Page 33 of Before We Fell

“What about Noah’s girl? What’s her name?” Tinley asked.

“Riley.”

Tinley grinned. “And why are you blushing when I ask about them?”

Her voice was teasing as she took another sip of her drink. I reached for my apple ale and did the same. The cool, sweet girly beer didn’t cool me down at all. “I’m not.”

“Yes, you are. The guy is sex on a stick, isn’t he?”

Oh yeah, he was. And Tinley didn’t know the half of it. She’d probably never seen him bent over a workbench, arms glistening with sweat from the morning sun.

I shot her a look. “I can’t date a parent.”

“Who said anything about dating? Besides,” she winked. “He’s not a parent.” It was like Tinley shared a brain with the devil on my shoulder.

More than once, I’d had that thought. “You know what I mean.”

“I do.” She nodded. Her bright pink lips grinned wide. “But I also know you agree with me because instead of saying ‘No, Tinley, the man isn’t sex on a stick,’ you jumped to it being wrong to date him. So, have you talked to him? Uncle Joe said he comes into the hardware store almost every day and that he’s fixing up his house.”

It’d be easy to tell her he was my neighbor. I could have admitted I knew all about that because I’d been in his house not once, but twice.

The words wouldn’t come. Last night had crossed a line, and yet I treasured it. While we’d been on the couch, talking, it had not been a guardian and a teacher discussing a student.

It’d felt almost like a date. Just you know…with brushing doll’s hair and doing braids instead of dinner. Also, I was learning that not only was Noah struggling with figuring out how to take care of Riley full-time, but he was too prideful to admit he needed help with it. Telling Tinley about the insane thing I’d done yesterday felt like breaking his trust in a way that made my stomach twist.

Two of the men who’d been playing darts shoved the darts into the screen and grabbed their beers.

I slid off my chair. “Come on, the dartboard is empty.”

She joined me and bumped her hip into mine. “Nice subject change, but you know I’m not letting this one go, right?”

“You wouldn’t be you if you did.”

We went to the board, reset the screen and I tugged the darts out, handing three red ones to Tinley. She insisted they brought her luck, and since I was going to lose anyway, the color didn’t matter to me. I’d long ago given up insisting if red was a lucky color I should get them. The color didn’t improve my aim any.

“Five oh one?” Tinley asked, suggesting the game we always played.

“You got it.” I punched in the game number on the electric scoreboard. “And if we stay here through next Wednesday, I might finally be able to get to zero.”

She laughed and shook her head, flipping her hair back. A half-dozen guys behind us caught her movement, and who could blame them? Tinley was Barbie-sized beautiful with the sweetest and largest heart of anyone I’d met in my life.

The waitress came by and we ordered another round of drinks. Tinley went first, easily scoring seventy-five points.

On my turn, I scored three.

We were halfway through our first game, Tinley wiping the floor with me, but our stomachs hurting from laughter and talking about life when Brooke and Andrew walked up.

“Hey girl!” Brooke wrapped me in her arms for a hug and I was careful not to stab her back with one of my darts. “Blowing off steam after the week, too?”

“Shush. You act like your kids at home and school are all potential federal inmates, but I know you love them.”

She winked. “Don’t let anyone else know.” She waved to Tinley when she was done with her turn. “Hey Tinley, how are you?”

“Hey, guys! You made it!” She threw her arm over my shoulder. “Brooke came into the store this morning and when I told her we were coming, she totally invited herself.”

Brooke stuck out her tongue like the child she still pretended to be. “You invited us and you know it.”

“I did.” Tinley’s arm fell from my shoulders. “Figured you wouldn’t mind.”

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