Chapter 9 #3
“So you want me to help you find someone who will appeal to millennials and is willing to be your parade grand marshal with twenty-four hours’ notice?
” Does he think I have a phone full of contact info for celebrity thirtysomethings who just happen to live within driving distance of Gadsley, South Carolina?
“No. I want you to be the parade grand marshal with twenty-four hours’ notice. You’re exactly the person we need. I don’t think I could’ve found anyone better had I actually put effort into it.”
“Thank you?”
Ryan’s eyes drift upward, looking somewhere over my head, and his smile droops like a flower arrangement on the fifth day in its vase.
“Hey. Sorry to interrupt,” says a familiar voice that doesn’t sound even a little sorry.
I tilt my head back until I’m staring up at the stubbled underside of Hollis’s chin.
He’s focused on Ryan until I say, “Hey, what are you doing here?” Then his head bows so he can meet my upturned eyes, and his glasses slide a fraction of an inch down his nose.
For some reason, when he pushes them back up with his index finger, I feel the need to take an extra deep breath.
“Needed a break. Figured I’d get some lunch.” Without waiting for an invitation, he pulls an empty chair over and sits beside me. “Have you eaten yet?”
“I had an egg and some toast,” I say. “But that was hours ago now. I wouldn’t mind something else.”
Hollis is looking at Ryan again and there’s an odd tension in the air.
It’s momentarily broken when the waitress comes over to take Hollis’s and my lunch order—Hollis ordering for me, reluctantly this time because I insist on the kid’s mac and cheese, which is topped with a hot dog sliced to look like an octopus.
Ryan doesn’t order anything since he won’t have time to eat before he has to get back to the school.
“Oh, introductions,” I say once the waitress leaves.
“Hollis, this is Ryan. He’s the high school’s band director and he’s just proposed something very interesting.
Ryan, this is Hollis.” How does Hollis want to be introduced?
Am I supposed to keep up the Mr. and Mrs. Hollenbeck nonsense here, or just at the B other than her and Elsie’s love story, the only things I’ve told him are that she loved York Peppermint Patties and used to have a male dog named Lady.
“You just don’t want me to be in the parade because you don’t like Ryan. ”
His hand pauses, heavy on my shoulder blade. “No, I don’t like Ryan. But I don’t like most people. It’s nothing personal. So do the parade, don’t do the parade. It’s your decision.”
“It affects you too, though.”
“I’m not going to ask you to do something that makes you uncomfortable just so I don’t have to wait as long to get laid.” The hand on my back gives me a light pat, then withdraws. “The choice is yours, kid. I’m behind you one hundred percent.”
“Not a kid,” I grumble as our food arrives at the table.
“Says the woman who insisted on ordering off the children’s menu.” He removes the frilly toothpicks from the triangular towers of turkey club on his plate.
“You’re just jealous that your lunch didn’t come with a hot dog octopus.”
“Right. I’m sure it’s actually that.”
Hollis mmm s his way through his sandwich, and I make fun of him because, come on, how can I not? But the entire time, I’m also trying not to think too hard about what Hollis said about Ryan’s intentions tonight and why exactly I’m not more interested in the prospect.