Cody chuckled. “You two are a mess.”
“Well, thankfully, I don’t have to contend with her more often than I already do. She’s a feral monster.”
“No argument here. But you know why she’s feral.”
“Yeah, I do. Same reason we all are. But you would’ve thought age or something would’ve toned her down.”
“Did age toneyoudown?”
“Doesn’t matter. I’ve learned how to keep it locked down.”
Cody resonated with that. A little bit too much.
Walker grabbed a beer out of the cooler and handed it over, and he could see Zane wrestling with whether or not he wanted to do the same.
Zane wasn’t comfortable in a group, yet he put himself in the group. Cody felt like his friend was often in tension because of those things.
“Things seem well on the home front,” Walker said, gesturing toward Marlowe.
“And that is off-limits,” Cody said.
“Don’t make him mad,” Nolan said. “I want to eat, so I don’t want him to intentionally light this food on fire.”
“I would never do that to good beef. I might light Walker on fire.”
“I’d pay to see that,” Zane said, treating them all to a rare flash of a smile before he took a sip of his beer.
Cara approached the group and walked up to Zane, who looked like a horse that had been spooked. “Hi,” she said. “I just wanted to ask… You were one of the first people to try the pecan rolls. I was wondering if you had a review.”
“No review,” Zane said.
Cara tapped her fingers together, her brow creased. “You don’t have any feedback?”
“It was good,” he responded.
“Thanks. Better than the strawberry rolls or…”
Zane shrugged. And Cody looked between the two of them, trying to get a read on whatever the hell this was.
He had never seen Zane look comfortable, that was true, but he was used to how Zane projected his discomfort. The particular way that he dealt with people, and it wasn’t this. Zane looked like he saw Cara as a bomb that might need defusing.
Cara, for her part, was five foot nothing, and slender on top of it, wearing a sweet, floral dress, looking like about the least threatening creature on the planet.
Clearly not to Zane.
“I like the strawberry one,” Zane said finally.
“Why?”
“I don’t like pecans.”
“Oh. Well, you should’ve said something.”
“Why?”
Cara only stared at him blankly. Cody decided it was time to rescue everyone from this.
“Business is booming,” Cody said, taking over the conversation. “You must be very proud.”
