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I guessed Laney and I were alike in that way. Neither of us had ever been much for chatting on the phone. Except for the entire four years we’d been in a long-distance relationship, of course.
And thinking of that only made me think of Riley and whether she liked to talk on the phone with him. Or was he conveniently located right down the road from the fancy place she probably lived in that she saw him too much for the phone to be worth the effort?
The fact that I even wondered made me want to punch a hole through the garage door I was leaning against, but since I was a dang fool, I couldn’t stop myself from asking about him anyway.
“So,” I said, scratching some itch at the back of my neck that seemed bone-deep, “you and Riley Conrad, huh?”
“Seems like it,” she replied, biting her lip.
It’s not like I hadn’t known about him long before they’d shown up here. I’d heard their duet plenty when it first came out. How could I not? It was all over the radio, and I couldn’t seem to escape it. Plus, I’d seen the tabloids with photos of them plastered all over the covers.
I also knew that at one point, something happened, and they’d broken up. I honest to goodness couldn’t tell ya if I recalled the day I heard that news as a happy one or a sad one. Happy for obvious reasons, but sad because deep in my gut, all I ever wanted was for this woman to have the life she deserved. Even if I had no place in it. But then they got back together, and now here we were.
“Well, I’m glad y’all were able to figure things out,” I offered without thinking, instantly regretting it. Talking like this made about as much sense as a warm beer on a warmer day, and yet here I was, sippin’ pretty.
Laney quirked a brow, clearly startled by my words. “Um, well, thanks. He’s a good friend.”
I pushed off the garage door. “Friend?”
She shook her head quickly. “Sorry, well, what I mean is … we have a good friendship. As a foundation. Which is important to any relationship. Or somethin’. Um, never mind. I just meant thanks.”
“Huh. I guess that makes some sense, though not sure what it says about us,” I said, fussing with my shop cloth instead of meeting her eyes. “See, what we had started as friendship, then turned into more. But after it ended, there’s no way I could’ve been friends with you after that. That foundation didn’t seem to do us a heck of a lot of good.”
“Clearly,” she bit out, surprising us both with her clipped tone. It buzzed around us like a fly on fresh manure, and I could’ve sworn I heard her heart pounding from five feet away.
Or was that the sound of my own heart? It was hard to tell.
“Well, it doesn’t matter anyway,” she went on. “I’m only here until the car’s finished.”
I swallowed hard and nodded. “I’ll be sure to hurry it up then.”
Could she hear my lie? I hoped not, though I wasn’t quite sure why. It didn’t much matter how long it took. In the end, I’d fix the car, and she’d be gone. No two ways about it.
She shuffled her feet a little and looked up at the clear blue sky, a sigh releasing from her dusty pink lips like a balloon with a slow leak. I pursed my lips. “What?”
“It’s nothin’.”
“Lane.”
Her big blue eyes met mine, and this time it wasn’t so much a sigh as a huff. “It’s just that I should be annoyed about how long it’ll take to fix the car. Especially since I have the means to get it taken care of much quicker on my own.”
My chin dipped, feeling a little annoyance myself right about then. “Uh-huh.”
“But … it’s strange. You know I’ve always felt like everythin’ happens for a reason, and I guess I’m just thinkin’ I’ve been needin’ a break … and this almost feels like I’m bein’ forced into it. Only not, because I’m not.”
“As you said.”
“Right.” She looked away, sticking the tops of her fingers into the shallow front pockets of her shorts. “Yeah.”
“What are you … uh, tryin’ to take a break from?”
“We should get started on setting up the concert,” Paisley said, making Laney jump. “You ready?”
Seeming almost relieved to let our conversation go unfinished, Laney nodded and started backing up toward her boyfriend and the way-too-fancy truck she’d borrowed from her old man. “Yeah. Thanks again, Everett.”
“No problem.”
“I guess we’ll see you tomorrow night at your momma’s?” she asked, more than a little hope in her tone, confusing the daylights outta me, given what’d just happened.
