Page 107 of That Moment
“She’s eighty-two and meaner than a bull with a burr under its tail,” he laughs. “I’ll take her any day. I just… I’m sorry about tonight.”
“It’s okay. Go save our librarian and be her hero.”
He huffs a laugh. “I’ll make it up to you.”
“Looking forward to it.”
I give up on avoiding cooking and start pulling a few, minimal ingredients from the pantry. I start a pot of rice and pull chicken from the fridge, along with seasonings and butter.
I’m checking the final temperature of the chicken when I get a text from Scotty.
Scotty: Just finished her car. Gotta head back to the shop and clean up. Probably an hour. I’m sorry again about canceling on you. Thinking about you.
I look around at my almost-done dinner and make a snap decision. I know the feeling of long, lonely nights at work and pretending a bag of Cheez-its was a suitable dinner. I fix us botha plate, grab two seltzer waters, some cutlery, and head out the door.
The open garage bay door throws a soft light onto the gravel when I pull in. Scotty stands at the wash sink, forearms wet, T-shirt clinging to his back. He turns when he hears my car, a confused smile spreading across his face.
“Adrienne?” He wipes his hands on a rag as I approach. “What are you?—”
“Feeding you.” I hold up the good. “I hated the thought of you alone, either drinking your dinner or not eating at all.”
He looks from the bags to me, and something open and unguarded flashes across his face. “You did this for me?”
“Don’t look so shocked.” I walk past him to the workbench and start unloading. “I’m more than a good—” I lift my eyes, “What was the phrase you used? Oh right. ‘Good fuck.’ I can also cook.”
He winces. “I’m sorry for saying that for being a jealous idiot. I meant it how… hell, I didn’t mean it how it sounded. You’re not—” He shakes his head. “You’re a lot more than that to me.”
I let the words hang there between us, warm and honest. “Okay,” I say softly. “Apology accepted.”
His shoulders drop a notch. “Thank you.”
“Now sit and eat.” I pat the overturned bucket beside mine.
We eat with our plates balanced on our knees. He groans at the first bite.
“That good?” I laugh. “It’s just chicken and rice.”
“When you’re a man that eats a lot of stuff straight from the freezer to the oven or microwave, this is a goddamn delicacy,” he says, pointing a fork at me. “You’ve been holding out.”
He tells me about Miss Arthur refusing a ride and scolding him for tracking “garage filth” across the outside door mat at the library. “She’s got a real funny way of showing her gratitude.”
“I told you, mean as hell.” I shake my head, both of us launching into our worst memory of her as our librarian growing up. We used to joke that she always hated kids, and that’s why she decided to be a librarian so she could torture them.
He reminds me of the summer we built a treehouse, and Axel insisted on a trapdoor because he said every fort needs an escape plan, even though we told him that a trapdoor in a treehouse is more like a death door.
“I thought you were going to cry to your dad when Aiden put that ‘no girls allowed’ sign over the entrance.”
“Cry?” I scoff, “hell no, I beat his ass and made him take that sign down himself.”
We both burst into laughter at the memory. Scotty was doing his best impression of a seven-year-old Aiden crying and saying sorry as I lorded over him, demanding he take the sign down.
“You really did beat his ass.” He wipes away a tear from laughing so hard and then nudges my knee with his. “You have always been so fiercely loyal.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ll always be loyal to you, us, whatever this is.”
We fall into a comfortable hush. Both of us are quietly eating our dinner. I take our empty plates and place them on the floor next to us.
