
“But I mean it. No. No, you didn’t not . . . please me.” The word is wrong. Old-fashioned or sexual, and I didn’t mean it either way. He’s abandoned the dream of flattening the dismantled cup sleeve and is tearing it into thin strips, like I didn’t say anything.
I want to say
