I swear to god there is anaudibleeye roll.
“She’s only over here basically every night and you’re only texting herall the timeand everything you say is ‘Andi this’ and ‘Andi that’—”
“Okay, thank you.”
“—and you get allgoopywhen she’s around—”
Iglareat that asshole.
“The other day you giggled.”
“The hell I did.”
Reid shrugs.
“Get as mad as you want, we both know the truth. She’s cool, though. I like her.”
That statement shouldn’t make me nearly as happy as it does, so I try to hide it.
“She’s good for you. I’m glad you’ve got her.”
He’s staring at the opposite wall again, braced against the counter, and in a sudden rush I realize that Reid is trying to take care of me. Sort of.
Reid’s moving on, sooner or later. Probably sooner. He’s been working and saving up and going to classes at the community college up in Blythe, and I know he’s borderline desperate to get out of Sprucevale. I can’t blame him.
But—he’s been worried about leaving me alone when he moves on, and that sudden realization feels a little like hairline cracks in my heart. It feels like I’m in a snow globe, flipped over and quickly righted, waiting for everything to settle.
“Yeah,” I say, wondering what just happened. “Me too.”
* * *
“What if,”Andi says, thoughtfully, waving a single french fry through the air, “you just told them about the vasectomy?”
I fight the urge to look around and see if anyone around us heard, but they’re all either talking to each other or watching the basketball game on various screens around the bar.
“If I told who?” I ask, although my brain is helpfully supplying me with an endless stream of names about who she could possibly mean.
“The people who keep trying to give you six goats and a Chevy as their daughters’ dowry.”
“I’d never accept a Chevy as payment. At least not one being given away.”
Andi grins, leaning her head on one hand, hair spilling over her knuckles and down her forearm. It’s late, cold and raining outside, a Wednesday night, but I hadn’t seen her in a few days and I wanted to. She’d agreed to cover a Chamber of Commerce meeting for the paper, so I offered to meet her at the only place still open at nine-thirty.
“Gideon,” she says. “Don’t tell me you’re a Ford Motors loyalist or whatever. I’d have to rethinkeverything.”
“I drive a Toyota,” I tell her, the very picture of patience. “I don’twantanother car, and I especially don’t want whatever rust heap one of my parents’ friends would give away.”
“That’s actually a good point,” she concedes.
“I also don’t want their daughters.”
“The goats, though,” she says, and I can’t help but smile because she’s not wrong. The goats are the only thing in that bargain I’d half-consider; the Chevy is an outright no and while I’m sure the daughters are lovely, nice young women, they don’t interest me.
Also, no one has actually offered me a dowry. My parents and their church friends might have archaic attitudes about a lot of things, but I don’tthinkthey actually pay people in livestock to take their daughters off their hands.
“Goats can be useful,” I admit. Then I remember what we’re talking about. “Wait. Did I tell you about that?”
“Did someone literally offer you goats and a Chevy?” she asks, sitting up a little straighter.
