Nathan Robottom, who stood alongside them, pointed out his grandson, who was a varsity wide receiver and already being recruited by several division one colleges in Louisiana and Mississippi.
As she watched the squad toss Mardi Gras beads, candies, and Moon Pies to the mass of people now crowding the sidewalks, Paxton waded through an odd sea of annoyed nostalgia.
On one hand, she was charmed by this unique slice of small-town living that was the hallmark of places like Gauthier, but standing there, watching the revelry and the reverence paid to the football players and cheerleaders, also brought her back to her unsettling high school days. When it came to things like homecoming and pep rallies, Paxton had always felt as if she was on the outside looking in.
She glanced over at Sawyer. The smile on his face stretched from one end to the other as he caught a small plush lion that one of the football players had thrown his way. He handed it to Mya Anderson, who had come out of Claudette’s Beauty Salon with her two young daughters in tow.
“This must bring back fond memories for you,” Paxton said. He looked at her, his brow raised. “Seeing the football players in all their glory,” she clarified. “As I recall, you experienced a fair amount of acclaim back in those days.”
“You sound jealous,” he said in a teasing tone.
“I am not.” She huffed with exaggerated affront, relieved to see them return to a bit of the good-natured banter they’d found over the past week. Paxton shrugged. “Besides, this was never my thing.”
Sawyer turned to her. “Why is that?” he asked.
She was caught off guard by the genuine curiosity coming through his steady gaze. “It…it just wasn’t,” she replied.
“Is it because you were too cool to be bothered with all this silly homecoming stuff, or was there something else?”
“It just wasn’t my thing,” she repeated. “I never understood the hero worship when it came to football players. Everyone treated them like they were gods. It just made me less interested.”
“Because if the rest of the crowd found something interesting, you thought it should be ridiculed. That’s how you used to look at things back then, right?”
“Not everything,” she said, her eyes still focused on the parade gliding down Main Street. “Just football players.”
Several heartbeats passed before he said, “Maybe you should have given the football players a chance back in high school.”
Paxton whipped her head around to look at him. She didn’t know what to do with the unrestricted honesty staring back at her.
She wanted to ask him what he meant, but he had already returned his attention to the parade. She stood there with her eyes on the trucks that continued to slowly roll along the roadway, but her mind remained on Sawyer’s words.
It almost sounded as if he’d had a thing for her back in high school. It was ridiculous to even think that. It may have been twenty years ago, but Paxton could remember those days all too well. Sawyer Robertson hardly noticed her back then. In a school with a little more than three hundred students, in a town that was small enough that everyone knew everyone, she still had never been on his radar.
The whirling sirens of the Gauthier Volunteer Fire Department’s red fire engine, also decked out in green-and-white crepe paper, brought her back to the here and now.
As the crowd dispersed, she and Sawyer returned to the conference room. Paxton had already told him that she would leave a bit early today to help Belinda prepare for the grand opening of the River Road Bar and Grill, but there were a couple of things that she needed to finish before she could call it quits for the day.
If only she could concentrate on her work.
She fought the urge to bring up their conversation during the parade. Had he meant that she should have givenallfootball players a chance back in high school, in the general sense? Or did he mean one player in particular?
“Shouldn’t you be heading out soon?”
Paxton jumped, even though he’d spoken in a normal tone. She looked at the time on her laptop.
“Yeah,” she said before putting the machine in sleep mode. “I need to stop in at Shayla’s. She has some special grand-opening cookies she made for tonight. Not your typical bar fare, but I didn’t want to hurt her feelings.”
He walked over to her and assumed his favorite position, his arms crossed while he perched on the edge of the larger table.
“Do you all have everything in place for tonight?” he asked.
She nodded, unable to keep the excited smile from creasing her lips. “We’re as ready as we can get. Just have to hope people show up.”
“They will.”
She slipped her laptop inside her briefcase and snapped it closed.
“Paxton?” he said. She looked up at him. “Just because I haven’t brought it up again, don’t think you’re getting away without explaining why you think the night we spent together was a mistake.” He pushed away from the table and sauntered to her, his relaxed, languid stride in direct opposition to the intensity in his eyes. “And don’t think for a minute that you’re going to get away with that sorry-ass excuse you tried to feed me earlier today.”
