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She came out smiling, greeting him at the door as he sauntered up the walkway. His face brightened upon seeing hers. She realized that, for all her forced cheeriness, she’d been as dark and dreary as Ellie all day, up till now. Okay, then. Showtime.
“Hello there,” she greeted him.
“Hi.” One word. Full of relief.
“C’mon in.” She held the door, and he followed her inside. She would have loved to take him to her bedroom, where they could be alone, but Mom would never allow it. Dad was even worse, though he was still at the store.
“Wanna go out to the back deck?” she invited. It was late April. Pretty iffy weather-wise this time of year, but Oregon was known to have a week or two of fabulous weather most springs, and each day this week had gotten better than the last. There was still a chill in the air, but the sun was out at least.
They walked out together. The grayed teak furniture was mostly dry, but some slats held moisture from last night’s rain. Delta perched on the edge of her chair. She’d debated about whether to put on her good white pants but had settled for blue jeans—a better choice, as it turned out.
Tanner was in jeans and the gray hoodie Delta had bought for him, a name brand that she’d saved for, putting away any extra money she made working at the store. It had been expensive, but it looked great on him, making his eyes even bluer.
“Gotta go work out with the guys soon,” he said apologetically.
“It’s Friday night. Supposed to be . . . our time.”
She spoke lightly and pretended the words didn’t have as much import as they did for her. “Their time” seemed like a joke from an era that was out of step with current reality.
Tanner launched into all the reasons he had to stay in shape to keep up with his football career. Though he didn’t say it, she knew he fretted he wasn’t quite tall enough to be a really great quarterback. He cited other shorter NFL quarterbacks who were doing well, but at barely six feet he was overshadowed by others who were six-five or even more. Still, he’d been offered a scholarship, so Delta wished he would cool it a little on the football obsession, at least for today.
After a while, she brought them each a Sprite, but she barely touched hers while Tanner poured his down his throat. She was watching her weight and had made herself a rule that she wouldn’t drink calories if she could help it. All calories had to come from food she chewed.
When he was finished, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and said, “Wellll . . . I’d better get going. We’ll catch up later?”
Delta’s heart was beating hard, and her hands were trembling a bit as she thought about whether she should bring up Amanda. Was she going to? What if her questions made him mad? But she needed to know!
They walked back through the house and then out the front door. At his car, she took a deep breath and asked quickly, “Did you kiss Amanda?”
He was opening his driver’s door and jerked as if she’d goosed him. “Uh . . . no . . .”
“No?”
“No.” Then he mumbled, “Not really,” as it probably occurred to him there was no escaping the truth of the hot gossip surrounding him and Amanda.
“What does that mean?” she asked sharply.
“It means nothing happened.”
“C’mon, Tanner.”
“Amanda was just fooling around, and we were kind of wrestling.”
“Wrestling?”
“Just horsing around. You know.” He sounded almost angry.
“Did you kiss her?”
“I just told you. It wasn’t like that.”
“Did you kiss her?” Delta stressed.
“Did somebody say that?” he demanded, eager to spread the blame to the messenger.
“I heard you were on the pool table together . . . making out.”
“What? No. We were just . . . that’s not . . . who said that? Did Zora say that? She wasn’t even in the room!”
