There’s something I love about this place. It might be because whenever I walk in, everyone stops and waves or that the time I had a flat tire, every old man in here tried to help me fix it. It’s an old-fashioned sense of camaraderie in the small town that I appreciate.
“Hey, Lance!” A man three times his age with duct tape around the top of his shoe calls out, coffee cup in hand. “How are you, bud?”
“I’m good, Dave. How are things with you?”
“Not bad. I told Walker last week I hadn’t seen you in a while.”
Lance waits for me to join him at his side. “Been busy,” he says. “You been hanging around Crank?”
“Ah, a little. With my wife gone now, I’ve been trying not to sit at home all the time.”
Lance frowns. “Her funeral was really nice though. I’m sure she would’ve loved all the carnations. I think every carnation in town was at her service.”
Dave beams. “It was. Made me proud.” He pulls his attention away from Lance. “I’m Dave,” he says, extending the coffee-free hand my way.
I take it and give it a soft shake. “I’m Mariah. Nice to meet you.”
“You Lance’s lady?”
“Ah, well …”
“Yeah. She’s my lady all right,” Lance grins, wrapping his arm around my neck and pulling me towards him as I blush. “You know how it goes. You have to keep reminding them until they believe it.”
“This one here is a good one,” Dave says, shaking a finger my way. “Comes from good people. All of those boys are good.”
“But I’m the best,” Lance whispers into my ear. “Dave, we gotta go. I’m taking her up to Bluebird before it gets too dark.”
The old man tosses a wink, like he and Lance share some secret. “You kids have fun.”
“Give Walker a hard time for me,” Lance tells Dave as he moseys out the door.
We make our drinks and Lance pays. We’re almost back to his car when a cute guy with blond hair comes our way. A hat is pulled snugly over his forehead, a Metallica t-shirt that’s been washed a time too many is stretched over his broad shoulders. On his face is a shit-eating grin.
“What’s going on?” he asks, coming around my side of the car. “Is this Miss Mariah?”
“How do you know my name?”
Lance drops his head and sighs. “Mariah, this is my cousin Peck. Peck, yes, this is Mariah.”
“Nice to meet you,” he says. He smells like engine grease and Old Spice as he pulls me into a hug. I look at Lance but he just throws up his hands and unlocks the doors. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“No, you haven’t,” Lance corrects him. “Now get out of here.”
Peck’s eyes are a pure blue, the color of the ocean in pictures of exotic places. There’s nothing but kindness reflecting back as he looks at me.
“You have, have you?” I ask. “What’s he been saying?”
“Oh, just that—”
“Peck, I’m warning you,” Lance growls.
“Just put your glasses on and get in the car and read a National Geographic for a while,” Peck teases him before looking at me. “How do you deal with him?”
“It’s hard,” I say, looking at Lance over my shoulder. “He gets so grouchy. And bossy. Is he this way with you?”
“Nah,” Peck laughs. “He’s just showin’ off for you. Around the rest of us, he knows his place.”
“That’s with my foot in your ass in a minute,” Lance tosses over the roof of the car. “Can we go now?”
Laughing, I turn back to Peck. “It was really nice to meet you.”
“Same.” He salutes Lance. “Have fun.” With a final grin, he jogs into the building, the purple bandana in his back pocket flopping in the breeze.
I get settled in the seat next to Lance. “I have a question.”
“Shoot.”
“I don’t want to make this weird between us at all …”
Just saying that makes it weird. I look at the floorboard where a piece of gravel sits all bright against the black carpeting.
“Mariah? Ask me,” he says.
“Fine.” I take a deep breath. “I guess it’s not so much a question as a statement.”
He lifts a brow. “Fine. Say it.”
“Fine.” I take another deep breath. “I really do like spending time with you. People always make assumptions and that has to put you on the spot a little because I know what you think about those type of things, but—”
“Hey.” He waits for me to stop talking before he continues. “I like spending time with you too. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t keep doing it.”
“Okay,” I say, looking straight ahead. “I just wanted to get that out of the way.”
He laughs as he pulls out of the gas station. “I’m glad we got that settled.”
Twenty-Three
Mariah
“Wow,” I say, stepping into the soft grass. “This is amazing.”
Lance leans on the hood of his car, an arm extended towards me. Like on auto-pilot, I step next to him and take in the view.