Chapter 22
SADIE
Grant’s truck is new. Leather seats, screens, and enough buttons that the dash rivals an airplane’s cockpit. It’s quiet as it effortlessly rolls along the dirt road. It’s different from clunky sounds, dents, and a hard bench seat.
I reach for the button to roll down the window, the fragrance of dirt and lingering heat beginning to make its way into the cab.
“Hey—” Grant says quickly. “Can we keep the dust out?”
I pause with the window halfway down, then roll it back up. “Sure.”
“Sorry,” he adds, sheepish. “I mean, I can wipe the seats down later if you really want to.”
“It’s okay,” I say, too fast. “No problem.”
“Do you want to know where we’re going?” he asks as he shifts in his seat.
I look over, noticing his hands are still at ten and two while his attention is directed at the road ahead. We turned east out of town when we left. There’s not much down this road that I know of.
I shrug. “If you want to tell me.”
He smiles slightly. “It’s a place I’ve been going since I was old enough to remember it. My parents took me out here a lot.”
“How is your family?” I ask.
“Wondering about you,” he answers playfully.
My cheeks dare to warm in the crisp air conditioning. “About me?”
“Mainly, they’re wondering why I didn’t pursue you earlier.”
I wring my hands in my lap. “Pursue me?”
“Well . . .” He fidgets with the window wiper, spraying fluid on the windshield to wash a few bugs off. “I know we’re not dating, but we’re hanging out.”
“Right.” I sink my teeth into my bottom lip before I add, “As friends.”
He lets his foot off the gas, the truck slowing. “Yeah. Friends.”
“So, why did you wait?” I ask. It’s been a nagging question I’ve had.
Why now?
We’ve lived in the same small town all our lives, working across the street from each other. Proximity wasn’t the issue. In fact, we’ve had plenty of proximity.
He shrugs. “Maybe it just took me some time to gain the courage. I mean, it can take us a while to realize we need to try something new.”
His words land a little more heavily than they should. It’s an offering, one I understand because sometimes life passes by when you’re too busy living it.
Routines and responsibility. Days turning into months, months into years. Time passing while you’re busy doing what needs to be done. Or doing what you think needs to be done.
There’s nothing wrong with what Grant is saying. It’s exactly why there’s a list folded back home in my nightstand drawer.
“That makes sense,” I finally say, but something about his answer still doesn’t feel completely honest to me.
His hands loosen their grip on the steering wheel slightly, and he turns onto a narrow dirt road, his truck easing through the ruts.
“We’re almost there,” he says with a grin that dimples his cheeks.
Five minutes later, we’re parked beside a small pond surrounded by river birches and soft grass. It’s an oasis.
Grant glances at me. “I come here every Sunday evening.”
My eyes widen. “Every?”
“Every,” he confirms. “It’s one of my favorite places. You’ll see why soon.”
He gets out of his truck, and while he’s walking around the front, he removes his blue ball cap and puts it back on backward.
He opens my door. I swivel on the seat and take his outstretched hand to help me down. His hand is rough around mine, blistered from lumber and tools.
“In case I forgot to tell you, you look amazing.”
“You’ve told me four times now,” I say with a laugh that lifts my lips into a wide grin.
“Only that many?” he teases. “That’s not nearly enough.”
He shuts the door behind me and then retrieves a red cooler and a blanket from the back seat.
I arch a brow. “What’s that?”
“A surprise,” he answers as he begins to walk toward the pond. “Coming?”
My boots follow his, treading through the wispy grass until we reach a clearing where the grasses are pressed firmly into the ground, well-worn from Sunday after Sunday of Grant being here.
He spreads the navy plaid blanket on the spot and then sits down, legs outstretched.
He looks at ease, his skin golden from the sun that’s beginning to slip down the sky toward the horizon. I study him for a moment, his T-shirt tugged tight at his biceps, arms marked with faint white scars, and green eyes brighter than shoots of new spring grass.
“What are you looking at?” His green eyes sprout faint lines around them as he smiles at me.
I settle down on the blanket beside him, pulling my legs up to my side. “The boy who was in my sister’s class. The one who drew building plans and spent more time in woodshop than the football field. Quite the feat in Dusty Hollow.”
He laughs. “I was still on that field. If you don’t play football, you aren’t Texan.”
“Not true,” I say swiftly. “You just aren’t celebrated.”
He shrugs his shoulders. “It was high school.”
“Do you miss it?” I ask.
“No,” he answers quickly. “Do you?”
I purse my lips, gazing at the pond as it glitters. “Parts of it. Mainly the part where I was na?ve to how the real world worked.”
