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“No. Sure. Go ahead,” I grumble.
“Oh, Noah, that pink box is yours. Mrs. Duke bought it for you,” Sunny says. “Plus that bag. It had casseroles in it.”
“Patty.” He draws out my mom’s name and rubs his palm over his stomach. “She is one in a million.”
“Barbecue and cake. Then we’ll hit Zack’s.” Oliver sounds pleased with himself and commences opening drawers and pulling out utensils.
Zack’s Bar & Grill has a dance floor, and it’s one of the few fun places to go in Whispering Creek.
“Hey, Sunny, did you see the stack of photo books Mom dug up? Last time she came through, she was rearranging the shelves and cleaning out closets. Found those in the top of the hall closet.” Oliver points to the painted blue shelving against the wall. Sunny gets up and fingers one of the books. She opens it and laughs as she flips through the pages. “Look at your hair.”
I step up behind her and see a photo of Oliver, back when everyone called him Ollie. It’s short on the sides, long in the back, and it’s probably the worst haircut he ever had. She flips the page again and stills.
She’s in a sky-blue prom dress that almost matches the vivid color in her eyes, and my brother Sam stands beside her in a tux. In the photo, he’s holding a plastic box with a corsage inside. Mom cropped me out of the photo, but I stood to the side of my brother. I ran to get the corsage out of the refrigerator and had just handed it to him when Mom snapped the photo. Later that night, he gave her a promise ring. A promise for the future, for forever.
Yeah, this is why Sunny laughed at my preposterous suggestion. All that happened twenty years ago, but it’s still there, in these photo books, in every room. Memories haunt the house, the pastures, the stable, the woods. She was my brother’s first love, his girlfriend. His. And I was the little brother. Some things don’t change.
ChapterThirteen
Sandra
Last Year in June
“How was your weekend?” Kara slides into my office chair with her coffee in hand Tuesday morning, which is Monday for us. Only, whereas other people are sometimes slammed on Monday, our Tuesday is a little slow, and the days ramp up to Saturday madness.
“Fine.” I throw her a smile and pointedly flip open my desk calendar. On Tuesday, I open the salon on Main Street in Whispering Creek, then drive into Austin and cover closing there. “How was your weekend?”
“Good. Went out in Austin. Nothing too much. Ran into Cindy. She said you were out at Zack’s Saturday night with Noah, Oliver, and Ian.”
“Yep. Normal night.” I pretend to be focused on my computer screen.
“You and Ian line danced.”
I side-eye her. “It was a line dance. We all did it.”
“Hhmmm. And here I thought you might be secretly going after Oliver.”
“What rumors?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know if you’d call them rumors. Just…you know. He hasn’t been dating as much as he used to, and you’re not going out as much. You’ve always been friends.”
“Still friends. Why don’t you tell me about your love life instead of digging into an old lady’s nonexistent love life.”
She grins at me. “You’re not old.”
I appreciate her stated assessment, but I remember my twenties. There’s no way she doesn’t think I’m old now that I’m forty. “So, let this chick without a love life live vicariously through the you.”
“Really nothing much to say.” She puckers her lips. “I might go out for coffee with a guy I’ve been texting on Bumble.”
“Oh. That’s interesting.” I personally have never used Bumble, but I recognize it as the latest dating app Kara and the others have been trying out. “What’s the maybe?”
“Eh.” She waffles her hand. “I’m just not so sure.” She pulls her phone out of her back pocket and thrusts it into my hand. “There he is.”
I look down at a photo of a guy wearing a baseball hat that shades many of his facial features. He has a beard, and he looks nice enough. How exactly are you supposed to judge by a photo? Maybe that’s why me and dating apps never worked out.
I hand her the phone back. “Coffee can’t hurt, right?”
Her face contorts. “You’d be surprised.” She takes her phone back and asks, “Did Ian go home on Sunday?”
