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“Tell me about Chad.”
Her grip tightened. “So…I said he was an asshole in high school.” She cringed. “But we also had a fling.”
The jealousy flaring hot in me was unexpected. High school was a long time ago, but I hadn’t prepared to meet any of her past boyfriends. “He’s dickin’ you around because you hurt his little teenage feelin’s?”
“I didn’t—” She chewed the inside of her lip. “I mean, I didn’t go out with him again, but it’s not like I said, ‘I don’t care to experience thirty seconds of random thrusting while you grunt in my ear again.’ I let him down easy.”
I wasn’t going to pretend that I didn’t go through the thirty-seconds-of-random-thrusting phase. It didn’t last long, and thankfully, my girlfriend at the time had been just as inexperienced as me. She’d held how I dressed against me, not how I fucked. Neither of us had known better, but had she walked away, I couldn’t imagine being crusty about it ten years later. Probably meant he was still random with his thirty seconds and hadn’t worked on his before-and-after technique either.
“You’d be surprised how many clients I work with are like Chad.”
“So you think you can handle him? Because if not, maybe it’s not worth it. I can tell him off and price other companies again. Maybe Ma will listen.”
I’d be insulted, but Delaney was turning the situation over to me in addition to passively revealing to the town she was married to a Barron. “Do you trust me?”
She drove down Main Street and parked in front of a long, flat building. She stared at it for a moment, then scanned the rest of downtown. Indecision left her gaze, and she nodded. “Yes. I trust you.”
* * *
Laney
He’d said to trust him, and I had.
And I sat through the meeting, stunned. My friends hadn’t betrayed my confidence. Chad got the distinct honor of being the first person to publicly know I was married. To a Barron.
I didn’t care for Chad. He had morphed into an ass after I quit seeing him, and I hated that he was the only insurance agent in town that Ma would let touch our account. She wanted an agent she could talk to face-to-face, even though she sent me to all the appointments. Other companies would be more expensive. But we’d also get better service. Ultimately, it was Ma’s decision. Diamond UU was still in her name; she had been going to sign it over to Kane when she retired.
I didn’t have to worry about better service today.
Chad’s smug gaze had landed on Archer and darkened when we’d walked through the door. Before I got Archer’s name out, my husband was pumping Chad’s hand like the insurance agent was some sort of small-town rock star. Then came the quiet bomb of “Hey, we’re married.” Only, Archer spun it like it was Chad’s biggest honor in life to be one of the first to know.
After that, Archer controlled the show. Chad might have thought he had some power, but it was all in Archer’s strong, capable hands. Archer’s knowledge of possible insurance claims during all types of weather shouldn’t have been a surprise. It was his job, but it was the seamless way he presented options. He didn’t need to “look into it,” because all the information was there. Then Archer manipulated each sentence like it was Chad’s intelligence that helped us out, and eventually, Chad was gathering information about federal programs I could talk to the bank about and filling out forms so we could have some financial relief during a drought year.
After a lifetime of Ma’s blunt outbursts, this level of suave was sexy. What’s more, Archer didn’t do this to me. He could spin me in twelve different directions and I wouldn’t know what was up. But he didn’t. He didn’t do that to anyone outside of his job.
Archer leaned forward like he was hanging on to Chad’s every word. “So tell me, Chad, as the guy with the answers, how do you think Cheryl should adjust her plan to keep her in front of the weather curve?”
Chad practically preened at Archer’s words. He adopted an expression of all-knowing wisdom. “Well, let’s review the Grangers’ policy.”
I should have been angry. Chad should have been talking to me, but it was like I wasn’t there. He shouldn’t have been showing Archer Ma’s information at all. My husband wasn’t on the policy. Though, technically, I wasn’t either.
But relief cooled the blood that had been heated all day at the thought of this appointment. Someone else was dealing with this shit.
I barely paid attention. I knew the changes I wanted to make with our policy; the trouble was getting Ma to approve it. Chad’s next client came in, an older man wearing a flannel shirt in the middle of summer and a white-and-black cap with the refinery’s logo on it. A farmer from somewhere in the county. He probably didn’t have to play games with Chad. But Chad was going to tell this guy about having a Barron in the office. I could bet on it. Just like I knew no other Barrons did business with Chad.
Archer wrapped up the appointment as smoothly as he’d started it and held the door open for me. I stepped onto the sidewalk, letting the warm air chase off the chill of the air-conditioned office.
“I think that went well,” he murmured after the door closed behind him.
I snorted and strode to the pickup. “That was quite the spectacle.” Another thought struck me, and my stomach twisted. I should’ve considered it before. “When the town starts talking about us, Ma’s going to lose her shit.”
“She had to know it’d get out.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Ma had been quiet with me all week. Whenever I was out of her sight, she thought I was with Archer. Yesterday she’d asked if I was asking for a divorce. I’d told her we were talking and left it at that.
“If I’m going to be here for another three weeks, maybe I should get to know her.”
“Yeah,” I said with no inflection. Pushing him on Ma would make her ignore him more. She’d lump him in with the rest of the Barrons.
