Page 65 of Main Event

Andi sits up. “Where are we?”

“Almost there.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It is if you’re patient.” I throw her a grin over my shoulder.

“I’m famously patient.”

I glance at her.

She gives me a look back. “Fine. I’m strategically patient.”

“That’s closer.”

She turns toward the window as the lake comes into view.

Lake Chatuge opens between the trees, blue, clear, and quiet under the afternoon sun. The storm never made it this far, or maybe it passed before us, leaving everything polished. The water catches the light in pieces. Mountains rise around it, layered and steady, a view that makes talking feel optional.

Andi doesn’t say anything. That tells me everything.

I pull into a gravel turnout beside a roadside stand with a faded sign that reads PEACHES, TOMATOES, BOILED PEANUTS, ICE-COLD DRINKS. It looks almost exactly as I remember it, though the roof is newer and the old cooler by the door has been replaced.

An older man sits in the shade beside a box fan that’s losing its fight with the heat. He looks up when we get out. For one second, his eyes narrow. Then his face breaks open.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he says. “Luke Woods.”

I smile before I can stop myself. “Mr. Hanley.”

Andi looks between us, interested now.

Mr. Hanley pushes himself up from the chair, slower than I remember but with the same sharp eyes. “Look at you. Bigger than a bull and twice as ugly.”

“There’s the welcome I was hoping for.”

“You got famous and forgot where the good peaches come from.”

“Never forgot.”

“Just took you ten years to prove it.”

“Closer to twelve.”

“That does not help your case, son.”

Andi steps closer, her smile tucked at the corner of her mouth.

Mr. Hanley turns to her. “You must be the reason he remembered manners.”

“She tries,” I say.

Andi holds out her hand. “Andi Morgan.”

He takes it gently. “Pleasure, ma’am. You want peaches, don’t let him pick. He always went for the biggest ones as a boy, and big don’t mean sweet.”

“I was efficient.”

“You were greedy.”