“Tabitha.” He stops and waits until I stop too and turn to face him. “Stop worrying. I’m just learning about where you come from. It’s different from the way I grew up, and I’m loving being an observer.”
“Okay, I’ll relax.” I start us on the long process of picking through the blankets toward the food tables, someone on every third quilt stopping us to say hello. My first-grade teacher, an old neighbor, two moms of friends from high school, my boyfriend from my sophomore year. They all want to know how New York is, and who Sawyer is, and the blaring unasked question underneath it all—and not in a subtle way—isWho is this man to you?
“Is it always like this when you come back or is this because you’re famous?” he asks when we breach the blanket perimeter to reach the first table of food.
“I’m not famous.”
“You were on the cover of one of the cooking magazines at my grocery checkout last week. Jerk move when I’m trying to get over you.”
I smirk. “Trying as in the present tense?”
He gives me his half smile. “No. Not present tense.”
Oooh, heart-swoops. Good thing I’d already made peace with my feelings for this man in Jane’s office or I’d think I was having a cardiac event.
I mean, I am. But not the kind that’ll kill me. Probably.
We go down the table, picking and choosing from the many, many dishes. I subtly point out all the cooks giving us side-eye to see if we’re picking theirs. “They’ll do it when we sit down to eat too, watching to see what we like and what we don’t.”
He gives a soft laugh. “That’s a lot of pressure. Is this a you-thing or an everyone thing?”
“They’ll do it to anyone. There’ll be so much side-eye today it’s a wonder they don’t turn into halibut. But they’ll be extra interested to see how I react because of my job.”
“And how will you react?”
“Like I love everything I’m eating,” I say with a grin. “Except this pasta salad.” Each dish is labeled with its title, allergens, and the cook’s name. “That’s Camille Lynch’s, and she was mean in high school.”
I scoop some on my plate. “The trick is not to oversell it by looking outright disgusted. It’s a slight pause and a blank expression before I discreetly push it to the side of my plate and try something else.”
“Petty,” he says.
I give him my “are you kidding me” face. “I paid you back for way less than this in the counselor days.”
“True,” he says. “I knew what you were when I picked you up.”
And it makes me smile because he does know me. He’s always known me pretty well, but he’s definitely getting a deeper sense of me the longer we’re in Creekville.
I feel vulnerable, like I’m walking around in a hospital gown giving a prime view of my backside, but I know I need to be okay with this. I’ve just never gone through this process with anyone else before.
“Tab!”
“That’s Grace,” I say, turning at the sound of her calling my name. “My sister.”
“Right. I met her once when you nearly scared me to death that one time for laughs.”
“Oh, yeah.” I grin up at him. “That was fun. Let’s go over, and I’ll introduce you again.”
Grace and her boyfriend, Noah, Paige’s brother, are sitting with my parents, Paige, and Evie on a cluster of red, white, and blue quilts.
“Hey, guys,” I say as we walk up. “This is Sawyer.”
“Hey, Sawyer,” they say in chorus, and I introduce him to Grace, Noah, and my mom.
She pats the empty space beside her. “I saved y’all a spot.”
“This is therealFourth of July grilling,” I tell him under my breath.
Sawyer makes a small choking sound, like he swallowed a laugh.
