“Hey.” He tickled her feet, making her squirm and squeak. “Sh, you’ll scare the fish away.”
She pulled the blanket up over the bottom half of her face and gasped for air. “In my defense—” Gasp. “—you were harboring Trent.”
He released her feet, tucked the blanket around her legs, and settled with his hands on her calf, tracing little circles. “A lapse in judgment to be sure.”
She smiled, relaxing into the corner and letting croaking frogs and rustling feathers fill in the quiet.
After a bit, Cash scrubbed at his cheek and said, “All right. You have to take into account that we were juniors in high school, seventeen, and basically stupid.”
“Duly noted.”
“Prom was coming up and I guess Jennifer wanted me to ask her. She’d been flirting something fierce for a couple weeks, but I didn’t reciprocate.”
“Oh?” Rubi perked up a little, wondering what this girl had done that shut Cash off. “Why not?”
“She wasn’t my type.”
“You have a type?”
He gave her a half grin but didn’t answer. “I guess she was getting desperate and decided to make a big gesture.” Headjusted in his seat and shook his head. “She hid in my truck after a basketball game—topless.”
Rubi’s jaw dropped. “She did not.”
Cash shifted and cleared his throat. “Unfortunately, she did.”
Rubi laughed. “You poor thing. What did you do when you found her?”
“See, that’s the thing. I didn’t find her first—Trent did.”
“Oh no.” Rubi covered her eyes.
“She didn’t seem too upset about it, cuz when Coach finally let us out, I found the two of them with a lot less on than their shirts.”
“Oh, ew!”
“Trent was goin’ with the head cheerleader at the time and swore me to secrecy. Jennifer disappeared two months later. When I confronted Trent about it, he said she’d gotten pregnant and that she went off to have the baby. He never heard from her. I don’t know why, but it haunts him in a way few of his misdeeds ever do.”
Rubi rolled her shoulders. “Well, he’s just a bull out to pasture, isn’t he?”
“At least he married Carolyn.” He scratched the back of his neck. “I thought he’d changed.”
“He should have. How come you think you look bad in all this?”
He swallowed. “Because if I’d been kinder to Jennifer and asked her to the stupid dance, she never would have gotten tangled up with Trent.”
“She made her choices, and you need to make peace with yours.”
One cheek lifted in a sexy little teasing smile that had Rubi’s heart skimming across the water. “Look who’s bein’ all sage and wisdom now.”
Rubi shook her head. “It’s not like that. It’s a lesson I’m always learning. Like with Carolyn. It was her decision to marry Trent. I didn’t like him from the get-go, but I kept my mouth shut, respecting her right to choose the guy she wants to be with. What if I’d said what I was thinking? What if I was supposed to say something and I didn’t? I’m still working through all that.”
Cash’s hand stilled on her leg. “Do you think there’s hope for us?”
“Always. There’s always hope.”
“Do you think there’s hope for Trent?”
Rubi sucked in. “The part of me that loves Jesus says yes.”
