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I glanced at my watch. I didn’t have another meeting for a good two hours. Mayberry was a thirty-minute drive out of town, heading south. “Sure. I can drive and save you the gas. It’s the least I can do.”
She shrugged with a grin. “Thanks. I’ll take you up on that.”
I waved at Jackson as we left while he stood at the register. “You coming back later?”
I nodded. “Yeah, just running an errand. I’ll be back.”
He gave me a thumbs-up, and we left the store.
“I love Carswell,” Melanie said once we’d gotten into my truck. “And the bookstore is such a cute location.”
“Yeah, it’s a nice little town,” I said as I backed out. “Have you lived around here very long?”
She shook her head. “Oh, no. I’m from Denver, but I wanted to live somewhere more quiet. I was tired of the city.”
I shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. Carswell’s been my home for as long as I can remember.”
I thought back to when I’d considered going to college. Leaving and experiencing new things sounded fun, especially because Sean left for Denver to pursue his degree at twenty-two. We’d both stayed in town after high school graduation, but he eventually realized he wanted to teach, so he left.
I stayed behind, sculpting and working odd jobs. It didn’t take long before I realized I was good at applying my skills to home renovation. I worked well with wood, which easily translated over to working with other standard materials.
When Sav went to college, there was a small period of time when I’d worried she might not come back. I thought she might like the city so much she’d move there. If she hadn’t been so close to Jackson, she might have considered it, especially after what happened between us.
I didn’t even want to think about what my life would be like if she’d left Carswell for good. I’d still be sleeping around, and she’d probably still be giving me the cold shoulder.
“You’ve never thought about leaving and living anywhere else?” Melania said, drawing my attention again.
“The place doesn’t matter too much to me,” I finally said. “I’ve wondered what’s out there, but I’ve also always wanted to stick by the people closest to me. I have friends here that are more like family. As long as they’re here, I’m not going anywhere.”
She hummed thoughtfully. “That’s great. Sometimes I wish I had people I was close to like that. I’m not that close to my family and never had close friends, so staying in one spot never mattered that much to me.”
“Maybe that’ll change now. Small towns are different. People are friendly, and most of them take pride in a real sense of community. It’s hard to get that in a city, I’m guessing.”
“You guessed right.”
She told me about Denver during the rest of the drive. It sounded like it was least a culturally rich city. People in the arts scene probably gravitated there more than some other big cities. But some of her stories about rude people made me glad I wasn’t interested in city life.
When we went into the Brimstone, Melanie stopped at the front desk and talked the clerks, who clearly knew her. “I wanted to show a client the lounge,” she told them.
They nodded. “No problem, Mel. Let us know if you need anything.”
She took me to the back of the hotel, to a large room was filled with sofas, tables, and a long bar with a bartender in a suit. Several people sat around the room, talking quietly, or working on their laptops.
“Obviously, the area would be smaller than this, but what do you think of the color scheme and aesthetic?” she asked, gesturing around the room.
I didn’t know much about it, but I pulled open the pictures Sav had sent me for reference. We sat at the bar and had a drink while we discussed Melanie’s ideas and how they would give Sav the customer reading area around the coffee bar that she dreamed of.
My phone buzzed on the table with a text.
Sean:You around? We need to talk about something.
He probably wanted to talk about the wedding or thank me for then tenth time for suggesting their new venue. But my stomach dropped at the “about something.” Wouldn’t he have just said what it was if it was about the wedding?
I was being paranoid. Guilt did that to a person, I guessed.
I must have stared at my phone for too long.
“Is everything all right?” Melanie asked.
