Wenn seemed like the kind of guy who’d be easy to scare off. And the sad truth of it was, I liked having a friend who didn’t know about my recent past either.
When you lived in a town as small as Kirby Falls, everyone knew your business and your history—or, at least, they sure as hell thought they did. It was inescapable.
But my friendship with Wenn was easy, and I wanted to keep it that way.
“It’s not a secret,” he clarified, amusement still lingering. “It’s just embarrassing. I follow this home baker on social media. She shares recipes and makes step-by-step baking videos that are entertaining.”
I waited for the embarrassing part. “So...you, like, have a crush on her?”
Wenn snorted. “No. She doesn’t—you can’t even see her face in the videos. I just know it’s weird for men to enjoy baking as a hobby.”
It sounded like my friend had some toxic masculinity in his background, which was also none of my business.
“Plenty of male top chefs in restaurants, all across the world,” I challenged lightly and then took a sip of my cider.
Wenn nodded thoughtfully, like maybe he knew that already.
“What’s it called? Maybe I’ll look the videos up.”
“It’s calledNot Your Aunt Linda’s Kitchen,” Wenn replied. “Her name is Melinda, and she takes traditional recipes and puts a unique spin on them. Makes a lot of substitutions for people with dietary restrictions.”
“That sounds really cool. Don’t worry. I’ll keep your dirty little secret.”
Wenn laughed—a real one this time. “Thanks, Mercer. I knew I could count on you.”
I let loose a big sigh. “That’s me. Dependable Mercer.”
Wenn’s gaze cut my way. “What’s that self-deprecating sigh about?”
I was so surprised by my friend’s genuine interest and rare personal question that I actually answered. “It’s just, that’s who I’ve always been. The reliable friend. The one who gets walked on and looked over. The dependable sucker.”
It was dark now but not so dim that I couldn’t make out Wenn’s deep frown as his eyebrows drew together. “That’s not what I meant. I?—”
“No, I know,” I interrupted. “Ignore me. They’re my own hang-ups.”
And they were. Wenn couldn’t know that calling me dependable triggered the part of me that felt used and manipulated. There was no way he could have anticipated my reaction. I was Mercer: the loyal, trustworthy employee. The responsible friend. Need someone to call when your car won’t start? I’m your guy. How about when you need coverage at the farmers’ market on Saturday? Just ask Mercer. He’s got you. Or if you happen to find yourself knocked up in college, risking public scrutiny and being disowned by your religious, conservative family? Yeah, get Mercer for that, too.
Wenn didn’t know all the complicated emotions tied to being the dependable one or what it had cost me. So I distracted him with a different truth instead. “Hey, you wanna hear something funny? The girl I had a huge crush on in high school just came back to town today, and, get this, she didn’t even recognize me.”
The man occupying the camp chair beside me stayed quiet, so I laughed to cover up the awkwardness of the last thirty seconds and explained who Candace Judd was and that she was back on her family’s farm for the first time since high school.
“She held out her hand and introduced herself like we didn’t have honors chemistry together junior year,” I admitted.
Wenn groaned. “Jesus, that is rough. Is she clueless or just mean?”
I was already shaking my head. “No. Neither. I looked different back then. I can’t really blame her for not recognizing me right off.”
“Different how?”
I thought of puberty and how it hadn’t been kind. Somehow I’d had acne from fourteen to nineteen but hadn’t grown past five one until after high school graduation. “My face was a mess. I wore glasses—cheap, basic frames because that was all my aunt could afford. I was scrawny and small. The summer after graduation—the summer Candace left—I shot up so fast that my bones ached.”
With a commiserating glance, Wenn said, “I was a late bloomer too.”
Taking in his imposing form in the tiny camp chair, it was hard to imagine Wenn as anything but the large-framed, muscular man before me. He looked like an action star or a professional athlete, maybe a soldier or an MMA fighter.
But it was nice to imagine that we had something like teenage awkwardness in common. I was six feet tall now and had taken up strength training and weight lifting in college. I wasn’t the skinny nerd who enjoyed art class and dreaded PE, like I used to be. And I wasn’t the eighteen-year-old guy growing too fast for his body to keep pace with. There had been a time when I couldn’t eat enough to keep my belly full. Mrs. Price—Hannah’s mom—had loved inviting me to have dinner at her house next door. I’d been the only one at the table who wasn’t a picky eater. I ate everything she put in front of me, and the leftovers she’d send home with me too.
The Prices had been more than my neighbors. Hannah had been my best friend. Mrs. Price had treated me like a son, and the reverend had taught me how to grow a garden, drive a car, and shave my face. They’d done their best when they realized my homelife wasn’t ideal. But it had never been their job to fix what was broken in me.
