Lucky Number Eleven

Chapter 23

Layla

"Hi, Layla!" Ruby, the little old lady that works in Linton's miniscule library waves at me from the top step. "How have you been?"

"Good, thank you. How about you?"

She rambles on about her arthritis and the turnout for the preschool arts and crafts program and how it's been low and she wants to turn it around. She goes on and on. I try to nod as best I can and seem interested and not like I'm listening to Branch standing behind me whispering that she looks like the old lady from some cartoon he used to watch as a child.

"I'm glad to hear it," I say when I can find a moment to cut in. "We need to get going, Ruby. Take care."

"You too. Good to see ya." And with a wave, she disappears inside the library.

Branch and I turn the corner and start up Main Street. On each corner is a big pot fashioned to look like a basket filled with flowers. There's a little plaque on the front of each one with the name of the citizen that volunteers their time maintaining that particular arrangement.

American flags hang off the streetlights, fluttering in the warm afternoon sun over the street. Mix in the smells of Carlson's Bakery and the sounds of the children two streets over at the town pool and it's the perfect summer day.

"What's that smell?" Branch asks, wrinkling his nose. "It smells like heaven."

"That's the coffee cake at Carlson's. They use butterscotch pudding in the cake and it's seriously divine."

"Want to get some?"

"I just had a hot ham and cheese sandwich, a pickle spear, and a side of home fries. Do you think I need coffee cake?"

He considers this as we walk along. "Will it make you happy?"

"Yeah, but I don't need it."

"My job isn't to decide what you need. It's to make you happy."

Blushing, I kick a pebble and watch it roll into the gutter. "I think I said it's for you to be nice."

"Doesn't me being nice make you happy?" he asks.

"Yes. Mostly. But it also makes it harder," I admit, looking at him out of the corner of my eye. "Could you be likeable yet irritating? Can you find that balance?"

He laughs, leading me to Beecher Street. It's a little side street that houses a few businesses and lots of little homes built in the early nineteen hundreds. The houses have hanging ferns dangling from porches and yapping dogs in the yards. It's adorable.

Beecher Street rises as we reach the middle and sitting on top of the crest is a railroad track. On the other side is the only doctor's office in town, the post office, and Crave.

As we near the bar, Branch shoves his hands in his pockets. "I want to tell you something."

"Okay."

"I guess it's half tell you, half ask you."

"Okay," I laugh.

"When you left the cabin that weekend," he starts slowly, "you saw something online about me, didn't you?"

The image of him with that girl on his lap, one I'd mostly forgotten since the appointment with Bai, pops in my brain. My stomach churns.

"I thought so," he mumbles.

"It doesn't matter," I point out. "You and I were nothing then. We're nothing now," I add for good measure.

"Then why did you leave?"