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“I’m sure,” he replied. He sounded genuine, but I wondered if he was being sarcastic.
Searching for another topic, I said, “How was Auburn? What did you end up majoring in?”
He stiffened in his seat. “I didn’t go to Auburn.”
“What? Yes you did. You were talking about it at the pool party that summer we graduated. Or did you end up dropping out?”
“I ended up not going at all,” he said curtly.
“Oh.” I paused. “Why not?”
“It just didn’t work out. I went to community college instead.”
I looked at him for several heartbeats. “Did something happen with your dad? Is that the reason?”
“It’s a complicated story,” he said. “Not really in the mood to talk about it.”
“Oh. All right.”
“How was Clemson?”
“Great,” I said truthfully. “Best four years of my life. So far, at least.”
“I’m sure it was good to get away from your mom.”
I chuckled. “You have no idea.”
Smoke curled into a ball in the middle seat, then rested his head on my thigh. He let out a long sigh, and I scratched behind his ear.
“Huh,” Jack said.
“What?”
“Smoke isn’t aggressive or anything, but he’s usually wary of strangers. It takes him a while to warm up to people. Especially women.”
He probably disapproves of your taste in women, I thought to myself. What I said out loud was, “He can tell I’m an amazing person.”
“Apparently so.”
Jack turned on the radio, and we drove in silence for a while. What was there to say to a man I hadn’t spoken to in eight years?
I didn’t really need to come. I could have let him deliver the fabric by himself. So why am I here?
The fabric store on the other side of Tampa was busy at this time of day, and the manager had us pull around to the back to drop off the bolts. Jack and one of their workers unloaded everything, and then the owner took me aside.
“Good quality,” she said. “Better than I expected. Here’s the amount we agreed on.” She handed me a check.
“Thanks. Um, do you think you’ll be interested in purchasing more? We have a lot of inventory.”
The woman, who had leathery skin and looked like she drove a hard bargain, chewed on the inside of her lip. “Not until two months from now. Already used up most of our budget this quarter scooping up this batch from you.”
“Ah, that’s too bad,” I said. We would have everything finished long before then.
“Now,” the woman said, “if you end up getting desperate, maybe I can move some money around…”
“You’re missing out,” Jack said, wiping his hands on his jeans.
“I’ve got this covered,” I said.
