“Like what?”
Noah asked more questions than anybody I’d ever met.
“Uh, you know, just—”
“Hey! You have a cat?” Noah abruptly cut me off, changing the subject as he hurried up the steps to crouch in front of the screen door.
“Uh … yeah … well”—I scratched at the back of my head—“I guess, kind of.”
“You guess?” Ray asked, amused. “How do you not know if you own a cat?”
“He kinda adopted me,” I replied sheepishly. “I brought him in about a week ago after finding him out here when it was snowing, and he just sorta decided not to leave.”
She smiled, and my stomach stumbled over itself, mid-somersault.
“He’s cute,” she said, never diverting her gaze from mine.
“He’s a good guy,” I replied, unsure in the moment if I was still talking about the cat or not.
“What’s his name?” Noah asked, letting the kitten sniff his fingers through the screen.
“Uh … I’m calling him Eleven for now.”
Ray hummed contemplatively, and I raised an inquisitive brow.
“The guy with the interesting name would call his cat something equally interesting,” she said, studying me with the most curious glint in her eyes.
“Guess I like to, uh … keep things interesting,” I replied awkwardly, followed by a chuckle that was just as, if not more, awkward.
What the hell is going on?
Are we … flirting?
It’d been a while since I had flirted with anyone. Hell, it had been a while since I’d had much contact with the opposite sex at all, particularly one seemingly in my age bracket. One who was beautiful, wearing a smattering of freckles across her nose and a sweater as soft-looking as her hair.
But the kid had a dad, and I could only assume that dad was in a relationship with this woman. So, whatever might’ve been going on needed to stop.
“Anyway …” Ray tipped her face downward, concealing a smile and—was she blushing? “Um … Noah, we should get lunch ready and let Soldier get back to whatever he was doing.”
Noah was quick to hop to his feet, startling Eleven into scurrying farther away. “Can Soldier have lunch with us?”
Ray’s eyes darted to mine with a blend of panic and hesitation. “Uh, well—”
“I should get back to this,” I said, gesturing toward the stairs. “But thanks, Noah. Maybe another day.”
“Oh. Okay.”
The kid looked absolutely crushed, and I felt bad. But his mom looked relieved as she began walking backward toward her house.
“Come on, kiddo,” she said. “It was nice to, um, meet you, Soldier.”
“Yeah, you too.” I offered her a friendly, hopeful smile. “I’ll see you around, Ray.”
***
And I did.
I noticed that every Tuesday, Ray and Noah came to The Fisch Market to do their grocery shopping. And every Tuesday, Noah stopped by to chat with me wherever I was cleaning or stocking the shelves while his mom did the shopping. She never seemed thrilled that he was neglecting to help her to while he was talking with me, but she never seemed bothered by it either. Not the way everyone else seemed to be.
“I can’t believe you’re letting your son talk to him,” I overheard one woman say. “You know he’s a criminal, right?”
“Lots of people are criminals, Sheila,” Ray replied, unamused. “Doesn’t make all of them bad.”
“I’m not talking about a couple of nights in jail, Ray. He was in prison for a decade.”
Actually, it was just short of ten years, Sheila, but who’s counting?
What stood out to me though was that Ray hadn’t just replied to that woman—she had defended me. And while Noah followed me as I swept and his mom let him while not allowing others to talk shit about me to her, it almost seemed like I had two more people on my side. It was nice, and Tuesdays became my favorite day.
That was until the Tuesday when I turned thirty-one. My first birthday back in society and the ten-year anniversary of the day I’d been arrested. Harry had called to wish me a good one and asked if I’d like to come by that weekend for dinner at his place. I appreciated the sentiment, but I couldn’t say I was really in the mood to celebrate. Because all I could do was think about Billy. When I woke up, as I ate breakfast, and when I got dressed for work … I thought about Billy.
And I continued to think about him on the brisk bike ride to work, and I continued thinking about him as I smacked my head against the Produce sign not once, but three times throughout the day.
“You always duck,” Noah observed on the third hit as I rubbed my forehead and cursed under my breath.
I glanced over my shoulder at him. “Huh?”
“The sign.” He pointed at the damn thing, taunting me with its bright, colorful light. “You always duck.”
“Yeah, I usually do,” I agreed with a sigh, resuming the push of the mop through a puddle of spilled apple juice.
“So, why not today?”
“Because it’s …” I stopped and leaned against the mop handle, deciding if I should be honest or not. But I always found it was usually better to tell the truth, so I said, “It’s not a great day for me.”
“Oh.” Noah frowned. “Why not?”
“Well, it’s my birthday, and—”
Ray gasped, and I turned to see her standing near the pyramid of potatoes. “Wait. It’s your birthday?” Her mouth remained frozen in a wide O, like she should’ve realized this.
I brushed her shock away with a shrug. “It’s no big—”
“Oh my God, happy birthday!”
“No”—I shook my head adamantly—“you don’t have to do that. It’s, uh … it’s not a happy day. I …” What? Killed my best friend on this day? Was arrested on this day? Was born on this fucking day? “A lot of stuff happened today that I don’t like thinking about, so …”
“But you are thinking about it,” Noah pointed out, gesturing toward the sign I was bound to suffer a concussion from eventually.
I inhaled deeply, feeling all at once ridiculously defeated. “Yeah, I know. It’s hard not to.”
“You should come over,” Ray decided out of nowhere. “I’ll make you dinner.”
Mayor Connie Fischer had entered the store at that moment, her curious eyes immediately on the felon talking to the nice mom and her preteen son. I waved at her, and she waved back, but that look of suspicion never left her face, even as she walked away.
Ray followed my gaze. “So, you actually know the mayor, huh?”
“She’s my friend’s sister-in-law,” I replied.
Ray nodded slowly, as if it was all starting to make sense. “That’s why she let you live here.” Then, she tittered with a nervous laugh, her cheeks immediately bright pink with shame. “Sorry. It’s just … everybody’s been wondering. Connie is so strict about everything. I mean, she won’t even let them open a Starbucks in town because she doesn’t like chains.”
“Hey, I get it. You wouldn’t want anything competing with that place.” I nudged my chin toward the window in the direction of Black & Brewed, the town’s quintessential coffee shop. “I mean, I’ve never been to a Starbucks, but I can tell you right now, they don’t hold a candle to what they have going on over there.”