“Yeah,” he said, but he shrugged as he said it.
Shiloh glanced around the kitchen, thinking. “Would you eat toast if I made it?”
“Yeah,” Cary said, with interest. “I would.”
“Okay.” She smiled at him. “Good. Go sit down.”
He didn’t. He followed her to the counter and sort of hovered while she started the toast—she had about half a loaf of good sourdough—and got out the butter.
“I could do cream cheese and tomato...” she said, opening the fridge. “Or peanut butter?”
“Peanut butter.”
Shiloh grabbed the milk—and some strawberry jam and apple butter. The peanut butter was in the cupboard.
Cary watched her. Still hovering. Unsteady.
“You could sit down,” she said.
“I’m fine. I’ve been sitting for... twenty-seven hours.”
“You must be so jet-lagged.”
“Not yet.”
She spread Cary’s toast with butter, then peanut butter, and immediately put more bread in the toaster.
Cary ate over his hand. She got a cloth napkin out of a drawer and handed it to him. “Milk?” she said, holding up the carton.
He nodded. He’d already inhaled the first of his two slices of toast.
When the bread popped up, she said, “Peanut butter again? I’ve got strawberry jam and apple butter.”
“Apple butter. I never have apple butter.”
Shiloh spread the butter extra thick and then the apple butter. She put more bread in the toaster.
“This is enough,” Cary said, with his mouth full.
“I’ll eat what you don’t.”
Cary ate his third and fourth slices more slowly. He still hadn’t moved away from her. Shiloh made herself toast with butter and jam.
“Thank you,” he said. “I was ravenous. All the restaurants in the airport were closed, and I just wanted to get home.”
Shiloh took a bite of toast. She loved toast. She was happy for an excuse to eat it in the middle of the night. She took a sip of Cary’s milk, then refilled the glass. “They wouldn’t let you into the house?”
“My sister’s there. Jackie. She’s angry with me. I decided not to fight her on it—I don’t evenwantto stay there if Mom isn’t there. I hate that house.”
Shiloh nodded, chewing.
“I’ll get a hotel room tomorrow,” he said. “I forget when I come back to Omaha that I’m an adult. I can rent a car. I can get a hotel.”
“You should be able to go home,” she said.
“What’s home,” Cary said indifferently. “My mom is home. The rest is...” He shook his head and shoved half a piece of toast into his mouth.
Shiloh put two more pieces of bread—the last of the loaf—in the toaster. “I wish my couch was more comfortable. It doesn’t pull out.”
