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“What?” she asks. “What did I say?”
“We’re dating?” Josh grins at her.
She pauses, her eyes moving around the table. “No. I just, um…I got confused for a minute, because we used to date. I meant to say it past tense.”
“Too late.” Josh still has his arm around her and pulls her into his side. He kisses her head. “You already said it. We’re dating. We have witnesses. It’s official.”
“Oh my God,” she mutters, rolling her eyes for the third time tonight. I’ve never seen her roll her eyes this much. I think it’s her coping mechanism to deal with the feelings she has for Josh but doesn’t want to admit. It’s clear she likes him. She might even love him, but again, with girls it’s hard to tell. I know for a fact Josh lovesher. It’s written all over his face.
Sage laughs. “You two are hilarious. You guys should have your own reality show.”
“Yeah, people would really want to watch a cop and a small town grocery store clerk,” Nina says sarcastically.
“Are you kidding?” Sage perks up in her seat, which is adorable. I love it when she gets all excited about something. “People would totally watch! And it wouldn’t have to be just you and Josh at home. They could follow Josh around at work, dealing with criminals, then they could cut to you at the grocery store, dealing with all the crazy people that come in.”
“Speaking of that, you wouldn’t believe what Ruth and her daughter did the other day. All six grandkids were with her and they were all screaming and crying and she—”
“How’s the writing going?” Josh asks.
I point to Nina. “Don’t you want to hear her story?”
“She already told it to me on the way here. Then she’ll tell the one about Harold. He’s in his seventies and always hits on Nina. The old man even slapped her ass today. If he wasn’t so old and senile I’d drive out to his farm and punch him.”
I was hoping I’d be able to just listen to the girls talk all night and avoid having to say anything. But of course, Josh wants to get to know me.
“So the writing,” he says, “how’s it going?”
“It’s going well.” I look around for the waitress, wishing she’d hurry up and take our order.
“You don’t say much, do you?” he asks in a kidding tone, but I know he’s not joking. He finds my lack of words to be suspicious. I’ll have to make some shit up just to keep him off my back.
“I’m not a big talker. Writers tend to be introverts. And I’m really tired tonight. It’s been a long week of writing.”
“With all that writing you should be almost done by now. Does that mean you’ll be going home soon?”
He’s fishing for information about when I’ll be leaving. I bet Nina put him up to that. She knows Sage will be upset when I leave and she thinks it’ll be easier if I leave sooner rather than later. That might be true. The more time Sage and I spend together, the closer we get. It’d probably be easier on both of us if I left town sooner rather than later. But I can’t do it. I can’t leave, and not because of the situation with my dad. It wouldn’t be hard to find another small town to hide in. The hard part would be saying goodbye to Sage. I’m not ready to do it. I don’t know if I’ll ever be.
“I’m not going anywhere anytime soon. I still have a long ways to go on the book and this is just a first draft. When it’s done I need to go back and do some rewrites before I turn it into my editor.”
“He hasn’t even let me read it,” Sage says, smiling at me as she sneaks her arm around mine. “I’m dying to read his stuff but he won’t even let me read a page. And he won’t tell me what it’s about.”
“That’s not true,” I say. “I told you what it was about.”
“A guy who grew up in a small town who wants to run off to L.A. to be a famous musician. That’s all I know.”
“Because I haven’t figured it all out yet. I’m still developing the story.”
“You could at least let her read a page,” Nina says.
“It’s not ready yet. I don’t like people reading my stuff until it’s at a point where I’m ready to share it.”
I’ve gotta get off this topic. All the attention is on me and I’m struggling to come up with information about a book I’m not even writing.
“So you must have a lot of stories,” I say to Josh, trying to turn the attention back on him. “Being a cop, you must have enough stories to fill at least two or three books, maybe more.”
“I do, but most are stories people wouldn’t want to read about. Murders. Rape. Kidnapping. People don’t want to read about that shit. It’s depressing.”
“People love crime books,” I say, “especially real life crime.”
