“No! I’m just kidding!”
My lips tip up into a grin. I move our hands to my belt and nearly cackle as her eyes grow wide. She snatches her hands back.
“I mean, if it’ll make you feel better,” I drawl, sliding the belt out of the loop.
Betsy’s blue eyes are sparkling with laughter, her lips stretched wide in a smile that takes her from cute to damn right gorgeous. She should smile more often. Then I take it back. No, I don’t want her smiling out there in the wild. All the single men of Heaven would be trailing after her. I want to keep her rare smiles all to myself.
“Only if you’re sure.” I freeze with my belt still holding. “I can strip if it would make you feel better. I’m not like an expert stripper, but I can wing it.”
Betsy shakes her head, but the smile amps up into a giggle. Hot damn, the woman can giggle. “No, seriously. It’s fine. I accept your apology.”
Matching her smile, I slide the belt back into the loop. “Okay. But if you change your mind, you just let me know. It’s hot as Hades. I probably wouldn’t mind stripping.”
Betsy turns back toward the dressing room. “Noted.” She whips the curtain closed again, talking through it. “I think that’s about it from the order. If I focus, I can get most of it hung by end of day.”
“Do you hum louder the more you focus?” I ask through the curtain, putting my shirt back on. “Because I’m not sure I want you focused.”
“Rude!” she hollers back. Her hand whips through the crack where the curtain ends, middle finger extended. Just as quickly, she pulls her hand back in.
I grin, leaning against the far wall. We’re back on solid ground if she’s flipping me off. “Since I’ve seen you half nude, I think it’s okay for me to ask about your past relationships, don’t you think?”
“Jesus,” she mutters just loud enough for me to hear.
“What? Aren’t we friends? Friends talk about these things.”
She whips the curtain open, standing there in the athletic dress Mary London gave her on her first day. This time, she’s paired it with wedges that have that cork material on the sides that women always seem to wear. While I’m not sure it goes with the dress any better than her Doc Martens, it does great things for her calves.
“Are we friends, Silas?”
I clutch my chest. “Ouch, Betsy Mae. Of course we’re friends. Here in the South, we’re all friends, right from day one.”
We walk side by side back to the front part of the shop where I get the computer and point of sale ready and Betsy flips the closed sign to open.
“I think you seeing me nearly naked makes us more friends than just being in the South. You’ve seen me biblically.”
That makes us both snort with laughter. When we sober up, I follow Betsy into the back. We work together to get hangers and form an assembly line, hanging up all the new stock. I keep an ear out for the bell at the front.
“Fine. I had a boyfriend when I lived in California. A serious one. We lived together for just over two years.”
I’m shocked she told me anything. I keep my gaze on the clothes, not wanting to startle her into silence by acting too eager for more details. “And?”
She sighs and it’s filled with all the negative emotions one tries to keep hidden. I myself have sighed that same sigh many times before.
“He came home from work one day, tossed his keys on the table like normal, and told me he’d met someone. He was in love and I needed to move out.”
My hands still. I turn to her in shock. She’s stone-faced, that smile from before long gone. She just keeps unfolding clothes, tossing out the tissue paper, and sliding it onto a hanger.
“That’s terrible, Betsy. What an asshole.”
She nods curtly. “Yep.”
A whole minute of silence goes by and I almost miss her humming. “So, what did you do?”
“What else could I do? I moved out.”
“To your mama’s?” I hang up two blouses onto the rolling rack. Damn. She’s already hung up six.
“No, not to my mom’s. She’s…well. Things are complicated there. I had nowhere to go.”
