Not Quite Alive by Lyla Payne

Author:Lyla Payne [Payne, Lyla]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Author Published
Published: 2016-10-10T21:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

Travis wanted to meet at the diner instead of the coffee shop, which I agreed to without a second thought. Westies is where the old women hang out in the morning, and they would definitely be turning up their hearing aids to try and listen to our conversation. The old men of Heron Creek prefer the diner. Their hearing is even worse than their wives’, but they’re marginally less interested in other people’s business. At least, I’ve always assumed that was the case, but considering how quickly word got around about my lunch with Clete, maybe it doesn’t make much of a difference.

Oh, well. We’ll keep our voices down so we can keep them guessing. I’m not sure whether it’s public knowledge yet that Heron Creek’s newest resident and I are related, but in this town, it’s safest to assume that everyone has heard some version of the truth. They’ll most likely guess that he belonged to my mother, not Frank. After all, Felicia got knocked up with one illegitimate child; it’s not a stretch to think there could have been a second.

Travis is waiting for me in the same back booth where Clete and I sat last week. I suppose he chose it because it’s in the back, but that also means it’s next to a windowsill that hasn’t seen the broad side of a washrag for the better part of a year. Or so I assume from the dust and dead bugs gathered across it. Most of the old men choose the square, formica tables so they have somewhere to lean their canes. The nearest occupied seats are a good ten feet away, which definitely works in our favor.

“Morning,” I tell him as I slide in, the rips in the vinyl snagging on my yoga pants. I didn’t see any reason to get dressed in real clothes, seeing as it’s my day off. And it’s just Travis on the other side of the booth, not Zac Efron.

“Morning,” he replies, sipping from his steaming mug of coffee.

Thankfully, there’s already one waiting in front of my place setting, too. I doctor it with a half a creamer and a bit of sugar before wrapping my chilly fingers around the porcelain and inhaling a deep breath. “Thanks.”

“Welcome.” He shifts in his seat, eyes darting around the restaurant in a way that reminds me vaguely of Lucy’s ghost, though less intense. “I waited for you to order.”

“Because you don’t know what I want?”

“You want pancakes,” he says with a wry smile.

It irritates me beyond belief that even this newcomer to my life has picked up on my favorite things. I’ve gotten boring.

My lips pull down into a frown. “Maybe I’ll get French toast.”

I tell myself it’s not Travis’s fault that I’m predictable, but hear the defensiveness in my response all the same.

He smiles, which does nothing to help the situation. “Sure.”

Travis’s gray gaze shifts from my face to over my shoulder, and the waitress appears a moment later. She’s the same

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