Against my stupid will, my consciousness swung toward Knox. He stared at his plate like he had no interest whatsoever in my answer, but I could practically feel the “sayno,Goodman” energy coming off him in waves.
Was I up for a few hours where I wasn’t looking for smiles from a guy who very clearly and stubbornly didn’t like me?
“Yeah,” I said breezily. “Looking forward to it.”
CHAPTER TWO
KNOX
I was not looking forwardto this.
“Why do I keep letting the man provoke me?” I muttered to the heavens as I stalked down the sidewalk on Stanistead Road. The morning rain had slowed, but groups of elderly tourists still clustered close to the shop windows, where the awnings protected them from the drizzle, meaning my late ass had to practically walk in the street to get around them. “For fuck’s sake, why can’t I just behave like a man who’s about to be forty damn years old?”
My life had been a circus before Gage Goodman had shown up, it was true. But it had been a rational, well-organized circus. Three tidy rings, safety nets all around, and the shit had been shoveled regularly.
Then that… that…kidhad come to the orchard two weeks ago, all sunshine-smiley and messy-haired and smelling like the ocean, taking over every single one of my spaces with his sly smile and his hilariously awful T-shirts and his dark eyes that showed his every emotion, and suddenly my life was a chaotic shitshow run by rabid twin monkeys calledlustandfrustrationthat made me do stupid things like re-download the Grindr app in the dead of night just to check out who might be locatedtwenty feet away from me—seriously, LumberjackLuvr? What kind of a username was that, Goodman?—and blurt out things like, “Sure, I’ll go to lunch at your best friend Jack’s restaurant with you, Webb,” which was tantamount to me agreeing to Webb’s nosy matchmaking bullshit with his friend, and Webb knew it.
I nearly mowed down a lady with a walker in my haste, and I blew out a breath, forcing myself to slow down. To take a deep breath that smelled like wet autumn leaves and maple taffy, and count the beats of my heart, and appreciate the chill in the air that denoted the changing seasons.
“I am in control,” I lied to myself in a slow, soothing voice. The voice was important, because it made super-healthy meditation mantras out of statements that would otherwise be really worrisome self-delusions. “All is well with me.”
Dr. Travers would be so proud.
“Hey, hon. Table or stool?” a friendly, blonde thirty-something called from behind the lunch counter as I stepped into Jack’s restaurant. Other than the new name emblazoned on the doors—Panini Jack’s Diner—the place looked a lot like it had back when it was our high school hangout, but at a quick glance, I hardly recognized anyone.
Before I could answer, her eyes tracked behind me, and her grin widened flirtatiously. “Webb Sunday! Well, hey there, cutie!”
“Katey.” Webb stepped up just behind me.
“This another brother of yours?” She nodded at me and cracked her gum. “Never mind—I can see the Sunday all over him. Grab your usual booth, honey, and I’ll let Jack know you’re here.” She tossed him a wink as she moved off.
“Thanks,” Webb said with an easy smile.
“Honey,” I whispered under my breath.
Webb shoulder-checked me as he moved toward a booth at the left rear corner of the restaurant, beside the swinging door to the kitchen, and I headed in that direction without comment.
“Nice place, eh?” He slid onto one of the benches.
I grunted, shrugging out of my windbreaker. “Been here before plenty of times.”
“Ages ago, maybe. Jack did an amazing job on the place, huh?”
I glanced around the restaurant, at the dull gleam of the wood floors and the red pleather booths. “Wasn’t it always like this?”
Webb tilted his head to the side. “You are seriously unobservant. No, it wasn’t. It was getting worn down before you went to college, remember? By the time Jack bought the place when he moved to town six or seven years ago, it was falling apart. He redid all the booths, and I helped him do the wainscoting a couple years ago with reclaimed shiplap from the Cauffeys’ old barn. Em did the drawings.” He pointed up at the framed drawing of a dancing sandwich on the wall.
“Ah,” I said. “Cool.”
It was a little disorienting to think that the diner had had time to not only fall apart, but also be restored since I’d been gone, and that the random guy I’d only met a couple of times in passing at Aiden’s birthday parties was Webb’s best friend. I hadn’t felt like I belonged in the Hollow twenty years ago, which meant I definitely didn’t belong now.
“You’d know all this if you bothered coming to lunch with me any of the times I’ve invited you this summer,” Webb noted. “I’m here all the dang time.”
“Yes, you are. And I naively thought it was for the sandwiches.Cutie.”
Webb’s cheeks went pink. “No. That’s not… No. That’s just Katey being friendly.” He darted a wary glance over his shoulder toward the counter. “She doesn’t mean anything by it.”
I begged to differ, but I restrained myself to another grunt.
