Page 61 of Recipe for Rivals
But I could try harder. “Books would be great, June. You can choose from whatever stock you want to move so it benefits you, too.”
“Okay, great.” She pushed back her curly blonde hair. “I’ll get a few bundles put together.”
“I’ll send Brody by the store to pick them up next week. He’s supposed to be my assistant for this thing. I need to come up with more jobs for him to do.”
“Great. They’ll be ready.”
That wasn’t so bad. Maybe a few more of those conversations and we’d be back to being real friends. I needed to reach that point before the wedding, at least. I couldn’t stand up with Tucker while I still felt hurt over June’s betrayal. If Tuck could forgive her, I really had no excuse.
The bell rang above the door, and I looked up to see Chad Lincoln come in with Nova and her kids. The lunch date.
Every muscle in my body constricted. I’d seen enough of his crappy relationships over the years that my gut clenched at the thought of him being with anyone I cared about.
I must have stared too long, because Tucker and June looked over their shoulders to see who had walked in.
“Don’t let him bother you,” Tucker said, taking the attention off Nova. Good man.
Gracie Mae took a sip of her Coke. “Did you see he’s dating Hannah now?”
Another girl we’d all gone to school with who had returned to Arcadia Creek after college. I had never known her really well, but she was obsessed with Tucker’s brother, Jack.
“I think they broke up,” June said. “Hannah took some of their photos together off Instagram.”
“I don’t blame her,” Gracie Mae muttered when Chad sat in the booth beside ours. Nova slid into the side facing my table—if I leaned a little to the side I could look right at her.
“Coach!” Ben said, jumping up from his seat and coming to our table. “I’ve been working on catching!”
“Nice, buddy,” I said, leaning over Gracie Mae and offering my fist.
He bumped it. “My mom isn’t good at throwing though, so it makes it hard to catch them.”
“Hey,” Nova called, “I heard that.”
“It’s not her fault she’s a Yankee,” I whisper-yelled.
“Heard that, too,” Nova said.
“She doesn’t play baseball,” Ben said, scrunching his face in confusion. His blond hair stuck up in the back.
I tried to subdue my grin, sliding my arm along the back of the bench. “It’s also a term for a person from the East Co—from New York.”
“Then I’m a Yankee too.”
“Nah,” I said, settling in. “You’re a Texan now.”
Ben’s grin spread over his whole face. “Yes, sir,” he said. Clearly he’d picked up on how the other boys responded to an adult.
The reality that everyone at my table was watching this interaction closely should have alarmed me, but it didn’t. I glanced at Gracie Mae and noticed she was settling in under my arm. I hadn’t even realized I’d practically thrown my arm over her shoulders when I’d rested it along theback of the bench. I pulled it away. “Enjoy your lunch, Ben.”
“Yes, sir,” he said, hopping back to squeeze onto the bench beside Alice and his mom. Neither of the kids had chosen to sit by Chad, which made me happier than it should have. I looked at Nova between Tucker and June’s heads and caught a smile on her lips while she looked down at her son. Then Chad scooted over, hiding her from view and making my chest go stiff.
The rest of the lunch was an exercise in extreme patience. Chad made Nova laugh a few times, which made me want to reach across my table and smack the back of his head. Obviously, I didn’t. He’d probably arrest me for assault, to say nothing of the fact that making a woman laugh was not a head-slapping offense.
There was also the whole violence thing. I’d utterly avoided it since high school; I didn’t want to break my record now.
But I was in one of those moods where everything Chad did made me want to hit something. Yes, I could see how unreasonable I was being.
We made it through the rest of our meal and paid our check without incident. I gave Ben a fist bump on my way out and winked at Alice, not looking up to see what Nova thought.