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“Simple-minded,” she teases, then laughs to herself. Then her eyes catch on something I forgot was there. Inside the door of the closet is a photo of all of us when we were kids. It’s faded now, but the image of all of us posed on the floating dock in the middle of Silver Lake is still the brightest thing in the trailer.

Hunter is there in the mix, giving me bunny ears and sticking out his tongue.

“Oh wow.” She leans in close. “Look at all of us. We were so young. I can’t believe you kept this.”

I go quiet and all at once, I feel like I’m standing too close to her. I step back. “Best times of my life.”

She looks at me. “You’re a World Champion bull rider and this was the best time of your life?”

I shrug and nod. “Like I said, I’m a simple guy.”

She taps the photo, and it falls to the ground. “Oh, gosh, sorry⁠—”

I go to pick it up, but she beats me to it, and the second I see it’s landed face down, my stomach drops. I watch as Hattie reaches for the photo, studying it as she stands back up.

“Is this . . .?” She looks at me, but my eyes are fixed on the backside of the picture, where, a long time ago, I taped the friendship bracelet she made for me that first year in Silverwood.

I quickly take the photo from her and toss it into a drawer. “Sorry, that’s . . . uh . . .”

“You kept it,” she says.

I shrug. “It’s no big deal.” But then I look at her. “Actually, that’s not true.” I clench my jaw. “It was a big deal. Nobody had ever given me anything like that before.” I take off my hat and toss it on the small table beside the closet. “I moved a lot when I was a kid, you know? So . . . I didn’t have a lot of friends. Not ones that stuck around, anyway.”

“Yeah. I know,” she says, watching me, her eyes big and curious. Normally I don’t like when anyone gets too close, and I especially don’t like talking about my mom or that time in my life, but I sort of want to crack myself open and let Hattie see it all. All the guilt and the shame. All the crap I keep buried. All the stuff I’m trying to unpack now that I’m back here and it’s just sitting there, barely below the surface.

If I didn’t think it would scare her off, I might.

I lean against the counter, struggling not to reach for her. Why do I want to reach for her?

“I probably should’ve told you a long time ago that it really meant a lot to me to have you as a friend. It was different with your brothers, you know—we didn’t talk much about real stuff. Hockey and fishing and horses. But with you⁠—”

I can practically feel her question—Then why did you leave? I know my actions contradict what I’m saying right now.

“You were my best friend, Hattie.” I look at her, a little surprised by the lump at the back of my throat. “I’ve never found anyone who holds a candle.”

She pauses for a few long seconds, then opens the drawer and takes out the picture. She pulls the bracelet out from under the tape and sticks the photo back onto the inside of the closet door and closes it. And when she looks at me, I feel like someone’s seeing me for the first time since I left.

I don’t say anything. She reaches for my hand. I hold it up, and she ties the bracelet around my wrist. I watch her as she concentrates on knotting it, thinking she’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

Then without saying a word, she reaches down and unzips her belt bag. She pulls out a thin wallet and unzips a pouch. “I kept mine too.” She finds it and holds it up.

I’m not an emotional guy, but that lump in my throat swells a little bigger. It’s like proof, that even after everything, the two of us mattered.

She hands it to me, then holds out her wrist.

I gently tie it on, my thick fingers struggling with the knot. Once it’s secure, she pulls it back and wraps her other hand around her wrist, looks up at me and smiles. The air shifts between us, and my fingers itch.

Why do I want to reach for her?

She steps away, then turns, looking around the rest of the interior. “My brothers are going to tease you if they see you wearing that.” Her mouth spreads into a slow smile.

The heat that redlined in me slowly starts to move back to green.

“Let ’em.” I smile back, a buoy of hope inside me. “Now. Are you hungry?”

“Starving,” she says. “But I’m only eating if I can burn the heck out of my hot dog.”

Chapter Twenty