He raises an eyebrow. “You’re clearly mad.”
I exhale impatiently. “No, I’m not. I’m just—thinking about my next word.”
“Fine.” He turns back to his phone. “What word are you going to use?”
“I don’t know.” I stare at my unused letters, struggling to focus. “YACHT.”
“As in?”
“As in nothing,” I say (okay, snap). “I’m just trying to rule out more letters.”
He’s silent for a moment, and I’m already regretting my temper. He probably didn’t mean to insult me. He probably thinks being a small-town girl is a good thing.
“What word are you using?” I ask stiffly.
He turns his phone toward me.
His word is SORRY.
Damn it.
That’s quite cute.
The corners of my lips twist up. “It’s fine,” I say, more honestly this time. “It’s just... I don’t know. I don’t want to be a small-town girl. I know there’s nothing wrong with it,” I add hastily, “and I don’t mean anything against people who like small towns... It’s just not who I want to be.”
“So why not go somewhere else?”
“I can’t afford it. I’ve got this stupid student loan I’m trying to pay off... plus I don’t want to move somewhere until I know for sure what I want to do there.”
“Your ‘dream job,’” he says. It still sounds slightly sarcastic when he says it. I swallow a stab of irritation.
“Yup,” I say shortly. “But I’m stuck here for now, so I’m just trying to make the best of it and find fun things to do.” I gesture to my Barrel Into Summer to-do list.
“And you think planning a barbecue at a barrel factory is fun,” he says.
“Barrelmuseum. And yes.”
He stares at me for a while and then turns back to his phone. I bite down another wave of irritation and force myself to focus on my next word. The Y in YACHT was yellow, the T was green. John’s SORRY also accidentally helped me, because now I know there’s an R and S somewhere in the word. But what word has a Y, R, S, and T in it?
S, Y, R, T.
Y, R, S, T.
YURST.
Is that some sort of sausage, like a bratwurst? A bratyurst?
I type it in and click enter. Nope. Not in word list.
“One of my racing buddies plays guitar,” John says. “He plays at the track sometimes, and some of the bars in Charlottetown pay him to do gigs.”
I frown, wondering where he’s going with this.
“Want me to ask him to play at your... barrel thing?” he asks.
I sit up a little straighter. “You mean it?”
“Sure.”
