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I think that’s what made us so good at what we do.

We both kind of get it.

“You want to take it back to Jamie?” he asks.

I clear my throat, struggling to know what to say. It’s rare Jamie talks about these things. He’s a head down, get his work done and leave the personal issues at home kind of guy. When hard things come up, he deals with them, and then he moves on.

I hate it. I know he hurts a bit too, and it hasn’t done us any favors when it comes to dealing with everything we’ve been through.

“I can, yeah,” I say.

He pushes it toward me and heads to the back of the storage unit. I step in, and my eyes adjust a bit. Bill is against the back wall, tugging something closer. I blink, and a guitar in a dusty brown leather case swims in my vision. Right away, I know it was Scott’s.

My body goes still. My chest compresses.

At first, I think I’m feeling fear, and then I realize it’s a mix of that and excitement.

“You want to play a song, cowboy?” Bill grunts as he pulls the guitar down and makes his way back over, shoving it onto the table.

I gaze down at the guitar. All I can think about is the way Jamie looked at me when he told me it was time for a break. How the diner smelled, like burnt coffee and familiarity. How I felt like sheer emptiness in my chest.

“You good?” Bill asks.

I shake my head, blinking. “I’m good, but I’m gonna have to decline, Bill. I’m supposed to be on break.”

He looks at my face, and there must be something there I should be better at concealing, because he backs off right away. Instead, he slaps his hand on the case, and a puff of dust filters through the air.

“That’s alright,” he says. “I’ll leave this here, and when Jamie comes out to get you at the end of the summer, he can check it out. But let’s take the box of things with us.”

I try to respond, but nothing comes up. I’m as bone dry as the bed of a creek in the dead heat of August. Deep in the back of my brain, I squirrel that little line away. The dead heat of August…I can use that.

A tingle moves through my chest.

I haven’t hit on a good line in a long time. Maybe I'm already starting to bounce back.

In the truck, I put the box in the back seat while Bill pulls a few other things from the unit. Then, I lock it up while he gets into the truck, and I slide behind the wheel. When I turn on the engine, it connects to my phone. Hank Williams starts playing—Hey, Good Looking—and Bill taps the dashboard with the handle of his cane.

“Good one,” he says.

I swing out onto the road and turn back the way we came. This song used to be one of my go-tos back in the day. If I’d had the courage to play for Bill today, I just might have picked it.

“Yeah,” I say. “Good one.”

CHAPTER NINE

SABRINA

We get a little heat wave. Probably nothing compared to what Coen’s used to, having lived in the south, but for us, it’s a scorcher. I put on my shorts, plus a cropped shirt I used to wear to the rodeos when I was younger, when I liked to think I was flirting with the cowboys. My trusty boots go on my feet. Maybe I spend more time than I should putting up my hair so my ponytail swishes the way I like and my bangs fall just so. It’s hard, even though I’m supposed to be pretending that night with Coen was a one-off, because he’s still right there. He’s still handsome, and now I know what he looks like underneath all that. It’s hard not to wish he’d look at me, and it’s making me pick things from my closet I haven’t looked at in years.

He makes all the responsibility seem…less.

I don’t know why. He’s a serious man.

I turn in a circle, unsure if my shorts are maybe a little too revealing. The problem is…I want him to look.

“Sabrina!”

Jumping, I tear away from the mirror and head down the hall, past Dad’s open door and empty room to the kitchen. He’s been sleeping in the office the last two nights, the window unit running full blast. Serena is rummaging through the fridge, piling things on the counter.