Page 33 of Small Town Boy

“Busy this morning,” Bronwyn comments, letting go of my hand and sliding into the booth. There’s a nervous look on her face, and I can tell she feels the attention on her. No one bothered to hide their interest as we passed, something she is clearly not used to.

“Here, take this side.” I nod at the booth. I watch as she switches sides, making sure she’s settled before I sit. “Less drafty.”

It’s a lie. If anything, the vent she’s now sitting under makes it more so. But it does mean that she’s not facing the crowd, and that she’s mostly out of view from anyone trying to sneak a peek. Instead, any looky-loo is only going to get me.

“You come here often?” she asks.

“Every Thursday since before I took over,” Dolly answers for me, appearing at our table with two coffee cups. She sets them down on the table and starts to fill them.

“Oh, no coffee for me, please,” Bronwyn tells her.

“Something else I can get you?”

“Do you have Diet Coke?”

“Sure do. Be right back with that.”

“You drink a lot of that, huh?” I comment as Dolly spins around and disappears.

“Elixir of life. Harry Potter will tell you it’s unicorn blood, but that’s a lie. It’s Diet Coke.”

“Good to know.”

Dolly reappears, setting down Bronwyn’s drink and a pair of well-worn menus. I don’t bother reaching for one, since it hasn’t changed once during my lifetime. Hell, I’d wager a guess it hasn’t changed since Dolly’s grandmother opened the place in the fifties.

“Today’s specials are praline French toast and pecan pancakes. Highly recommend both, pecans are fresh. Hux dropped off a whole crate of rejects this mornin’.”

As if his name summoned him, Huxley Hayes walks up behind Dolly, swatting her backside, en route to the kitchen. Dolly rolls her eyes, then excuses herself, telling us she’ll be back in a minute.

“Are they a couple?” Bronwyn asks.

“Nope. Best friends. They were cast as Peter Pan and Wendy in the school play back in the third grade, and this being a small town everyone started talking about how cute they were and them growing up and getting married, and neither one took to that idea. So they vowed then and there to only ever be friends, sticking it to the rumor mill. Dolly’s engaged to a guy named Jeff who sells used cars over in Tifton.”

“Gotcha.”

“But he’s Hux⁠—”

“Hayes. I know,” she tells me. “Middle brother, oversees lumber and paper. I met all the Hayes brothers the other day at work. We had lunch.”

“And you can keep track of who is who and who does what already? That’s impressive.”

“I can,” she brags, a smug look taking over. Taking a long sip of her drink, she steadies herself, then continues. “I created a little device. Gus, the oldest, dark hair, beard, grumpy look on his face. G is for grumpy and Gus. Next in line is Milo, like the cat from that old movie, and he has the one curl that flops in his face, that a cat would want to play with. He runs Southern Brothers Brewing with his best friend, Brandt. Third is Anton—he looks the most like Willa, and A for agriculture. Huxley, his name has an X, like ax, and he’s the lumberjack-esque one.”

I huff out a laugh. Her descriptions so far are spot-on, and I’m more than impressed with how effortlessly she’s rattling this information off.

“Jace, rhymes with mace, so of course, personal safety. Then Ewan, as in “ew, camping, fishing, hunting,” all the things I have no interest in doing. And Willa the baby.”

I nod, my mind whirring. I’ve known the Hayes family my entire life, spent countless hours running around with all of them—hunting, fishing, drinking, shooting the shit—enjoyed many meals at their house, and handle all the landscaping for anything Hayes Industries related, and I still have to stop and think sometimes about who handles what. The fact that she has that all down within a week of arriving in Hickory Hills? Damn…

“Sharp, that’s your S word.”

Eyebrows flying up, Bronwyn recoils. “What?”

“We have one for each one of the girls. Kenzie’s sweet, Sylvie’s smart, Willa’s sassy. You round them out with sharp.”

“Isn’t that basically the same thing as smart?”

“No.”