Page 56 of Untruly With You

I look completely undone. My hair is a nest. I have smudged mascara rubbed below my lashes, yet I can still see the under-eye bags below it.

“Are you making fun of me right now?” I ask, shooting him a playful glare.

Sutton pulls me to his bare chest, his laugh bouncing against me. “Of course not. I just don’t think I’ve ever seen you without some red on your lips.” He looks down at me, staring at my mouth. “I’ve never seen such a pretty color,” he whispers, reaching around me to trace a finger across my cupid’s bow.

“So,what do you…like about music?” I ask, pausing to rub my eyes halfway through my question.

Clive, who works at the radio station with Laine, stares at me. The wrinkles webbing across his face deepen as he furrows his brows. “What’s not to like?” he responds, his voice weary.

It’s a fair response to a mediocre question. Frankie told me about Clive. I know she did. His family—or was it his wife’s family—started the station forever ago. She passed away…a while ago?

Ugh.

I did the research beforehand. I brainstormed questions to ask. But the only thing I can think about now is the broad planes of Sutton’s chest and the way he would twist my hair around his fingers.

“Are you okay, darlin’?” Clive asks, a polite smile distorting his wrinkles.

I take anotherlongdrink of coffee and nod.Aside from theexhaustion and mental lapse.My notebook has only a few words scribbled in it from the interview.Clive. Likes country music. Seventy-eight years old.

I toss my notebook onto the desk between us. I can’t talk to my parents about this without getting a big “We told you so.” And I can’t talk to Frankie about Sutton without exposing my lies. So, Clive it is. “Have you ever been in love?” I ask, leaning my elbows on the desk.

For the first time all morning, Clive looks awake. “Course I have,” he hums, almost to himself. “Beth.” He says her name with reverence, like that one syllable is a prayer.

“What was she like?” I ask, partially because Clive looks eager to share, partially because I’m utterly desperate to hear about a love story gone right.

Clive leans back in his squeaky office chair and closes his eyes, reliving her. “We both grew up in West River. I don’t remember a time before her. Beth had brilliant golden hair, just the color of a quaky’s leaves in October.Shewas the music lover, really. Her parents started the station when we were in high school, and Beth practically ran the place from day one. And as soon as she let me, I got a job here too, just to be close. Beth would organize the music, and I would do her bidding. If they didn’t need me on the boards, I would wash windows, rake leaves,anything. Eventually, Beth put me on the air, but not without supervision. And thus began the Beth and Clive Show, every weekday.”

“And that was it?” I ask, mesmerized.

Clive snorts. “Just a little show to say ‘good morning’ to West River. During our first one, Beth poked fun at me for never working up the nerve to ask her out. So, she askedme, live on the air.I guess I didn’t get much more courageous over time, though, because four years after that, she proposed during another show. Said I was taking too long.”

“And you saidyes? Right then and there?” My mind stallsat the thought of being put on the spot for a decision like that.

“Oh,hell, of course I said yes,” Clive says, slapping a hand on the desk. “I’d be about as sharp as a marble if I gave up the opportunity to spend my life with Beth.”

I lean forward, looking at Clive like he’s some kind of ancient oracle dressed in a pearl snap. “But how did youknowshe was the one?”

“Why would you think Sutton isn’t the one?” Clive harrumphs. Then, seeing me open and close my mouth repeatedly as I seek a response, he adds, “You’re looking like a trout outta water, dear.”

It’s hard not to laugh when an old man calls you out.

“Frankie told me she’s never seen Sutton act the way he does with you,” Clive says.

I roll my eyes. “Oh yeah, you two like to gossip?”

“All the time,” he affirms, his voice serious. “Not much else to do in a town like West River. Now, don’t change the subject. “Why don’t you think Sutton is the one?”

Closing my eyes, untangle the webs of worry and excitement that tangled together. “I didn’t want to see Sutton that way. My parents fell in love—or supposedly did—when they were my age. Then, one day, they weren’t anymore. I don’t…I don’t want to fall in love, because I don’t want to fall back out of it.”

A voice behind us startles us both. “Did I just hear the wordlove?” I turn to see Frankie striding through the back door, her long blonde hair somehow curlier than usual. She gives me a mischievous grin. “How was last night?”

“You’re just in time for gossip hour,” Clive says, saving me from coming up with an appropriate response.

Frankie pulls up a chair next to me. “What’s the dish?” she asks Clive with a wink.

Clive sucks his teeth. “I’m trying to figure out why Miss Rodriguez here doesn’t think your brother isthe one.”

Frankie whips her head around to me, brows crinkled with concern, and I scramble for an explanation.

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