Page 23 of Wreckage and Rain

I reach across the table and tuck a piece of her hair behind her ear.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Don't nothing me."

"You're pretty."

"Stop."

"Just stating facts."

She kicks me under the table.

***

We head to King's Diner for lunch and commandeer booth four. The booth where she did her chemistry homework and I fell in love with her tray of milkshakes.

Greg comes out from behind the register. Six-three. Hands like catcher's mitts. Quiet gravity. He shakes my hand. Firm. Measuring. A father's handshake, which isn't the same as a greeting.

"Missed you Tuesday, Colt."

"I know. I'm sorry, Greg. Work has been..."

"Busy." He finishes the sentence. "You've been busy a lot."

He doesn't say it with heat. Greg King doesn't waste emotion. Every word is load-bearing.

"I'm going to do better."

"Good." He holds my eyes one beat past comfortable, then nods. "Your usual?"

Sarah appears with sweet tea and hush puppies and a hug that compresses my ribs. Five-four. Smells like vanilla. Could bench press the diner.

"You're too thin."

"I weigh one-ninety, Sarah."

"Too thin. Eat."

I eat. You don't argue with Sarah King about food.

Summer is across from me telling Greg about the new book. This family loves loud. They feed me too much. They hug me too hard. They ask why I've been busy and they don't let me off the hook when I give a half-answer. The Bennet family doesn't do any of that. The Bennet family loves through proximity and surnames and approval that never quite arrives.

I would burn down every boardroom in Charleston before I'd give this up.

***

We go home lazy and full. Late afternoon light coming through the blinds.

Summer is in the hallway, kicking off her sandals, and she looks up at me with the look I have known since we were teenagers, the one that lives under everything else she does to me.

"Come here," she says.

I'm already moving.

I catch her by the jaw and kiss her hard, with none of the politeness that's been creeping into our weeknights. She tastes like sweet tea. She makes that sound against my mouth, low, in the throat, the one she has been making since the back of my truck when we were teens, and I am gone.