“I meant Polly,” Phee said, cuddling the dog. “This heat makes her cranky.”
“It makes me cranky, too, but I can control myself.”
“You March women are tough to crack,” Trey’s voice said behind me.
The heat spread, sudden and low.
“Hey, Trey,” Alec said easily.
“Alec. Phee. I brought you a little something.” He handed her a bakery bag from Connie’s Cupcakes.
“Red velvet,” Phee said with approval. “Very nice.”
I ran my grimy fingers through my sweat-dampened hair, aware how I must look. How I must smell. Ugh. “Nothing for the rest of us?”
“Hi, Amy.” His eyes sparkled. Laughing at me. “You’re working hard.”
“Some of us have to.” I looked him up and down. Instead of his customary dress shirt, he wore basketball shorts and a T-shirt. “The dealership isn’t open on Saturdays anymore?”
“I got away. I thought you could use a break. You, too,” he said to Alec. “There’s a pickup game at the park. Interested?”
Also very nice, I thought. But then, he was a nice person.
“Yeah, I guess. If that’s okay,” Alec said to Phee.
She waved her fingers. “Go. We’ve done quite enough for today.”
“Coming?” Trey asked me.
“You’re confusing me with Jo. I don’t play basketball.”
“So bring a book.”
Also not me, I thought. But neither was being Marie Kondo.
“Come on,” he coaxed. “I’ll buy you ice cream after.”
I should say no.“Is that a bribe?”
“Is it working?”
“Iwant ice cream,” Alec said.
“He wants ice cream,” Trey said. “You don’t want to disappoint a hungry teenager.”
I threw up my hands. “Sure. I’ve never been able to resist”—you—“a hungry teenager.”
The Bunyan waterfront was a bright patchwork of Americana, as if Norman Rockwell and Grandma Moses had had a love child. Flags flapped. Boats bobbed on the river. Tourists and retirees shared park benches. Joggers and cyclists whizzed around people walking dogs. Knots of parents chatted as their laughing, shrieking children ran around the playground.
The asphalt courts by the Laurence Recreation Center were divided between dads coaching their kids and the pickup game of olderteens and adults. The players thudded up and down the court, shirts and skins, Black and White.
Trey was shirtless. And sweaty. And gorgeous. Hard not to notice that.
“He’s so hot,” a woman beside me said.
I turned my head. It was one of the playground moms—Meg’s friend Sallie Moffat, the buyer for Simply Southern, an upscale women’s boutique in town. When I was first starting out, Sallie sold my bags on consignment.
I smiled. “Hey, Sallie.”
