“Those look good enough to win at the next fair. You don’t want to waste them on this guy, doyou?”
“Hey,” Dylan protested, but when Mrs. Welsh raised her arm and aimed a tomato at him again, he shut his mouth and slid behindme.
Some war hero… He could take on terrorists and enemy combatants, but he feared a senile old lady withfruits.
“Listen, I promise no one will turn back on that mower before eight in the morning,” I crossed my heart with twofingers.
“Nine,” she shotback.
“Fine, nine. Now why don’t you head back inside so you can get some morerest.”
“Rest? You think I can go back to sleep after this? I’m old, and that boy just robbed me of my few precious hours of sleep.” She continued protesting all the way back to her porch, and only the slamming of her door blocked any further verbalinsults.
I about-faced on Dylan, realizing too late that he was so close to me I could see the royal-blue flecks in his eyes. It sent me into an unwanted memory of hanging out by the lake on a blanket counting the number of specks because I wanted to know everything about him. I took a step back and cleared my throat. “What are youdoing?”
He glanced down at the mower and then back at me. “I’m mowing yourlawn.”
“I know that.Why?”
“Because it needed to bedone.”
I huffed. “I know that. I was going to do ittoday.”
He shrugged, an unexpected movement for his new persona, but with the tilt of his head, I saw the old Dylan flash before my eyes. It was like Superman popping out of a phone booth, only to slam it shut again. “Now you don’t haveto.”
Grass tickled my feet, and I noticed the dew had made the blades stick to my toes. “You don’t need to cut mygrass.”
“Yes I do. From what I saw yesterday, you work a lot. I asked Sadie when your next day off was, and she told me today. I asked her what I could do to spend time with you, and she told me nothing. You’d be busy doing chores and resting. That I wasn’t to bother you. This was me not bothering you.” He half smiled, the kind that made me forget I wasirritated.
“Well, you failed. I’mbothered.”
“I know, and you’re cute when you’re bothered.” He reached up and slid a stray hair behind my ear. He always liked when my hair was away from my face. He had told me my face was too beautiful tohide.
A heat swept over my cheek, my neck, my arms. “Stop that.” I backedaway.
He dropped his hand to his side. “I’m sorry I bothered you. I thought I could help before I went to visit my fathertoday.”
“You’re going to visit that man?” I said in a way too harsh tone. “I mean, I didn’t know you were speaking to him. Did he know where you were all thistime?”
“No, Aves…ry. You were the first letter Iwrote.”
Blue and red lights flashed from down the road. We both turned to see the sheriff barreling toward my house. The man who had escorted Dylan out of town, out of my life, approached. The only question was, what did he want thistime?
