I gasp, pretending to be hurt, but I like this side of her. The silly, unguarded side. The way she is when she’s not really thinking about it, when she’s not worrying about maintaining her public persona and not afraid she might be bothering anyone.
I feel lucky that I’ve gotten the chance to get to know her and to see the real woman behind the guitar and the songs.
And I’d also really like to see her shoving her pretty face into a blueberry pie, but I’m sure that’s not going to happen.
She might be able to let her guard down around me and her brother. But I doubt she’s willing to let the entire town and these tourists witness Riley Rowland getting messy.
Turning back to the guys, I ask, “Are you two going to enter?”
“I’m watching so I can write about it for the paper,” Toby explains.
“Count me out,” Andrew says, shaking his head.
Right then, a child comes barreling our way. He tries to dodge us but knocks into Riley, who lets out a surprised, “Oh!” as she falls into me. My arm comes around her waist to steady her, and she apologizes to me as if it was somehow her fault.
“It’s okay, I’ve got you,” I tell her, squeezing her into me a little tighter before letting her go.
“Ah, crap, I’m sorry,” Connor Shaw says as he rushes over to us, a bit out of breath. His eyes track the boy to where he’s now standing on the sidewalk on the other side of the street, staring up at a flowerbox outside of the drugstore. “Mason, you need to watch where you’re going!”
The boy, who I assume is his son, waves his arm behind his back, giving a thumbs up.
Connor sighs and shakes his head. “He’s usually better behaved than that. But he’s recently become obsessed with squirrels, and when he sees one, that’s all he can focus on.”
“No worries, we’re fine,” Riley says with a smile.
Connor’s eyes widen a tad as he looks at her, suggesting he wasn’t really paying attention to who he was talking to while he was stressed about his son. “Oh. Hey, Riley. Haven’t seen you in forever. Well, except on TV and the internet and stuff.”
Riley looks momentarily tongue-tied, her face going through a couple complicated expressions before she says, “Yeah, I’m visiting for a while. It’s good to see you.”
When Connor shifts his focus from Riley to Andrew and Toby, his brow furrows and he gives them a curt nod. Toby says hi to him, but Andrew’s eyes dart away from Connor so sharply it feels like a whip cracking in the air between them.
“Sorry, er, we’ve gotta go,” Andrew mumbles. “Forgot they need us at the thing.” He abruptly turns to leave, bumping into Toby in his haste. Then he basically pushes his friend to get him to walk away with him.
Connor frowns and stares after them for a few seconds before turning back to me and Riley. The three of us make small talk for a couple more minutes, Riley telling him how we visited the farm the other day. But it’s clear that most of Connor’s focus is on his son, who is still across the street enthralled by a squirrel that’s destroying the flowerbox.
“I better grab Mason before he runs off chasing another one,” Connor says. “I need to try to get him to eat something that’s made of more than just sugar.”
Left alone, Riley and I wander back toward the main area of the festival. As we wait in a short line so I can grab food, I ask her, “So what the heck was that with your brother?”
She frowns. “No idea. I mean, he sort of has this issue with me having a crush on Connor, I guess.”
“Youwhat?” I say, a lump rising in my throat. She told me how she had a thing for Connor when she was younger, but the sentence she just said was not in past tense.
“No, I’m sorry.” She shakes her head, a faint pink blush rising on her cheeks. “I meant in high school, like I told you about. It was a silly obsession, and he barely knew I existed.”
And now I feel stupid, because it should have been obvious that’s what she was talking about. “Right,” I say, darting my eyes away.
“I think it made Andrew uneasy,” she continues, “because Connor was older than me. Nothing ever happened though.”
“Then I don’t understand why that would make him run away from the guy.”
Riley shrugs and juts her head forward as the people in front of us move up in line. “Yeah, I don’t know. He’s gotten a little snippy with me the couple times Connor’s name has come up since I’ve been here. It’s weird.”
Feeling like I’m choking on the words, I say, “Well, you guys aren’t in high school anymore. If you wanted to date him now, there would be nothing wrong with it. Right?”
She looks at me like what I said was strange. And yeah, I don’t know why I said it. Why I can’t let this go.
Therewouldbe nothing wrong with her dating Connor. But I sure as hell hope she doesn’t want to. I know it shouldn’t matter to me who she’sinterested in, because it’s not likewe’redating. Still, though, that lump in my throat grows bigger at the thought of her losing interest in me so quickly and moving on to someone else.
