Page 117 of Rhodes

"Where can we go? I don't want to stand here."

There's a bench under a live oak, maybe twenty feet off the main path and half in the shade. My arm's already pointing at it before he finishes.

"There," I say. "Let's just. There."

Students keep flowing past us, backpacks and earbuds and somebody laughing about a professor. My heart climbs higher with every step toward the bench.

I sit. He sits, but doesn't drop down beside me shoulder to shoulder the way he would on his couch. He turns instead, one knee coming up onto the slats, his body angled so he's facing me straight on, close, the noise of everybody else moving past behind him.

He reaches out and takes both my hands. He folds them into his big, calloused hands and settles them in his lap over his knee.

Some part of me is still hoping to be told this is nothing, that he drove out here to say something sweet and stupid, and if I hold still long enough, that version comes true.

His thumb moves once across my knuckles.

"I'm the reason Oak Moss is frozen," he says.

I take my hands back. I don't yank them, but I need them back in my own lap. I understand every word separately. Together, they make no sense.

"I'm going to need you to tell me what you mean by that."

He doesn't flinch. He sits there facing me and gives it to me in order.

"I thought if development came off the table, the rest of it got easier." He looks at me straight on. "You could do the shoreline work and get the conservation piece in place. And then you could expand the oyster operation. That's all I was trying to do."

I stare at him.

"I thought I was taking the threat away."

"The threat?"

"The development."

"No." My voice comes out so calm it almost surprises me. "You thought you were solving my problem for me, instead of trusting me to handle it."

His jaw tightens. "Tallulah, I didn't think I knew more than you."

"You didn't have to think it. You did it."

He goes quiet.

I set my bag on the bench between us, wanting as much space between us as possible. I’m not ready to walk away, yet.

"Do you know what happened eleven minutes before my father called me accusing me of sabotaging Oak Moss?"

His face changes. He looks down and then back up at me, his eyes locked on mine.

"I'll tell you. He called to tell me he read my work. All of it. Twice." I keep my eyes on his. "He said the numbers changed things. He said he was going to talk to Grandbank, and he wanted me in the room because it was my work and I should be the one presenting it."

Rhodes doesn't move.

"I was sitting in my truck, beaming with excitement, looking at flights to Charleston because I thought I had finally gotten them to listen to me."

"Tallulah."

"Don't worry, though. That only lasted eleven minutes."

He takes a deep breath in but doesn't say a word.