Wes and I swivel around at the same time toward the board.
“Oh wow!” I say. Then read it again. “Is that a hockey game?” I actually had no idea there was a hockey team in Shreveport.
Wes nods. “Those games are fun.”
“Not gonna lie, out of all the dates I thought Camille would pick for me, hockey is the absolute last thing I would have guessed.” Aunt Camille’s complete and utter love of animals is a well-known fact, so I would have put money on this date taking place at a shelter.
“So do you go to their games?” I ask. I want to kick myself when I hear the breathless way I asked him that. I need to have a serious talk with myself.
“Sometimes. My dad’s company is one of the sponsors.” He looks at me a second and then adds, “Maybe I’ll see if Olivia and Charlie want to go.”
Before I can even think about how big of a distraction that will be, Charlie and Olivia come bounding through the back kitchen door. Speak of the devil(s).
“So you send a text that says your date might murder you, and then we don’t hearanythinguntil you text from Wes’s phone,” Olivia says. “Definitely going to need some details.”
I hold up a hand and shush her. “Tonight has been…interesting.”
“So what happened?” Charlie asks as he steals my plate and finishes off my pie.
Wes tells them everything before I get a chance. Charlie nods knowingly. “I told y’all. Evil.”
“Yes, Charlie. I will never doubt you again.”
“Of all the ways I thought ‘dinner and a movie’ could go wrong, that one never occurred to me.” Olivia moves closer to the board, then spins around with wide eyes. “Oh yay! Let’s go, too! Wes, get tickets from your dad,” she says. “Maybe we can sit close together!”
Yeah. It’s going to be very distracting.
The breakfast crowd has left, Nonna is upstairs getting ready for church, and Papa is taking a midmorning nap in his chair in the living room, so I thought this was the perfect, quiet moment to catch up with Addie.
“So Griffin dropped off a gift for me,” I tell her.
“What was it?”
“Hold on, I’ll send you a pic.” I take the bracelet out of box and put it on so that the letters lie against my wrist. I snap a pic, then send it to Addie.
“Did you get it?”
She’s quiet a second, then asks, “Is that y’all’s initials?”
“Yep.” I read her the note that came with it.
“Huh,” she says.
“Is it weird?”
“Well, it’s weird because it sounds like he got it for you after you broke up with him. And it’s also kind ofughthat he waited until the day before Christmas to buy your gift.”
I think about the wrapped gift under our tree at home with his name on it that I bought three weeks ago.
The kitchen door opens and closes, but I don’t get up. I’m shocked when I see Wes standing in the door of the family room.
“I’ll call you back in a minute,” I say to Addie, and end the call before she can ask why.
“Hey,” I say. “What’s up?” Is my voice too loud? I think it’s too loud. Between eavesdropping on his conversation with Charlie in the car and his coming to my rescue last night, I officially feel awkward around him.
He drops down beside me on the couch and holds out a small tube of lip gloss. “I think this fell out of your bag. Found it in my truck this morning.”
“Oh! Yes, that’s mine!” Yep. Too loud.
