Page 117 of Just This Once

Pausing his work, he started my way, wiping sweat from his eyes as he came. “Looks like your tree out back has some magnolia scale on it.”

“Oh yeah?” I asked, squinting at him through the hot evening sunlight and ignoring the disappointment that all he wanted to do was talk about work with me. “What’s magnolia scale?”

“Nasty little critters,” he explained with a grimace. “They suck the sap right out of the tree and can kill it if you don’t act soon enough. I pulled as many off by hand as I could find and pruned the smaller branches back, but there’s this insecticide I’d like to try.”

I nodded. “Then go ahead. Just charge my account at the store.”

“Yes, sir,” he started to back away immediately. “Thank you, sir.”

As he turned and left again, I sighed. He and Sharon were definitelynotgoing to be like family to me any time soon.

I had thought I could belong to the Eisner family once, too, since they’d taken me in after my parents died, raised me right, loved me. Shit, they still invited me to holiday and family events. But just as the Porters thought of themselves as my charity case, I saw myself asZeke and Chauncy’scharity case. I had no more equal footing with them than I did the Porters. I was still the odd man out with nowhere to truly belong.

Wiping a hand over my face, I continued to the pool house, where I changed into something respectable that Mama Chaunce would approve of, and then I decided to take the Mustang. It’d be easier to park something smaller and compact in their neighborhood.

Thane was already there when I pulled up to the curb. I stopped behind his Equinox, then fiddled with my collar, folding it flat before I reached for the flowers I had in the passenger seat and climbed from the car.

At the front door, I paused to knock. I’d lived here for six years of my life and still had a key to the place, but after movingout when I was eighteen, I never knew if I should just walk in or not.

I heard someone call, “I’ll get it,” from inside before the storm door opened and a woman in her early twenties with her hair pulled back severely peered out at me.

Eyes narrowing with distrust, she said, “Can Ihelpyou?”

She was like the antithesis of Nova. It actually kind of threw me for a second. Like a kid whose newly-single parent had started dating again, my knee-jerk reaction was:You’re not my mom—or in this case, my best friend’s other half.

But I schooled my expression into a smile as I held up one of the bouquets I had in my arms. “You must be Christine.”

She looked at the wildflowers that were tied together with a yellow ribbon, then raked her gaze over my Patek Philippe watch, Ralph Lauren shirt, Armani slacks, and Gucci shoes before lifting her gaze my way to silently accuse:Wildflowers? Really? Rich boy like you could only spring forwildflowers?

Wildflowers were Chauncy’s favorite, though, so when I’d gotten her a bunch, I’d decided to try to suck up to the new girlfriend as well.

But I think I was going to have to chalk this one up to a fail.

“Hey, hon,” I heard Thane’s voice as someone came up to her from behind. “Who’s—oh! Hey, Parker.”

He was the one who reached out and opened the screen door for me to enter.

His girlfriend shuffled back to let me in, blinking between the two of us before pointing. “Thisis Parker? The best friend you took in after he became an orphan?”

Thane and I paused together with lifted eyebrows before we turned in unison to study each other. I had no idea if it was because he was the honest, high school counselor type while I was the rich asshole type. Or if it was because he was Black andI was white. Or because he was short and I was tall. Or who the fuck knew. But she didn’t seem to buy our friendship.

Too bad. It was the truth. Nathaniel Eisner was my person.

“Yep.Thisis my best friend,” he announced proudly as he bumped his arm into mine. “Parker Ohrley, meet Christine Geer. Chris, Parker.”

She said nothing, just looked at me as if I were slime, so I thrust one of the bouquets forward again in a last-ditch effort to charm her. “Hey. Thanks for having pity on this loser and?—”

Yeah, that was not the best joke to crack to warm her heart apparently.

As her eyes narrowed, I gulped and lamely finished with, “—Throwing him a lifeline.”

God, if only someone could throwmea lifeline right about now.

Thane glanced at me with a silentwhat the hell, and my eyes flared right back with anI don’t know, man. But I was bombing this. Badly.

He offered his girl a hopeful, encouraging smile, and she finally took the flowers from me. Carefully, though, as if she thought they were infected.

“Thanks,” she managed to say, but it sounded like a struggle.

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