Page 75 of Meeting Mr. Adorkable
“Arlo.” Francine stepped forward and rested a hand on his forearm; he resisted the urge to shrug it off. “I was going to come find you tomorrow, but as we’re here… I want to say sorry. For what I said, and how I said it. For meddling, when it wasn’t my place to do so. You called me a busybody, and I guess you were right.” Her features pinched, as though she were in physical pain. She had no right to seek his forgiveness, and he had no cause to grant it, but—
“When you said I was putting our friendship on the line, it crushed me. Here.” She pressed her free hand to her chest. “I was awake all night, thinking about it all. I never want to risk that. You’re too precious to us both.” She glanced at Hank, her husband’s expression as impassive as ever. “Whatever you do and whatever decisions you make, whether it’s about Luci-Ann, or anything else, I want you to know you’ll always have our support.
“I — we — love you dearly, Arlo, and we couldn’t bear for anything to come between us.” She stepped back. “That’s… that’s all I wanted to say. I have to get back. I’m hosting my bookclub this evening and all my ladies are expecting drinks and snacks, and goodness knows I haven’t got a thing prepared, and—”
“Come here.” He pulled her into his arms and placed a kiss on top of her head. She and Hank were his oldest, staunchest friends and though he had every right to wave her apology aside, he wouldn’t and couldn’t. “Thank you,” he said, giving her a hard hug before he let her go.
Francine nodded as she wiped away a tear. “So, we’re good again?” she asked in an unsteady voice, a watery, hopeful smile lifting her lips.
“We’re good.”
“Why don’t you boys grab a beer or something? With all my book club ladies arriving soon, you’d both be doing me a favor.”
“Arlo?” Hank raised his brows in question.
“Sure, that’d be good.”
With a kiss for Hank and a relieved smile for Arlo, Francine made her way home, leaving the two old friends on the sidewalk.
They stared at each other, like two dogs sizing the other up. Hank rolled over first.
“Thanks for that just now. Francie’s been worried sick. She knows she stepped out of line, and we had a long and frank talk after you left.”
So you tore her a new one…“It’s not easy owning up to being wrong, and apologizing. But let’s forget it. Like I said, we’re good.”
“Then let’s get that beer.”
They made their way through the throng of those who were getting their weekend started. Outside Randy’s, where a sign announced the Collier’s Creek Cowboy Combo were the evening’s main act, an excited crowd gathered, each and everyone dressed in denim and checked shirts, their cowboy hats balancing on their heads.
A couple blocks down, Hank turned off into a side street and Arlo followed him into a small bar. No music, no gigantic screen blaring out sports, it was instead a place for talk. Most people sat at the bar, but plenty more gathered around wooden tables, chatting in the soft, low light.
Settling down with their drinks, Arlo shifted in his seat as Hank studied him over the rim of his glass.
“What?”
“You look kind of ill at ease and distracted.”
Distracted. Arlo sipped his beer. It seemed to be the word of the evening.
Hank leaned forward. “You’ve gotta believe Francie, about how sorry she—”
“I know she was, but what she said over lunch, it kinda pressed a nerve even if I didn’t want to admit it.” He sighed and took a gulp from his bottled beer. Hank’s gaze was locked on him. He put the bottle down and slumped back into the chair. “What she said, I understood even though I didn’t want to. I know Lucian’s a lot younger—”
“Yes, he is,” Hank said bluntly. “No point trying to overlook it, either. What Francie was trying to say, even though she screwed up bad, was that ain’t always going to be easy to navigate. You found that out with Tony. There were maybe fourteen, fifteen years between you. With Lucian, it’s twenty—”
Arlo ran his fingers through his hair. “Jeez, I’m old enough to be his father. It’s what you’re saying, because it’s the truth. Are people looking and thinking—”
“Some folks will disapprove just because they can, but they’d disapprove if you chose mashed potato over French fries. Disapproval happens, so get over it. You’re both adults and you’re doing nothing illegal. Reckon most would think you were lucky.”
Arlo looked across at his friend. Hank’s gaze was direct and steady, but his lips twisted in a smile.
“But you and Francine do disapprove, don’t you?”
Apologies had been sincerely offered and accepted wholeheartedly, a years’ long friendship pulled back from the brink of destruction. Yet, Francine’s words over lunch hadn’t only cut him to the bone, they’d quietly burrowed beneath his skin whether he’d wanted to recognize it or not. And now, with Lucian’s family…
“It’s not, and never was, about approval. We just don’t want you to be disappointed and left alone again. I guess we didn’t handle it too well. But you said you understood what Francine was saying. What d’ya mean by that?”
Arlo sucked in his lower lip as he tried to order his thoughts.
