Rough & Ready by Pratt Lulu

Author:Pratt, Lulu
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lulu Pratt
Published: 2019-02-02T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 19

Carter

HENRY AND I were wasting time at the dinner table, flicking sugar packets between silverware set up like goal posts.

The girls had been gone for ten minutes. Miss Keller had come by with some waters, and that was tiding us over, but it was starting to get just a touch weird. Had they slipped out, skipped town?

“Why isn’t Phoebe back?” Henry whined, pinching a ketchup packet between his fingers.

“She’s going to the bathroom.”

“Why do girls go to the bathroom together?” he asked.

So young, and already so observant. “I don’t rightly—”

Oh, hold on now. I absolutely knew. Girls went to the bathroom to gossip. Crap.

Well, no helping it now. I wasn’t worried that Phoebe had said anything about my history with Meghan. She seemed to grasp the gravity of that story, and though I knew her little, I doubted she’d toss it around without my permission. But she had full rights to discuss our afternoon escapade, and there wasn’t much I could do about that.

Just as I was beginning to wonder what, exactly, she was saying in regards to my performance, Phoebe and Jo-Beth returned to the table. Phoebe looked exhausted, while Jo-Beth seemed to be bursting with a renewed energy.

“Hello, Carter,” the blonde said, sliding into the booth across from Henry.

Those two words told me everything I needed to know — Phoebe had definitely spilled the beans.

Phoebe herself sunk into the booth after Jo-Beth, seating herself across from me. Had this been an intentional, pre-devised seating chart?

If so, it was working, because I couldn’t take my eyes off her.

“I love this restaurant,” Jo-Beth said brightly, commandeering the table talk.

Phoebe laughed at that, and I made eye contact with her. She was staring at me with both attraction and… something else. Reservation? It was unclear.

“Did you move out here to make art?” Jo-Beth asked me. “I mean, your house is so pretty, and the trailer. Seems like you’ve got the eye.”

Though I resented the question, I was relieved — obviously, Phoebe hadn’t told her anything. Furthermore, before I could get some stock lie out of my mouth, Phoebe intervened.

“I can’t imagine being so devoted to your art that you leave probably like a big city and move out here. That’s extreme.”

Phew. Not the best segue, but good enough. “Yeah,” I agreed. “It’s a lot of, well, not big personalities per se, but very set ones. Distinctive, rather.”

“Not me,” Miss Keller shouted from across the bar, which she was busy wiping with a dirty white rag. “I’m just minding my own business, tryna eke out this mortal coil.”

I leaned into our group and whispered, “I think that proves my point.”

Phoebe smiled. “She’s a character.”

“So,” Jo-Beth said, cutting off the conspiratorial grin passing between Phoebe and me. “What are we eating?”

“Yeah, gimme your orders,” Miss Keller said, still moving her hand around the same spot on the bar, like a broken automaton. “I wanna get ‘em in early so Charlie can go home and do his movement work.”

Charlie’s hand waved from beyond the divider, just visible in the mess of the order window.

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