By the subtle twitch of his eye, I knew he was working to keep the wounded look off his face.
“Hey, look. The writing on the door of that semi says O’Fallon, Missouri,” he said. “Like Taylor’s Falyn.”
“I think she spells her name differently.”
“Yeah …” He trailed off, unable to pretend any longer.
I flipped through my magazine a second time, pretending to read and intermittently staring out my window at the trees and wheat fields lining Route Thirty-Six. Shepley kept his hand in mine, squeezing every once in a while. I prayed that it wasn’t because he was weighing missing me against putting up with my shit.
When we passed Chillicothe, Missouri, I noticed an exit sign for Trenton. “Huh. Look at that. Should we play a game? Find all the members of the Maddox family? I think there’s a town called Cameron, north of Kansas City. I say that counts as Cami.”
“Sure. Can we count your name already?”
“Ha-ha,” I said.
Even though we were both desperate to lighten the mood, it was still awkward. I wasn’t part of the Maddox family yet, not really. It was possible I’d lost my chance.
When we reached the Kansas City bypass, the sky opened, filling the car with smells of rain, wet asphalt, and the sharp stench of turmoil. I’d hoped the hours in the car would force communication, talking about what we couldn’t say, but there I sat. The girl who took pride in her big mouth was too afraid to bring up anything uncomfortable.
Keep your mouth shut, Mare. He’ll never get over it if you prompt a proposal even if he wants to do it.
Maybe he doesn’t want to do it … anymore.
The constant rat-tat-tatting of rain on the Charger grew irritating. As we drove between storms, the windshield wipers would change from dragging along dry glass to furiously trying to keep up with the downpour. Shepley would offer small talk—about the rain, of course, and the upcoming school year—but he stuck to safe topics, careful not to skirt too close to the edge of anything serious.
“Topeka,” Shepley announced as if the sign weren’t right there in big, bold white letters.
“We’ve made good time. Let’s stop at a restaurant. I’m tired of gas station food.”
“Okay,” he agreed. “Check your phone for something on the route.”
“Gator’s Bar and Grill,” I said aloud. It was third down on the list, but it was rated only two-and-a-half stars. “One review says not to go there after dark. That’s interesting. You think there are vampires?”
Shepley chuckled, looking down at the clock above the radio. “It’s just after noon. I think we’ll be safe.”
“It’s three-point-two miles ahead,” I said. “Just off the turnpike.”
“Which one? Four Seventy turns into Interstate Thirty-Five.”
“Four Seventy.”
Shepley nodded, satisfied. “Gator’s it is.”
As promised, Gator’s was just off the turnpike, just over three miles away. Shepley picked a parking space and turned off the engine for the first time in almost four hours. I stepped onto the concrete parking lot, my bones and muscles feeling stiff.
Shepley stretched on his side of the car, bending down and then standing up, pulling his arms across his chest. “Sitting for that long can’t be good. I don’t know how people with a desk job do it.”
“You have a desk job,” I said with a smirk.
“Part-time. If it were forty or fifty hours a week, I’d go nuts.”
“So, you’re not going to stay at the bank?” I asked, surprised. “I thought you liked it there.”
“Wealth management is a good place to be, but you know I’m not going to stay there.”
“No. You haven’t mentioned it.”
“Yeah, I did. I … oh. That was Cami.”
“Cami?”
“The last time I went with Trenton to The Red. You know how much I talk when I’m drunk.”
“I’ve forgotten,” I said.
Shepley reached for my hand as we walked inside, but at least two feet of space and unspoken thoughts were between us.
I glanced around Gator’s, looking up at the tall ceiling. Multicolored Christmas lights hung from the exposed ventilation system, the booth seats had ratty holes torn in the upholstery, and the floor had at least ten years of grime soaked into every twisted tuft of the worn carpet. Stale grease invaded my senses, and the rusted tin wainscot and charcoal-gray paint were more unwelcoming than the intended industrial chic.
“The two-star rating is making sense,” I said, shivering from the air-conditioning.
We waited so long for a table that I almost asked Shepley if we could leave, but then a blue-haired waitress with a chip on her shoulder and more piercings than she had holes showed us to two empty seats at the bar.
“Why did she seat us here?” I asked. “There are empty tables. There are a lot of empty tables.”
“Not even the employees want to be here,” Shepley said.
“Maybe we should just go?”
He shook his head. “We’ll just grab a quick bite and get back on the road.”
I nodded, unsettled.
The bartender wiped off the spaces in front of us and asked for our drink order. Shepley asked for a bottled water, and I ordered a strawberry lemonade.
“Not a beer? Why did you sit at the bar then?” the bartender asked, perturbed.
“We were seated here. It wasn’t a request,” I snapped.
Shepley patted my knee. “I’m driving. You can pour her a Bud Light. Draft, please.”
The bartender placed menus in front of us and walked away.
“Why did you order a beer?”
“I don’t want him telling the cooks to spit in our food, Mare. You don’t have to drink it.”
Thunder cracked outside and shook the building, and then rain began to pelt the roof.
“We can wait for the storm to pass somewhere, but I don’t want it to be here,” I said.
“Okay. We’ll find somewhere else even if it’s the parking lot.” He patted my knee again and then squeezed.
“Hey,” a man said, passing behind us with a friend. He looked drunk already, shuffling to a seat at the end of the bar. His eyes poured over me like dirty water.
“Hey,” Shepley answered for me. He locked eyes with the drunk.
“Baby,” I said in warning.
“Just showing him I’m not intimidated,” Shepley said. “Hopefully, he’ll be less inclined to bother us.”
The bartender returned with my strawberry lemonade and Shepley’s bottled water. “You ready to order?”
“Yeah, we’ll both have the southwest chicken wrap.”
“Fries or onion rings?”
“Neither.”
The bartender took our menus, eyed us, and then left to put in the order.
“Where the fuck is he going?” the drunk said to his friend.
“Calm down, Rich. He’ll be back,” he said, chuckling.
I tried to ignore them. “So, you’re considering the sports scout route?”
Shepley shrugged. “It’s a dream job. I’m not sure how realistic a venture it is, but yes, that’s the plan. Coach Greer said I should apply for a graduate assistant coaching position. He said I’d have a good chance. I’ll start there.”
“But … you don’t play football.”