Page 10 of The Good Guy on My Porch

“I’m so sorry, Dilly.” I could feel her sympathy in the car like a suffocating thing. She knew I’d lost my dad when I was a kid, knew I’d lived with my aunt for a few years in high school, but she knew nothing about my mom. As far as Carrie and the rest of the town was concerned, my mom worked from home and was an eccentric recluse. That’s the way I liked it. I kept my eyes on the road, my smile brittle.

“It’s fine. Really. I never thought we were soul mates or anything.”

“That’s good,” she said, but her tone suggested she didn’t believe me.

“Is Kayla going to prom?” Carrie had adopted Kayla and her younger brother and sister before she and Cody got married last year.

Carrie filled me in on Kayla’s prom plans, on what the two younger kids were doing, on the progress of Cody’s vineyard, which sounded like a ton of work and stress, but which Carrie and Cody both seemed to adore, and on her job teaching at the local high school.

I was happy for her, she’d given so much to so many people, she deserved every happiness. As I pulled onto main street in Catalpa Creek, she sighed. “I’m starving, want to get something to eat?”

“I could eat,” I said, since I wouldn’t be going to Mom’s for dinner. “BBQ?”

“Sounds good to me. I was so nervous about plunging to my death, I haven’t eaten anything all day.”

“Me, either,” I said with a laugh. I pulled into the lot outside the local BBQ joint, nearly empty at three in the afternoon, and she swung her head to look at me.

“You didn’t seem nervous at all. You’re not afraid of anything.”

It made me a little sad that my very best friend in the world didn’t know me, at least not well enough to tell when I was afraid, but it also relieved me. Like if I admitted to my fears, if other people knew about them and talked about them, I’d start to spiral and end up just like my mother. I’d rather die at the end of a bungee cord than live the way my mother did. Other people believing I feared nothing helped me believe I was fearless. “We jumped off the side of a bridge into a canyon. Of course, I was nervous.” Nervous, not afraid. Never afraid.

She grinned. “Well that makes me feel like less of a wimp.”

I led the way into the BBQ shack, waving at people I knew as we made our way to our favorite table in the back. At three in the afternoon, most of the diners were seniors I’d met through my work at the library.

We placed our orders and chatted about the books we were reading. Because of Carrie, I had a pretty wide reading taste and I liked to think I’d expanded her reading list as well.

“Norma Jane told me Aubrey’s friend, Oscar, moved in next door,” Carrie said after our food had been delivered. “She said Abram had him arrested?”

I rolled my eyes. Gossip was one of my least favorite things about small town living. “Abram was a jerk to call the police, but I’m sure he wouldn’t have done it if he knew Oscar was the new renter. It was a simple misunderstanding.”

She grimaced. “Rough start for a new neighbor. Have things been crazy tense between you two?”

I shrugged. “It’s been fine. I brought him muffins to apologize and we’ve become friends. He’s my sunset-watching soul mate.”

Her eyes widened and she almost choked on her mouthful of pulled pork. “Soul mate?” she asked, once she’d gotten hold of herself. “You don’t believe in soul mates.”

I did believe in soul mates with every bone and breath in my body, but maybe I’d never explained that to Carrie. “Not that kind of soul mate,” I said. “A soul mate like you and I are soul mates because we can eat any time of day and will read anything printed in English,” I paused considering. “Though you eat super early mostly because you think you’re sixty-five.”

She reached across the table to swat me, but I dodged. “So you’ve friend-zoned him.”

“Friend-zoned him? He’s my neighbor and Aubrey’s friend, how could he have been anything other than friend zoned?”

“You can’t date him because he lives next door and is a friend of a friend?”

I sighed, knowing she’d never understand. She was married to her neighbor and too starry-eyed from her own romance to consider how awkward life would become if I ever dated Oscar and things went south. She didn’t know about my mother, so she couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t want to get close to someone who was close to my friends, who could so easily destroy the carefully constructed lie that was my life. “There’s just no spark. He’s a nice guy, but I’ll never see him as more than a friend.”

She nodded. “I get that. You gotta have the spark.”

I smiled and patted her hand. “Look at you, just a year and a half ago you were convinced there was no need for a spark and now you’re sparking all over the place. You’re all grown up.” I clasped my hands over my heart and batted my eyelashes. “My sweet baby is all grown up.”

She rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t help her smile. “I kind of am sparking all over the place, aren’t I?” And she was, not just because of Cody, though he was a big part of it, but because of the kids, too. She finally had the family she’d always wanted, her job was going well, and she was happier than I’d ever seen her. She was sitting in a BBQ restaurant with me, her hair a mess from the sweat and heat of the day, she was wearing jeans and a dusty t-shirt, and she was completely at ease, comfortable in her own skin. It made me happy to see her so happy.

“You’re welcome.”

Her eyes widened. “Are you buying dinner?”

I snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m a single-income woman.” Yeah, I was tight with my money. I loved to buy books and I made a good income from the library, but I was always saving, setting aside as much as I could for the day my mother needed full-time care. A day that could arrive any moment, and bungee-jumping hadn’t been cheap. Since Carrie didn’t know about my mom, she had every right to think I was a miser, but she’d never called me out on it. “You should be thanking me for your sexy husband.”

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