“And how’s that?” he asks.
“As if it has a plan for you,” I say quietly. “And you just have to be patient enough to wait for it.”
Grant places his hand over mine on the blanket softly. “I don’t think God rushes much,” he says. “People do.”
Faith has been a thread in my life for as long as I can remember—sometimes woven through obedience and routine, other times knotted with pain and resentment. And there were seasons where God was the only thing that made sense at all.
“Well, I don’t like it,” I admit.
Grant grins. “I don’t think many do.”
“So, what’s in the cooler?” I ask, my gaze drifting to the surprise.
Grant takes his hand off mine as he pushes up to his knees, retrieving the cooler. He opens it up and starts taking out every color and kind of soda.
“I was only going to bring root beer for floats, but then I thought about the pepperoni, and I wondered if Sadie Summers even likes root beer or if she just drinks it because that’s what everyone else seems to like,” he says with a spark in his expression.
“So I brought you every choice from the store.”
“Root beer with ice cream is classic,” I say.
His left brow rises. “So, you do like root beer?”
I slowly shake my head. “No, I do not.”
He laughs. “Well then, what do you want, Sadie?”
I smile as I assess all the choices and then point. “That one.”
His dimples dent his cheeks. “Fanta Orange?”
I nod. “Yep.”
“I’m not sure I’ve ever had that with ice cream.”
I shrug. “Then you’ve been missing out.”
He looks at me intently. “That’s the truth.”
Something lodges in my throat and I softly clear it. “So, you have root beer floats while you sit out here every Sunday night?”
He pulls out vanilla ice cream from the cooler, along with two red SOLO cups and spoons. “I wish. We could start that new routine, though.”
We.
I smile, light and careful. “As friends.” I repeat the word.
I don’t want to lead Grant on, and he’s made his intentions clear. He wants to be around.
But around feels a little like a puppy that’s already decided you’re its person—hovering close, hopeful, wet nose pressed to your palm believing it’s only a matter of time before you give in.
“Of course,” he murmurs.
“Let’s just take it one Sunday at a time. I do love an ice cream float,” I say.
Grant chuckles. “Okay.”
He hands me a red cup with a Fanta Orange float and a spoon.
“Thank you,” I say.
“You’re welcome,” he replies as he pours Fanta Orange over his ice cream. “But this isn’t even the best part.”
I take a bite, savoring the sweetness before I say, “It’s not?”
He takes a large bite, his eyes lighting up. “This is better than fungus and fruit.”
I laugh.
“And no, it’s not . . .” He puts his float to the side as he gathers up all the other soda in the cooler and moves it out of the way.
When he sits back down with his float in hand, our bodies brush against each other, the realization causing the hairs on my arm to tense.
Then he points at the sunset. “This. This is the best part.”
I take in the sunset. Pinks, oranges, and yellows painted together in the sky as faint stars begin to sparkle above. The silhouette of Dusty Hollow is dark but clear. Houses, the grain elevator, the water tower . . .
We sit quietly, eating our floats while watching the sun continue to sink into the horizon, colors changing and a coolness settling over us as the sky grows blue.
“I love seeing our town like this,” he comments. His tone is warm and contented, as if Dusty Hollow could be the only place in the entire world and he’d be happy with that.
I wonder what it would feel like to love a place without wondering what else exists beyond it.
“It is pretty,” I say, but I hear how small it sounds next to his certainty.
“I can’t imagine being anywhere else,” he adds.
I let the silence build before I bite my lip and turn to him fully. “Really?”
His brows furrow. “Really. You don’t feel the same?”
A heavy sigh pushes hard from my chest and lands loud between us. “No.”
“Then where do you want to be?” he asks as he shifts slightly away from me.
“I don’t know. Everywhere. Anywhere,” I answer as I push myself up to stand, setting my empty red cup in a clump of soft grass.
“I don’t need to go everywhere and anywhere. I know I’m where I’m meant to be,” he states simply.
I cross my arms, looking at Dusty Hollow as the sky covers the town with a glittering blanket of stars.
What Grant sees as destiny, I see as definition—the shape of who I’ve been allowed to be.
And there’s a fear pressing in on my heart, like it’s made of clay and this town has already decided its form .
. . what it will beat for, what I’m supposed to want.
“I don’t think I’m where I’m meant to be. Or at least, I don’t have the same confidence you do in believing Dusty Hollow is home for me.”
He rises to meet me, and there’s something in his green eyes that anyone could clearly read. Disappointment. His voice is soft but firm when he says, “Well, you should probably figure that out.”
I tilt my head, studying him for a second before I nod. “Yeah. I probably should.”