Page 58 of Stand

The waitress flirted with him gently every time she came to the table. Ty wished he could reciprocate, but Sam and his situation had muddled his brains. Sam didn’t fill the waitress in on why they were together, so the flirting never reached an awkward stage, but in another lifetime, Ty would have enjoyed it. As it was, he just wanted to stop peopling and get back on the road. Once they’d eaten and used the restroom, he got them outta there.

“So much for being respectful,” Matt said the moment the silver door had swung shut behind them.

“What?” The coffee had been good, but all Ty felt was a buzzing at his extremities. Sam had just brushed against him while she leashed up Cairo.

“That waitress was giving you the eye, and all you did was grunt at her.”

“Ew, Matt,” Alyssa said. “Gross.”

“Did I?” He looked at Sam, who’d gone two steps ahead with Cai.

“You were fine,” Sam said, striding away to the car.

Well, what did that mean? Why wasn’t she looking at him? Or was he imagining that she was avoiding him?

“Yeah. You offended her,” Matt said.

“She wasn’t offended,” Sam said unexpectedly. “She wasn’t flirting very hard. Just being polite.”

She opened the back hatch, and Cairo hopped into the SUV. Finally, she looked at Ty. “She thought you were with me.” And she threw him the car keys.

Now Ty was the one to open and close his mouth. That waitress, whose name he didn’t even remember, had seen every single thought he’d been trying to hide. The keys fell to the ground in front of him, and Matt and Alyssa stared at him, Alyssa in shock, Matt in accusation.

“You aren’twithher,” Alyssa said at last. “Are you?”

“N-no,” he said. Dammit. That hadn’t sounded firm enough. “You know I’m not,” he added, looking at his daughter with what he hoped to hell was determination. “You’ve been around her pretty much the whole time I have. You know what this is.”

“We’re friends,” Sam said, as if from very far away. “Just friends, Lyss.”

“You better be,” Matt said, opening his car door. “We don’t need another mean girl mom.”

That cut through Ty’s stupor. “Matthew!”

Matt slid into his seat and slammed the door on them. The slap of the icepack onto his eye seemed like another accusation.

Ty moved toward the car, but Sam had approached him and now bent to pick up the keys.

“Don’t worry about it. He’s upset.” Her voice was soothing and soft, unlike her usual tough-guy stance.

“He has to stop calling you that.”

“Maybe he will. Maybe he won’t.” She gave him a smile he swore was touched with sadness. “It’s okay. Let’s just get you guys to Taos in one piece, and I’ll be out of your hair.” She slapped the keys into his hand and then held out hers. “Your phone?”

“Sam, you really don’t have to—”

But that stubborn set to her chin told him she did, in fact, have to.

The tone of her voice on these calls was different today, and it took Ty a while to figure out what it was: Sam was hurt. She could toss her hair over her shoulder and dial the numbers with as much nonchalance as she wanted, but he could tell. After each phone call, he begged her to stop. After the eighth call, even Alyssa piped up, suggesting she could do more tomorrow. But Sam kept on, kept on flaying herself at the altar of Matt and Alyssa’s disdain, of her and Ty’s history, of the town that would never accept that she’d changed.

Somewhere in Illinois, Sam hung up the phone. She took a deep breath. Just when Ty was wondering if she’d ever let it out, she said, “Pull over.”

“What?”

“Pull over.”

They were on another empty highway, with little traffic and only fields on either side, separated from the road by a berm of trees. “Where are you planning to go?”

“Pull. Over.”