If It Makes You Happy(29)

“I need to be”—I click my tongue—“warmer, I think.”

“Warmer?” he asks with a smile.

“I accidentally told a woman I wanted to steal her clothes today.”

Boyish laughter bubbles out of him, and some of the tension in my shoulders releases.

I choke on a laugh. “It was awful.”

“How can I help though?”

“People seem to like you around here.”

“They seem to,” he muses, leaning his forearms on his knees and linking his hands together. He tilts his head to me. “But I think—and feel free to disagree—but I think I might annoy you.”

I scoff. “Oh, please. I barely know you.”

“C’mon. Be honest.”

“You’re definitely … different from people I normally talk to.”

His palm slaps his chest. “Ouch.”

“Hey, you said—”

“Well, I say a lot of things,” he teases.

I try to bite back the smile growing on my face, which only has his grin widening as well.

“Well”—he stretches his arms out—“I don’t know. This is sure asking a lot.”

“I’m not asking for it for free,” I counter. “Anything you need, I’m right next door.”

He squints. “I have a sneaking suspicion you’re trying to be my friend.” When I don’t answer, he says, “Uh-huh.” Cliff leans closer, his shoulder touching mine as he whispers, “Of course I’ll help, Shelly.”

“Just Michelle,” I correct him, shifting away from his touch. “If that’s all right.”

It’s not that I don’t like being called Shelly. But that was Allen’s nickname. Rocket’s. My mom’s. And I don’t know Cliff well enough to be Shells or Shellfish. Those belong to my dad and Sara.

“Honestly, I don’t even like nicknames,” I admit.

“All right then. You’re Michelle,” Cliff says. “But only if I’m Cliff. Not Clifford.”

“Not the big red dog?”

He shakes his head. “I’m cursed with that joke. I swear it’s the universe laughing at me.”

“Why would it laugh at you?”

He points out the scar above his lip. “I was bitten by a dog as a kid. Three stitches and a fear to last forever. Dogs seem to like me though. I think they’re all conspiring to make me uncomfortable.”

“You’re telling me he’s not cute?” I ask, nodding out to Rocket with his tongue lolling out.

“Dog propaganda.”

“How?”

“Ehh,” he muses uneasily. “I don’t trust them.”

“True. Rocket is manipulative.”

“Isn’t he supposed to be man’s best friend?”

“Yes. Man’s best friend. Not woman.”

Cliff squints. “There’s a story there.”

“It’s complicated.”

“Your relationship with your dog is complicated?”

“Isn’t your relationship with your family complicated?”

“You’re saying he’s family?” Cliff counters.

“Close enough.” He’s all I have here.

Cliff gives a weak smile, a cough, and repositions himself on the porch. “Fair.”

“There is.” I side-eye him, and he’s already smiling. “A story, I mean. I guess.”

“You gonna share it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Sharing is normally how friendship works.”

I chew on my bottom lip and sigh. “Rocket belonged to my ex. So our relationship is tumultuous at best.”

“What happened?” he asks. “With …”

“Allen,” I supply. “He found someone younger.”

He winces. “Damn.”

“She called me.”

“Damn,” he repeats.

“She said she didn’t know he was married. That I deserved to know.”

“Do you wish you didn’t?”

“No. It was for the best.”

He hisses in a sharp breath, letting it out with a final “Damn.”

I nod, and then we’re in silence once more. Wind rustles the trees, sending brown leaves waving to the ground. Across the street, kids cycle past on the sidewalk with playing cards tucked in the spokes, making them sound like puttering motorcycles.

“Well,” Cliff finally says, “if it makes you feel better, I’m in the divorcé club too. Saw it coming for years.”

“Can’t tell if that would hurt more or less.”

“Me neither,” he admits.

I swallow. “Must be rough. Two girls. Running a bakery.”

“Carol closes the bakery without me most days.” His broad chest rises and falls as he stares off. I wonder if that’s the last thing he wishes were happening. “And Emily has after-school stuff. She’s in a work-study program.”

“Are you sure she’s not sneaking around with that boy?”

“No,” he says on a laugh. “Thanks a lot for that.” He leans his head to the side, watching Rocket and Brittany, in her pj’s, roll in a pile of leaves. He sighs in exhaustion. “It’s hard sometimes. But we get by fine, even if it is a little hectic.”