“That you two have history. That it’s complicated. That Foster is somehow involved.” She refills her glass with wine. “The rest I’ve been filling in myself, which means I probably have half of it wrong.”
“Whodunits aren’t Leighton’s forte,” Callie says.
Leighton turns to look at her. “Don’t you have a baby to feed?”
They laugh for a moment, and the years of friendship look so good on them. Then they grow serious and turn toward me.
“Okay.” I take a breath. “Decker and I grew up together. My dad coached him when he was eleven, and we became close. Really close. He was my best friend for years. There were feelings, but we never acted on them because of my dad, timing, and I’m not really sure what else now that I look back on it.”
“And then?” Leighton leans forward.
“And then he went to college a year before me, and we lost touch. When my dad took a coaching job near his school, we reconnected, but things were never really the same. He had a girlfriend.” I glance quickly at Callie. “Foster played for my dad, and Decker introduced us at a bar one night, and well…”
Leighton blinks. “You dated Foster?” It comes out as a whisper.
“Junior year. Not for very long.” I reach for my wine and glance at Callie again because this involves her fiancé.
She waves me off. “Go ahead. I don’t care.”
Callie looks out the back window, and I follow her gaze to where Foster holds Ellis against his chest, rocking back and forth, laughing with his friends.
Who would’ve ever thought Foster would be the first Davis twin to settle down and have a family? No one from Kingsley or Hartwell, that’s for sure.
“It wasn’t—Foster wasn’t ready to be someone’s boyfriend. He was focused on the draft, and I understood that, but I was twenty and operating under that stupid belief that I could change him.”
They both nod.
I don’t know their dating history, but I can tell they’ve been there. Hasn’t every woman? There’s always one guy you think will change for you, and you just get your heart broken trying.
“And Decker?” Leighton asks.
“Decker and I—” I can’t compress a lifetime into one kitchen conversation waiting to be interrupted by a kid. I tell them a little more of the college story, enough to draw the shape of it without filling it all in, then I jump to my move here, and how I’m planning Dugout Social Club events with him, and he’s teaching my daughter to hula hoop, and apparently I can’t go on a single date without his face showing up in my head.
“Okay,” Leighton says slowly. “I had about forty percent of that right.”
“Which forty percent?” I sip my wine.
“The part where you’re both completely gone for each other and doing absolutely nothing about it.”
Callie snorts and covers her mouth.
“I’m doing something about it,” I say. “I went on a date.”
“With someone who is not Decker.” Callie’s forehead wrinkles.
“Because Decker isn’t an option.” I hear how it sounds as soon as I say it. “Or rather, he hasn’t made himself one.”
Leighton tilts her head. “What does that mean exactly?”
“It means—it means we shared a moment at the river cleanup. And there have been other moments. And every time one of them happens, something interrupts it, or one of us steps back, and it just—” I flatten my hand on the counter and flex it. “Dissolves.”
“So go after him,” Leighton says simply.
“I can’t.”
“Why not? You’re both adults. You both clearly?—”
“Because he has to come to me.” I say it firmly enough that both of them pause. “And I know how that sounds. I know it sounds like I’m sitting around waiting for a man—and that’s not… I’m not waiting because I think that’s the woman’s role.”
