“Why would you make that particular one?”
“I don’t know. It seems like in small towns like Wood Briar, people settle down early. My mom was twenty when she and my dad got married.”
“Nope. Not me. No wife, no fiancée, no girlfriend. I am cheerfully single.”
“I guess that’s why you’re spending your evening with your best girl. Who happens to be a dog.”
“I thought I was spending my evening with you.”
Something in the way he looked at her made her insides tingle. Before she could formulate a response, she heard a sharp knock coming from the back entrance.
“That must be the pizza,” she said, grateful for the interruption.
“I can grab it if you want.”
She shook her head. “It’s fine. I paid online but I need to get to know the pizza delivery people in town, since I suspect I’ll have a lot of late-night deliveries here over the next few months.”
She hurried to the back door and opened it. On the other side was a young teenager with shoulder-length hair and braces.
“Hey, Jack.” Bryce gave the young man a smile. “I wasn’t aware you were delivering pizza these days.”
The boy made a face. “Trying to earn some cheddar since my truck needs new tires.”
“That’s right. I thought I saw you driving a sweet Chevy.”
The teenager looked delighted to talk about his ride. “I bought it from a friend of my grandpa’s in Corvallis. It’s in great shape. Has a lot of miles but the engine and the transmission were replaced a few years ago.”
“Tires can be spendy. If you want, I can see if we might be hiring anybody on our cleanup crew this summer. We usuallytake on a couple of high school kids to clean up jobsites at night. Pick up nails, throw away scrap lumber. That kind of thing. Pays pretty good and the hours can be flexible, to work around your pizza gig.”
“That would be great!”
“I’ll be in touch.”
Bryce was obviously well-liked around town, Emma thought as she listened to the two of them talk about the kid’s new truck.
What a strange set of circumstances. For most of her life, Emma had been the good girl. Teacher’s pet, winner of the spelling bee, singled out for the accelerated learning classes.
Bryce, on the other hand, had struggled in school. He had been bullied by some teachers, she could see now in retrospect. In elementary school, she remembered him being pulled out for extra attention—resource classes, they called them—as he had struggled to read.
He had been the class troublemaker, always the first one to talk back to teachers or be sent to the principal’s office, something that would have mortified her.
Their paths couldn’t have been more different back then.
And then the accident happened, and her life changed forever.
Now she was the recovering addict, a single mom who had barely enough in the bank to cover the pizza, while Bryce was universally well respected, by every indication.
When the two seemed to be wrapping up their conversation, she slipped the teen another tip, though she had already added one to the online order. She could remember too well her own days of waiting tables and delivering food as she struggled to make ends meet after Olive had been born.
“Thanks for the pizza,” she said.
“You’re welcome, ma’am. Enjoy.” He closed his padded, insulated bag and after bidding a farewell to Bryce, he hurried out the door. Before it closed behind him, she could see a pickup truck even older than her own beat-up Honda.
“Where would you like to enjoy this feast?” Bryce asked after they were alone once more in the bookstore.
Emma considered their limited options. They could sit at the counter, lean against the checkout counter in the front or try to crowd into the tiny chairs at the children’s table. She really did need to come up with some sort of café to draw people—or at least add a few seating areas for people to curl up with a book or have a conversation with a friend.
“How about the office? There’s a desk chair and a guest chair. Neither is comfortable, but I suppose it’s better than sitting on the floor. I’m afraid we both might get stuck if we tried to sit in the kids’ chairs.
