“I know you are,” Paxton replied. “But it’s irrelevant until this project is done. I don’t mix business with pleasure.”
“That’s a bald-faced lie. What about that coworker in Little Rock?”
“Believe me, he doesn’t count,” Paxton said. “You want to help me bring the cookies to my car?”
Shayla followed her into the coffee shop, and together they gathered the bakery boxes filled with sugar cookies and took them to Paxton’s car. She opened the rear gate with the remote on her key ring, and they positioned the boxes around the extra suitcases that were still in the back of her SUV.
“You look as if you’re living out of your car,” Shayla commented.
“Because there’s no room at Belinda’s. Can you believe she turned my old room into a sewing room? She left the daybed, but everything else? Gone.”
“I didn’t know she sewed.”
“She doesn’t, but Judy Monroe was selling all of her sewing supplies. Belinda has never been able to back away from a deal.”
“That is hilarious,” Shayla said with a laugh. “You know if you’re ever at the office late and don’t want to drive all the way home, you can stay in our guest room.”
Paxton held up a hand. “No thank you. I have no interest in hearing that honeymoon bed knocking against the wall.”
“We’re past the headboard-banging stage,” Shayla said. She tipped her head to the side. “Actually, thinking about last night—”
“Bye.” Paxton closed the gate and rounded the back of the SUV.
“Oh, do you want to meet before the game on Friday?” Shayla asked. “We can go together.”
“Um, do you remember me ever going to a game back when we actually were in high school?” Paxton asked as she climbed behind the wheel. “Why would I want to go to one now?”
“It’s homecoming. You can make an exception this time. And its not as if you’venevergone to a Lions football game.”
Paxton gave her some serious side-eye.
“Okay, you went toagame,” Shayla said. “But you had fun that night, remember?”
“I fell on my ass while walking up the bleachers, and later that night Scotty Mitchell spilled his beer all over my favorite shirt. I spent the majority of my adolescence working in a bar, but it wasn’t until that night that Belinda asked if I’d been drinking.”
“Well, Scotty doesn’t drink anymore,” Shayla said. “Carmen made him give it up after he had that kidney stone.”
Paxton’s face scrunched up. “Ugh, are we really that old? People we went to high school with are developing kidney stones?”
“I know, right?” Shayla’s eyes turned pleading. “Would you at leastconsidercoming to the game on Friday? It’ll be fun.”
“All depends on your definition of fun,” Paxton said. “Thanks for the tea. I’m assuming it was on the house, since you didn’t ring me up.”
“You have a tab, which must be paid in full at the end of the month. Unless you move back to Gauthier permanently. Do that, and I’ll give you all the free tea you want.”
“Nice try.” Paxton laughed, waving from behind the wheel as Shayla went back into the coffee shop.
As she was preparing to back out onto Main Street, she looked into her rearview mirror and noticed Sawyer’s car still parked in front of the law office. Her breath hitched, and that annoying little flutter she got in her stomach whenever he was around came to life.
Was Shayla telling the whole story when it came to Sawyer’s feelings about her back when they were in high school, or was it her friend’s starry-eyed newlywed optimism rewriting history? Paxton didn’t think she could be so blind as to not recognize that the guy she’d wanted for so long had actually been interested in her.
“Who are you kidding?” she said aloud.
Even if she’d had the barest inkling that Sawyer had had feelings for her back then, she doubted she would have been open-minded enough to accept them.
Some people would have probably labeled her as bitter back in those days, but Paxton thoughtrealisticwas a better adjective. She hadalwaysbeen an outsider looking in.
She’d wanted to go to dances. She’d wanted to join their clubs and go to slumber parties. She’d even wanted to be a cheerleader, although Paxton would walk down Main Street stark naked in the middle of the homecoming parade before she admitted that secret to anyone.
