“No,” I pleaded. “Stay. It’s still early. Plenty of time for things to turnaround.” I looked back at the lot, where I’d stacked our supplies. “I bought these new sponges and this soap that’s supposed to be real good for cars, Mr. Dale said. And a fancy windshield cleaner that leaves no spots…” My voice faltered.
I could feel Sam studying me. “Okay,” he said quietly, resuming his seat. “A little more time, then.”
“I’m out of here,” Ever said, kicking one of the empty water buckets.
“What?” I spun in my chair. “You can’t go.”
He squinted at me, which was code forYou sure about that?
“If you say I told you so, Ever, I swear…” I sat back in my chair and crossed my arms, feeling his betrayal reverberate. “Where are you even going?”
“Nowhere.”
“Of course,” I scoffed. “Figures.”
“Hold down the fort,” he said, and strode away.
After a few minutes of people watching, Sam looked at me out of the corner of his eye. “I heard Everett has to drink blood twice a day to keep his protection against the sun.”
“What—”
“I’mkidding. Obviously, I don’t believe that.” The way Sam said it made it sound like “anymore” was missing from the end of his sentence. “It’s okay.” He nudged me with his elbow. “I was surprised he even helped. I never expected him to last.”
And here I’d thought he would.
Two long, miserable hours later, as Sam and I were folding up our table, Ever materialized behind us.
I sucked in a breath. “You need a bell.”
He glanced at the unused sponges and dry buckets. “You calling it quits?” He had the nerve to sound surprised.
I dropped my half of the folding table and turned to him, nearly vibrating. “Are you really asking that? The person who left?”
“No one was coming,” Sam said, taking pains to sound cheerful. “Figured we might as well close up shop.”
“Not asingleperson?”
I ignored the question. “What are you even doing back? Did ‘nowhere’ get boring?”
It was the maddest I’d been at Everett since we’d become friends, and you could hear it in my voice. He raised an eyebrow, looking amused, which was further infuriating.
“And what are you doing with that bag?” I jerked a hand at the brown grocery bag he was holding. He never went inside the Piggly Wiggly, even for a Coke.
“Can I talk to you?” He nodded toward Dale’s Country Corner. “In private?”
“No, thank you.”
“Ruth.” Ever gripped my forearm. I looked up and found his expression serious. “Please.”
The moment we made it to the parking lot behind Dale’s, weeds growing through cracks in the pavement, I turned to Ever with my arms crossed. His answering grin derailed me.
“Why are you smiling?”
He nodded at my crossed arms. “I’m glad you trust me.”
I felt like I did whenever I read a line in a book that peered into my soul, putting into words a feeling that had, until that moment, lived only vaguely inside my brain. How remarkable for another person to capture your feelings exactly. Though I suspected I knew, I asked, “What do you mean?”
With his free hand, he rubbed my arm. “You’re the queen of walking on eggshells. That’s why you’ve always been so quiet. But you’re not walking on them with me. You feel safe enough to get mad.”
