She's smart.Just saying.
In Mom-speak, that translates to:“marry her before New Year’s.”Mom’s matchmaking.Even one day before I leave.As subtle as a bull in heat.Better than Mayor Clark cornering me after the sale went public,“You sure about this, son?Some decisions you can’t take back.”
As if I haven’t thought about this every day for the past year.As if signing those papers wasn’t the hardest and easiest thing I’ve ever done.
I take a steadying breath.Priorities.
Check the driver.Find the dog.Make it to Rosie’s in time for Wes to forgive me.Again.
There’s always someone to help.A dog.A neighbor.A last-minute favor.I used to think it made me dependable.Lately, I’m not sure what it makes me anymore.
Silence stretches between us, until I hear a muffled sound—something between a gasp and a curse.
Shuffling.The distinct jingle of dog tags.
“Shit.Crap.Fuck.”
I expect some flustered tourist, maybe an out-of-towner trying to text and drive.
Not someone who knows how to say shit, crap, fuck like it’s punctuation.
“I’m going to murder Claire,” she continues.
And my stomach takes a polar plunge without my fucking permission.
Worse than the time my brother dared me into Lake Erie in January.
Icy.Sudden.Breath stolen.
That voice.I’d know it anywhere.
It’s embedded in me like the exact pressure needed to check a nervous puppy’s heartbeat without spooking him.Like antiseptic and fresh hay in the clinic.Like every Christmas song the radio has been playing since Thanksgiving.
No.No way.
The window rolls down an inch.
Brown eyes.Firewood brown.Whiskey ember warm.
One arched brow.That expression.
It can’t be.
Not her.
Not now.
“You have got to be kidding me.”
The shock eases, but the cold doesn’t.It hooks in deep and won’t let go.Seven years disintegrating in an instant.
EveNoName123.
In Pine Creek.
In my town.
On my road.
