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“I don’t even need to touch that dinosaur to tell you what the problem is.” I leaned over his shoulder to look at the screen. “This thing belongs in a museum. I bet you’re still using Microsoft 7 too.”
“Why would I get a new computer when this one still works fine?” He shoved away from the desk, using his good leg to spin him to his crutches. I sat down in the vacated seat.
“Daddy, this is so slow I don’t know how you manage to getanythingdone.” I shook the mouse and, fifteen seconds later, the cursor moved on the screen. “I’ll see what I can do, but you really do need to replace this one. We could drive over to Eaton this afternoon and buy a new one. I’ll get it all set up for you and everything.”
“Do I need to be present for this, or can it be a solo mission?” he asked, looking at his calendar. “I have a meeting with my granite and marble supplier this afternoon.”
“Won’t you need a vehicle to get to that meeting?” I asked, watching the cursor’s glacial progress across the screen.
“No, ma’am. We’re meeting at Shakers. I think that I can manage the three-foot trip myself.”
“What if you have an emergency?”
“I’ll call 911.”
“What if —”
“Sutton, I broke my leg, I didn’t have a heart attack. I appreciate all your help, but I don’t need to be monitored around the clock.”
I held my hands out in front of me in a placating gesture. “Okay, okay. I just worry.” He opened his mouth, but I continued, not giving him the chance to speak. “About Mama getting mad at me, I mean. Not about your health.”
Daddy snorted. “Well then, that makes two of us.”
I pulled out my own phone to check my work calendar.
“I’ll head out around three if that’s okay. I can take my last meeting in the car.”
“That’ll be fine. I can have your mama pick me up on her way home.” He pointed to the corner of his desk where his wallet was laying. “Grab the company card out of my wallet for the computer.”
“I’ll bring you into the twenty-first century yet,” I said, digging out his credit card. “You’re going to love it.”
He just grunted in response, sifting through a pile of papers on the desk.
We spent the rest of the day working in companionable silence until Daddy left for his lunch meeting. I decided to head out early to avoid rush hour traffic around Eaton. Traffic around there was nothing like it was in Savannah or Atlanta, but it was still enough to be irritating. Daddy texted me around four-thirty to let me know Mama was picking him up on the way from work, so the office was empty when I got back.
By the time I got done hauling the new computer into the building, I was sweaty and out of breath. I grabbed the clothes I kept in my trunk for emergencies — cutoff sweatpants and a ratty Georgia Tech T-shirt — so I could change before I started swapping computers. Judging by the number of piles scattered on every available surface, switching them out was going to involve a lot of dust.
Once I got changed, I turned on some music and got to work. I had already backed everything up for the transfer, so I crawled under the desk and got to work untangling the massive tangle of cords down there.
“An actual nightmare,” I announced to the mystery blue cord that looked like an ethernet cable missing one of the boots. “There is no way this isn’t an electrical hazard.”
I tugged on a power strip that did not appear to be plugged into anything. It dislodged a small puff of dust which sent me into a rapid-fire sneezing fit.
“Bless you.”
I gasped, jumping up and catching my head on the edge of the desk. Macon was standing in front of the desk with two travel cups from Drip in his hands.
“Macon?” I rubbed my head, trying to figure out if he was an apparition resulting from a concussion. I kind of hoped hewasa hallucination.
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said, inching forward slowly to place the cups on the desk. “I knocked a couple times, but you must not have heard over the music. Is your head okay?”
“Uh-huh,” I muttered, realizing that I was standing in front of him in the scroungiest clothing I owned, and had dust smeared all over me. In contrast to my dusty mess, Macon was immaculately dressed in a navy suit with a light blue dress shirt underneath, his hair artfully tousled. As if on cue, a chunk of hair escaped my messy bun, falling across my forehead and over my nose.
“I came by earlier, but you weren’t here.” He gestured to the coffee. “It’s a chai tea latte. For you. Sissy said it was your favorite.”
“Oh. Um, thanks?” I tucked the wayward piece of hair behind my ear. “What are you doing here?”
He slid his hands into his pockets, making his shirt stretch tighter across his chest. It felt wrong to notice something like that about my sister’s fiancé, even if she didn’t know my favorite coffee order.
