Chapter 9
chapter
nine
Payton
Nine days.
It's been nine days, and I can't text her, because I don't have her number. She has mine. I'm starting to figure out that's how Jules likes everything: she's the one holding the door.
So I've been checking my phone like a teenager. On the tractor. In the feed store. In the shower, which is how I learned my phone isn't as water-resistant as the commercials claim.
Tuesday night I'm at my parents' table with a plate of Mom's chicken-fried steak. Dad's complaining about hay prices, and my phone buzzes against my thigh. Unknown number.
Unknown: You busy?
I'm not a man who believes in signs. That's a lie. I absolutely am.
Me: Nope.
Mom passes me the mashed potatoes. I don't take them.
Unknown: Want to come over?
Me: Yep.
Unknown: You don't even know why.
Me: I have hopes.
My chair scrapes so loud Dad stops mid-sentence about Bermuda grass.
"Where's the fire?" Mom asks.
"Friend needs help. With a…garbage disposal."
"At suppertime?" Dad says.
"It's an emergency disposal."
Mom looks at me for one long, terrifying second. "Baby, you wore cologne to the feed store yesterday."
I kiss her on the cheek and get out of there before she can ask anything else.
I save her number before I pull out of the drive.
Then, I stop for tacos, carne asada with extra guac, because I listen. I make it to her yellow door in nineteen minutes, tacos included. I don't want to talk about how fast I drove.
She opens the door in leggings and an oversized sweatshirt with blue paint on the sleeve. She looks at me. She looks at the bag.
"What is that?"
"Tacos." I grin at her. “You said tacos were a gray area."
She stares at me for three whole seconds. Then she grabs a fistful of my shirt and pulls me inside.
The tacos get cold.
Nobody complains.