Funny, but Keaton found himself nodding too.
She shook her head. “That’s not necessary.”
Timmy put his arm around her shoulder. “Go into the office and close the door. Eat. Take a catnap. Just relax, okay?”
Relief transformed Raine’s face yet again, more like the barista Keaton remembered from visits this summer and in December.
Callie spoke highly of Raine, as a friend and a business owner. His sister called Raine strong—a fighter. He expected her to tell Timmy no. Instead, she walked toward the counter with him.
Brecken came closer to Keaton. “Mind if we sit with you? Well, me. Timmy will be here soon enough.”
“Go ahead.”
He placed the backpacks on the floor and sat in an empty chair at the table. “Taryn said you were back in town.”
“I’m staying at Margot’s again.”
“Yeah, Taryn and Garrett are too into each other. Callie and Brandt too.” Brecken’s expression was more tween than teen. “Taryn said Raine was working too much, but it’s worse than I thought.”
“She mentioned trying to hire a barista.”
“She needs like three of them. Timmy’s working weekends and a couple of nights, but he worked full-time before classes started last month.”
“You started college too. How’s it going?”
Brecken hung his head as if the weight of the world rested on his eighteen-year-old shoulders. “Community college is so much harder than high school.”
“What’s difficult about it?”
Brecken wouldn’t meet Keaton’s eyes. “I got an F on my first paper.”
The dejection in the kid’s voice reminded Keaton of when he and Flynn had found Brecken after he’d run away. “Did you turn the paper in?”
“Yeah, but I may have watched the movie instead of reading the book.”
“May have?”
“Okay, I did.” Brecken rubbed his hands over his face. “I was babysitting my brothers and sisters, and time got away from me. I couldn’t read the book in one dayandwrite a paper.”
“What book?”
“The Scarlet Letter.”
Keaton winced. The instructor would have known right away.
Brecken leaned forward. “You’ve read the book and seen the movie?”
“Yes. You can’t take shortcuts like that. Not at college.”
“It’s community college.”
“Doesn’t matter. A high school English teacher would have caught that.” Keaton remembered a meme. It might help Brecken understand. “Picture an iceberg. The part above the water is the movie. The larger portion below the water is the book.”
“The book sank theTitanic.”
“I suppose you could say that, but with movie adaptions, sometimes the film and the book aren’t the same iceberg. They’re separated by miles. Sometimes in different oceans.”
“Yeah, I guess the ending is different from what I watched.” Brecken blew out a breath. “I won’t do that again.”
