“Maybe I am.” I shrug before lifting two more fingers up. “Hey—add that to my list. Make a douchebag who clearly didn’t know what he had when he had it jealous.”
“Miller.” She says my name like an admonishment and a reminder of the five years that stretch between us, but I don’t think I’ve ever liked the sound of my name on someone’s lips more.
Flashing my palms, I turn back to the stretching displays of fruit and vegetables around us. “Sorry, scratch that one for now, then.”
A blush creeps across her cheeks. “Maybe we could work on not being almost strangers. I think we’ll be more helpful to each other if we talk.”
“That your hypothesis? We can call it the Ren Jacobs Theory.”
She purses her lips. “I’m serious. We can tell each other one thing each time we mark something off our lists.”
“Okay.” I swallow. I agreed to this, but the idea of talking openly about Matt—about all of it—sits uncomfortably on my shoulders.
“What’s your one thing for this first grocery visit, then?” She tips her chin up.
I grin, deflecting. “I didn’t pick this grocery store because it’s pretentious and has better produce. I picked it because I thought there would be less people than at one of the big ones.”
Indignation pops her mouth open. “That’s cheating!”
I shake my head. “I don’t cheat. I win, fair and square.”
“Be that as it may in your professional life.” She tips her basket towards my hands. “It does not apply here. I’m serious, Miller.”
“So am I.”
Another flat look with sharp eyes, and I crumble under Ren Jacobs.
Scrubbing the back of my head and sending my hair flying every which way, I shrug. “Going in public used to be ... fine. Great, even. People called my name and asked for photographs and got me to sign things. Post–World Series, the city loved me, even when they were all making fun of me. Not sure if you’ve heard, but I’m not considered to be a very serious person off the field.” I make a show of examining the apples again, so I don’t have to look at her. “But uh, that was fine. And then ... after Matty. I don’t know. The laughs disappeared and the looks changed and something just fucking broke, I guess.”
“Are there things you miss about being in public?” she asks softly.
“Just miss being able to go out without judgement. Can’t even go grab a case of beer like a normal person without someone having a thought about it now. I don’t really feel like me ... or anyone at all. I want it to go away.”
Ren’s hand finds my shoulder, fingers drumming softly along the aching muscles. “We can’t make people change their minds, and unfortunately I don’t think there’s a panacea for incorrect judgement of a populous who clearly didn’t know a thing about you to begin with.” She wrinkles her nose. “But you can carry it differently.”
“Feels too heavy, all those eyes on me.”
Her palm presses flat, and a teasing smile curls her lips upward. “If your arms aren’t up for the job, mine are.”
I poke my tongue into my cheek, grinning. “They look small to me.”
“Please, I once pulled a stegosaurus femur out of a giant slab of limestone.”
“Did you really?” I give her a dubious look.
Her thumb trails across the stretch of my shoulder with her laugh before she lets go. “No, but I did brush some dust off it.”
“Oh, great.” I roll each shoulder out. “That’ll work better. You can fossil brush all the judgements off me.”
Ren smiles, a full one.
It rounds out her cheeks and lightens her eyes, and it stays there as we wander aimlessly through aisles of a grocery store that really is too pretentious, tossing random things neither of us have ever heard of into our baskets that get so full we max out the self-checkout.
And when a store employee comes to override it, and their eyes do linger on me too long, I don’t really feel them at all because this woman with the tiny arms that definitely couldn’t grab a giant femur if they tried, carries way more weight than I’d ever be capable of on my own.
Ren
I lied.
