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She grinned, coming over and ruffling his hair, which he was still young enough to not mind.
The dread in her chest was only a little twist of pain when he put his arm around her as they walked back to the front of the store so she could take the temporary sign down and put the closed sign up. Apparently, she was going to go do some groveling. But only because she loved her son.
Or maybe because it was right.
Chapter 7
Patience and forgiveness. - Monica Perry Antioch, CA
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“It’s been almost ayear. Are you seriously going to hide out here for the rest of your life?” Dwight relaxed in a recliner, his ankle resting on the opposite knee, a glass of ice water in his hand.
Bryce stared at his own water, studying the ice but not really seeing it.
Dwight had been the one friend who hadn’t abandoned him when everything went down on social media.
He’d been hacked, but that’s what everyone in his position said, and no one believed him.
That, on top of the accident that he had still been struggling to recover from, had killed his career. No one wanted to sign someone who may or may not have used racial slurs, and he wasn’t in good physical shape anyway.
His friends had deserted him. To be associated with him would be to be branded with the same names that everyone, at least it seemed like everyone, was calling him. Guilty by association, and his friends fled like rats in the light.
Except for Dwight.
Dwight hadn’t quit baseball for him, but he’d stood by him through everything. He’d been exactly the kind of teammate Bryce hoped he had been to everyone else.
Back when he was young and stupid and innocent and actually liked people and thought the best of them.
“I don’t see anything wrong with that,” he finally said, taking a sip of his water.
He wasn’t sure why Dwight kept coming up to visit.
Scratch that. He knew exactly why Dwight kept coming up to visit. At least coming to Sweet Water. He’d always stop at the auction and watch one of the Baldwin twins. Bryce wasn’t sure which one it was. The cute one, he supposed.
Regardless, Dwight was a city guy, and there was no way he was leaving Cincinnati and moving to North Dakota.
