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“We are nothing.”
“Oh, honey.” Bea shook her head. “That was anything but nothing.”
Lauren grinned and ducked her head while Bessie nodded emphatically. “He couldn’t look away from you,” Bessie said. “I was jumping up and down and waving my arms, and nothing.”
Joy rolled her eyes. “That’s not true.”
“She stomped on my foot,” Sage said crossly. “It’s absolutely true.”
She didn’t want to tell them that she’d said he could “maybe” call and text her, nor about the breakfast invitation he’d issued. He’d done that before she’d told him about her break-up with Chester, so for all he knew, she was still seeing him.
No, he was cocky and arrogant, yet with a sweet Southern charm that Joy couldn’t dismiss only because of his obvious flirting.
“So what?” she asked her friends. Maybe they’d tell her what to do if she phrased it right. “What am I supposed to do about him? I don’t live here.”
“Just don’t close any doors,” Cass said. “You have a phone and a computer. I’m willing to bet he does too, and you’ll be here next summer.” She raised her eyebrows and nodded. “That’s all.”
“Options open,” Lauren said.
“All options open,” Bessie agreed.
Joy nodded, because simply leaving her options open sounded like a blueprint she could get on board with. “All right,” she said. “Now, can we eat? The pork was perfect, and now it’s probably cold.”
19
Blake looked up from his phone as Tommy came out of the dressing room. His grin said everything it needed to about the burnt orange shorts he wore. “These are so cool, Dad.” He put his hands in his pockets and struck a pose while Blake grinned and got to his feet.
“Finally,” he said. “One winner.” He’d brought his son school shopping today because Tommy had refused to go with his mother. She’d tried buying him a few things online that he’d then deemed “grotesque,” and he’d called Blake.
They’d gotten lunch on the way to Charleston, and they’d found plenty of winners already. T-shirts. A couple of button-up shirts that made Tommy look more grown up than Blake liked—or than he actually was. His son wasn’t tripping nearly as much lately, but he was still goofy and gangly. Just the way Blake liked him.
“Let me see what other colors they have. Do you like gray? Khaki?”
“Black if they have them,” Blake said. “They’re a thirty, Dad.”
“Yep.” Blake knew how skinny his son was. Tall, skinny, and strong, that was Tommy. Jacinda had texted to say he’d asked her to start calling him Tom instead of Tommy, but Blake hadn’t heard that request yet. He was going to keep doing what he did until his son asked him to do something different.
He pulled a black pair and a light gray pair of shorts off the rack in the right size, and he went back to the dressing room. Tommy had tossed the burnt orange pair over the top of the door, and he snagged those too. “I’m going to go buy these,” he said. “Then we’ll head down to the shoe store.”
“Maybe they’ll have athletic shorts that don’t cling,” Tommy called back.
“Maybe.” Blake would be surprised if they didn’t, and he’d just tucked his card back into his wallet when his son joined him at the cash register. He looked at his boy and grinned. “You’ve got lots of shirts now. New shorts. Pants? Jeans?”
Tommy made a face. “I hate wearing pants.”
“Same.” Blake led the way out of the store, and they went to the mecca of shops for men: the athletic shoe store, Birmingham’s. Blake stepped inside and just took a deep breath. Leather, cotton, and perfection, that was what he got.
He gazed around, his smile seemingly permanently etched on his face. The business casual shoes sat near the front, with the basketball shoes, running shoes, and other athletic gear near the back. Blake loved shoes, everything about them, and as he wore a pair of slacks and a tie to work every day, he had a reason to buy the fancy dress shoes in the front of the store.
“Come on, Dad,” Tommy said, and Blake tore his gaze from a gorgeous pair of almost red leather shoes with intricate designs carved into them.
He followed his son back to the further half of the store, and he leafed through a rack of silky basketball shorts while Tommy beelined for the shoes. “Try them both on,” he called after him, and he pulled a size medium short from the rack in a royal blue. It wasn’t quite the same hue as North Carolina—too dark—but Tommy loved watching them play basketball every year. Blake did too.
He took those with him toward the shoe aisle where his son stood, bent over trying to find the right size. He held another box already, and Blake reached for it.
“Look at these sick yellow ones,” Tommy said, and Blake wondered when the bright colors had become so popular. He found them a bit garish, though he did like the white high-tops with light pink and blue only a couple of feet away.
He’d never wear something like that—at least he couldn’t think of a situation where he would—but he did like them. Tommy picked out four pairs of shoes before he retreated to a metal bench to try them on.
