Ruffy won’t stop staring at the fence.
It’s been twenty minutes since Levi left, and my dog is sitting at the back gate like a furry, dramatic statue of unrequited longing. If he could write poetry, it would be terrible and very sad.
“He’s not coming back tonight,” I tell him.
Ruffy whines. The whine of a creature whose soul has been ripped in two.
“You literally met him four hours ago. This is not a great bromance. This is two dogs sniffing each other in a backyard.”
Another whine, more operatic this time. Apparently I’ve adopted the canine equivalent of a Hallmark movie hero.
I sink onto the porch steps, coffee long gone cold, and try to process what just happened.
Levi Beckett was in my backyard. Sitting on my porch. Drinking my coffee like we were in some kind of Folgers’ commercial for emotional baggage. Talking to me about his brother’s wedding song like we were...friends. Like the last ten years were a minor scheduling conflict and not a decade of me fleeing the state every time feelings got too real.
And I helped him. I sat there and helped him figure out his song, and it felt natural. Easy, even.
Which is exactly how horror movies start.
Ruffy abandons his vigil and comes to lean against my legs, sighing like the weight of the world rests on his fluffy shoulders.
“Dean lives one street over,” I say out loud. “One street. Levi visits Dean all the time. Which means Levi is going to be approximately thirty feet from my back door on a regular basis.”
Ruffy’s tail wags. He thinks this is excellent news.
“It’s not excellent news. It’s a logistical nightmare wrapped in emotional landmines.”
He wags harder. Clearly we have different definitions of nightmare.
I pull out my phone. There’s onlyone person equipped to handle this level of crisis, and she’s currently six hundred miles away, probably cheating at shuffleboard.
Mom answers on the third ring.
“Delilah! I was just thinking about you. Aunt Patricia made the most incredible key lime pie, and I said, ‘Delilah would love this recipe,’ and she said?—”
“Mom.”
“—that she got it from a woman at her church who got it from her grandmother who was apparently a bootlegger during Prohibition, which has nothing to do with pie but explains why the woman had such steady hands for meringue?—”
“Mom.”
“—and I thought, that’s the kind of origin story every recipe needs. A little scandal. A little mystery. A hint of felony?—”
“Mother!”
“What is it, sweetheart? You sound tense. Are you eating enough? You always forget to eat when you’re spiraling.”
“I’m not spiraling. I’m...processing.”
“Processing is just spiraling with a college degree. What happened?”
I take a breath. “Did you know Dean Beckett lives one street over from your house?”
Silence.
“Mom?”
“Dean Beckett,” she repeats slowly, like she’s never heard the name before in her life. “Refresh my memory.”
