Page 47 of The Long Way Home
“A simple, ‘thank you, Rachel’, would suffice.”
He looks over at me, grinning. “Thank you, Rachel.”
My stomach does that stupid flutter thing, and I try to ignore it.
“You’ve been a little MIA recently,” he says. “I hope you’re not avoiding me.”
“Why would I do such a thing?” I ask, knowing damn well why I would be avoiding him.
“It’s the question I’ve been asking myself, too.”
“I’m not avoiding you,” I say. “I’ve just had adult responsibilities. They’re very inconvenient.”
“Oh, the mysterious adult responsibilities.” He nods to placate me. “Are these different from my adult responsibilities, or?”
I know what he is doing. He wants me to admit I’m avoiding him so we can talk about why. I refuse to give him the satisfaction. “Uh, I guess so.” I pivot, looking for a distraction. “I heard you’ve been hanging out with Anderson and Connor a lot more recently.”
“Yeah, I think Connor is always down to have a good time.”
I take a bite of my sandwich. “It’s nice seeing you with them.”
He tilts his head. “Nice?”
“Yeah. I don’t know. You seem relaxed.”
“Are you saying I wasn’t relaxed before, Sunny?”
“I’m saying,” I reply carefully, “you used to look like you were carrying the weight of the world and pretending it didn’t bother you.”
He lets out a quiet laugh. “That sounds dramatic.”
“You are dramatic.”
“I am not.”
“You absolutely are.”
He shakes his head, smiling down at the table between us. “Connor just doesn’t let things get heavy, and Anderson provides a good perspective on just about everything. It’s easy with them.”
“Easy is good,” I say.
“Yeah.” He glances at me. “You could come out with us sometime. You know, if you ever get those adult responsibilities handled.”
Instead of giving Rhett the honesty he wants, I reach across the table and steal a chip from his plate. He tries to swat at my hand, but I make it just out of reach.
“Hey, those aren’t yours.”
“You weren’t even eating them.”
“That’s not the point. It’s the principle.”
“You and your principles,” I say, rolling my eyes.
“They matter,” he says, but he is smiling. And when I don’t respond, he follows with, “You know, Josh used to do that, too.”
My hand pauses halfway back to my lap. “Steal your food?”
“Every damn time. Didn’t matter what I was eating. He’d say he wasn’t hungry, then slowly eliminate half my plate. I started ordering doubles of things just so I could still eat my food.”
