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“Well, hi you two,” Brewser greets. “Lawson, what are you doing here at this time of day?”

“Me? What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be at Walking Club.”

I had mentioned to Brewser last night that I was thinking about swinging by home today to see if I could catch our food fairy in the act. I asked what time he and the posse would be leaving and what time he thought she normally stopped by. He mentioned that he was always out of the house by ten, and that often, when he came home for lunch around eleven, the casseroles were here.

“I have a date today,” Brewser says, smiling at Sutton.

“A date? For what?” I ask.

“Line dancing.”

CHAPTER 8

SUTTON

I blink at Brewser but try not to act as if I have no idea what he’s talking about.

Even though I have no idea what he’s talking about.

I, of course, did not expect Lawson to be here when I came in. Brewser and I agreed that I should start coming in through the front door so that Lawson didn’t catch me on the camera he put up out back. Brewser had given me a key the very same day.

But I didn’t expect Lawson to get frustrated to the point of lying in wait.

And I have no idea what line dancing has to do with anything.

But, of course, I start nodding as if that is the most obvious thing in the world.

“Right. We have to practice the line dancing,” I say.

Lawson looks completely confused.

Which makes sense. Coming home at lunch expecting to catch a woman with a casserole dish and instead finding me and his grandfatherly roommate getting ready to line dance has to be a little discombobulating.

“You two are line dancing?” Lawson finally asks.

Brewser shrugs out of the flannel shirt he’s wearing over the top of another shirt and drapes it over the back of the kitchen chair.

“Yeah,” he says as if it’s no big deal. “Sutton mentioned that dance can be really good for balance and coordination with the Parkinson’s. So I asked her to work with me.”

I had actually mentioned that to him, but the conversation had been short, and he had not specifically asked me to work with him. Also, the words ‘line dancing’ had never crossed my lips.

Lawson looks from him to me with understanding on his face. “She knows about the Parkinson’s?”

I look at Brewser. “You didn’t tell him that you told me?”

Brewser frowns for a moment. “It must’ve slipped my mind. You two are the only ones, you know,” he says. “I still want to keep it that way.”

“You told Andi the other night,” I remind him.

He nods. “Right. No one else though.”

Lawson and I exchange a look and we both nod.

“Of course. It’s your call,” Lawson tells him.

It’s strange, but I feel a tiny bond between Lawson and me, being only two of three people Brewser has trusted with the secret. I’m not surprised that he told Lawson, of course. Living together, it was probably much harder to hide the tiny fine-motor changes already becoming obvious. But I like that Brewser knows Lawson is someone he can trust, not only to keep his confidence, but to help him in these early stages and as the disease progresses.

“That makes sense,” Lawson says. “About dance.”