It was an invitation to talk, and his sister recognized it as such, getting a dreamy look on her face.
“It’s just Garrett,” she said happily.
“Did you guys have a big date or something?”
She shook her head, but she looked even happier for it. “No, it’s not even that. It’s just… I guess it’s just that the regular stuffis so nice, you know? The day-to-day stuff. Like, we don’t have to be doing anything fancy to have a really, really nice time. He just makes normal stuff better. The other night, we just watched a movie, some old action flick from the ‘90s. It was on TV, and we didn’t even catch it from the beginning, but it was just so…” She sighed. “So nice.”
There was a pause while Eleanor looked at nothing, but then she refocused on her extremely amused brother. She blushed bright red.
“Sorry. I’m gushing.”
Shane gave her a fond headshake. “Don’t apologize,” he told her. “I’m happy you’re so happy. You deserve it.”
She smiled, accepting his encouragement.
“It’s just starting to be something I can see for the long run,” she said. “I know Garrett and I are just getting started, but the normal stuff… that’s what builds a relationship that can last. It’s not all candlelit dinners and getting dressed up. It’s also Tuesday morning, when you’re late for work, and you can’t find the lid to your coffee mug. Garrett makesthatstuff better too.”
She was getting all misty-eyed, but these were clearly happy tears.
Again though, she shook her head, like she was shaking out the cobwebs.
“Sorry again. Did you come down here for something specific?”
“Oh! Yes,” he said. He’d gotten distracted himself. “I wanted to know if you would mind if I borrowed your car again tonight.”
“Yeah, go right ahead,” she said easily. “I’m just going to hang out here, getting some chores done and being sappy.”
He chuckled. “Sounds like a great evening. I’ll be back, probably not too late.”
“See you!”
It was only when he got outside that he realized that he hadn’t mentioned to Eleanor where he was going. It wasn’t totally intentional, this omission, but once he realized it, he wasn’t totally sorry for it.
He didn’t think there was any real bad feeling between Winnie and Eleanor, not from what he’d seen. But he also didn’t want to get in the middle of things either. This was probably an impulse left over from childhood. He’d intervened in a spat between Eleanor and their neighbor Wendy once, many, many years ago. He’d thought that he could help them get over an argument over… a misplaced lip gloss? He didn’t precisely remember, now, but it had been something that seemed very important to teenage girls and veryunimportantto him as a slightly younger boy.
It had backfired spectacularly. Although, in another way, it had worked, since Wendy and Eleanor had mended fences over being mutually mad at him for sticking his nose in their business.
And, yes, he knew that they were all about twenty-five years older than they had been. Theyprobablywouldn’t get mad at him.
But sisters were sisters. And Winnie…
Well, he liked Winnie. He didn’t want her to be mad.
And maybe the tiniest part of him liked having a friendship in this town that felt like his own, like something he was building himself instead of just leaning on his sister’s kindness. He knew Eleanor didn’t mind having him here, but it was nice to feel as though he was standing on his own two feet in this one aspect of his life.
That was probably a little silly, but it had been a long year.
He drove over to Winnie’s, his mind easily switching gears to anticipation. He was looking forward to seeing her, even though he had seen her only that morning.
When he got to her house, she was looking… decidedly more disgruntled than she had earlier in the day.
“Uh oh,” he said.
“Winnie Burnett vs. cornhole,” she said ominously. “Winnie Burnett is losing.”
“Oh no,” he exclaimed, laughing. “Oh, man, okay. Show me what we’re working with.”
She showed him. They were suspiciously simple. There was a large board on a slant, with a moderately-sized hole in the middle. The flat surface had a border extending from the back by about four inches, and the whole contraption was held up on a slant by a fold-out lever.
