Page 83 of The Lookback

“Good morning,” he says.

“It’s nearly afternoon.” I open the door a little wider. “You made me wait.” I might be more annoyed than I wanted to admit.

“I thought you might be busy,” he says. “I’ve been walking up and down Main Street, trying to give you however much time you might need.”

I laugh first, but it’s a near thing.

He’s shaking his head. “I should’ve known you’d still be an early riser, even now.”

I shrug. “Anyone out here, born and raised, will rise with the dawn.”

“I may not have been born here,” Tommy says, “and I know we weren’t born on the same day, but I’ve never been one for sleeping in, either.”

I wave him through and take the flowers, careful not to let our fingertips brush. “You didn’t need to bring these,” I say. “We already agreed on terms, and I have the papers here, ready to be signed.”

“Terms?” Tommy frowns. “Oh, right.”

“You do still want to sell, right?” I step back. “Or, now that you’re here. . .”

“Now that I’m here, what?” He walks past me, but his eyes never leave my face. “Am I having second thoughts?”

“I know your dad died here,” I say. “And I know you were forced to leave by your mother.”

He shrugs. “I could have come back, but there wasn’t anything for me here.”

That stings a little, but I know he doesn’t mean it as a slight.

“Are you hungry? Maybe it’s all the walking, but I feel like I could eat a whole cow right now.”

“Oh.” I think about my pantry. “I have some soup or. . .”

“Let’s go out and eat. Do you have enough time to do that?” He’s looking at me so intently that it’s a little unnerving.

“Sure,” I say. “I mean, yes. Let’s go.” I grab my jacket and turn toward the door. “The Gorge Reel and Grill is open now, or?—”

“That sounds fine,” he says.

“I can bring the papers,” I say belatedly. “Hold on. Let me grab them.”

He shakes his head. “No rush. I can sign after we eat.”

It’s not wrong. It’s justweird.“I guess so.” By the time I finish locking up, Jed’s morose face pressed against the glass pane in the frame around the door, Tommy’s already walking toward his rental car.

“Wait up,” I say.

On the way there, he tells me about his flight over, apparently not a very smooth experience. Between the chatty tween obsessed with Taylor Swift sitting next to him for the first leg of the trip and the angry gay man complaining about the baggage fees for the second, he didn’t even need to tell me about the guy who spilled soup all down his pants. He’d already earned my sympathy.

“You’d think you would have been in a terrible mood yesterday,” I say. “I’m sorry it was such an ordeal to get here.”

“I kept the prize in sight.” He’s pulling into a spot in front of the Gorge, but when he cuts the engine, his face turns toward mine, and I realize. . .

Is he talking about me? Am I the prize?

Surely not.

“All right, we’re here.” He opens his door and climbs out.

I have to scramble to catch up.

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