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“Work, honestly. I miss it. I miss doing something.”
“You and me have always had that in common, haven’t we? The need to do something, otherwise we get in trouble.”
Bridget nodded, though she couldn’t look Eli in the eyes. She hadn’t realized Eli was still so good at reading her. Yet she should have figured that out. Knowing each other their entire lives made it easy to do. Bridget bristled. “I don’t know when I’ll get back.”
“It’ll be too soon, I guarantee that.”
“Probably.” Bridget chuckled lightly and stared at her hands.
“Why don’t you invite some of the deputies up here and hang out with them tonight? The house is ours since I don’t have any guests, and I know they’d love to see you. They’ve been asking after you every time I go to town. They find my truck and pull me over.”
Bridget shook her head, bewildered. “Do they really?”
“Yes. You’re apparently not answering phone calls and have gone AWOL on them. Fix that please. I have a small heart attack every time I get pulled over.”
“Jesus, I’ll talk to them about that.”
“Just answer your fucking phone once in a while and they won’t have to.”
Bridget gave her a mock glare. “Fine, I’ll invite them up tonight. But I’ll make them bring the beer.”
“Good thinking.” Eli pointed at her. “Now, what’s your hesitation with Jerica? Because I see you already trying to get out of that one.”
“You are not my therapist, Eli.”
Eli knocked her head to the side, pinning Bridget with a determined look. “We can talk about that some other day, but I am the person in this town who knows you the best. Can we agree on that?”
“Yes.”
“So I can tell when you’re hedging, and ever since you agreed to a date, you’ve been trying to figure out a way to get out of it, from being too busy—which everyone knows you aren’t—to not being able to do anything nice for it. What’s going on?”
“I just got run over by a combine and you think I should be dating someone in the middle of that?”
Eli narrowed her gaze, and Bridget could tell that Eli didn’t quite believe her. To be fair, Bridget didn’t believe her own line of bullshit either, but it was a decent enough reason to avoid dating. They sat in silence for a bit, Eli definitely working through something in that brain of hers. Bridget withdrew, hiding within her own thoughts and fears until Eli’s voice drew her out again.
“Is that why you’re avoiding the deputies?”
“What?”
“Because you don’t want to know what happened.” It wasn’t a question.
Bridget frowned. “I suppose that’s part of it.”
“Here’s the thing. This accident is going to be the talk of town for a while. When you go back to work, it’s going to all come back up again. When you get back to full duty—which I know you will—it’ll start up again. You can’t run away from it unless you move to another town, and even then you’re going to have to explain to your new boss what happened.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“So just get it over with already. Rip the Band-Aid off, do it on your own terms, and I can always kick them out when you get too tired.”
Bridget laughed lightly. “Are you my protector now?”
Eli shook her head, her eyes squinting in the corners as she held in her laugh. “I think you’ll always be mine, no matter what our friendship has done. But no, I’m the one who pushes you to think outside your little box, remember?”
“I suppose,” Bridget mumbled.
“So about Jerica, I like her, and I think you do, too, otherwise you wouldn’t be sitting here debating yourself for weeks on end.”
“I do not do that.”
