Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 100550 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 503(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100550 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 503(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
“Such a dish,” I groaned. “A hotttt dish.”
I may have been a little too enthusiastic with my support because she flared her nostrils at me. “Simmer down, horndog,” she muttered. “Besides, you wouldn’t like him. He’s…”
Sexy? Sweet? Possibly dating a straight dude?
“Mercurial.”
We locked eyes at her unexpected word choice and immediately burst into laughter. “Say what now?” I asked.
Her eyes were shining, and her cheeks were pink. She looked more relaxed than she’d been all night. “Isn’t that the word for constantly changing? Kind of like fickle?”
I nodded. “He seemed steady to me. What do you mean?”
She looked up at the dusty tree house rafters. Thankfully, the cool night air was blowing through the space through open windows on opposite ends. One faced the house, and one faced the acres and acres of grazing land Ava’s family owned.
“He’s the kind of guy who always fits in with whoever he’s with. At an honor society meeting? He’s teacher’s pet and super smart. At a pep rally for the football season opener? He’s a dumb jock. At church with his family on Sunday? He’s passing the collection plate with polite murmurs of peace be with you.”
I shot her a look. “God, you’re right. The man sounds like a total dick.”
She glared at me. “That’s not what I said. He’s just… it’s hard to figure out who he is since he’s constantly changing to be whoever people expect him to be. He’s like a well-intentioned faker. I used to think it was a good thing, because he made friends wherever he went. Now, I don’t think it’s possible to trust a person who isn’t one thing or the other.” She sighed. “Maybe I’m not making any sense.”
I thought back to the man I’d watched tonight at the barbecue. He’d done everything asked of him and had catered to every guest the way he’d obviously been taught by his parents. They’d looked at him with such pride. From the outside, it looked like he was exactly the man Ava had always described: Mr. Perfect. But then… then I’d remembered the snarky guy interpreting cow art with me and the awkward goofball who’d asked me if I’d ever seen a real live cow. He’d seemed his real self for those few minutes in his family’s darkened hallway, especially the split second of insecurity when it seemed like he was going to offer to show me around.
But the minute he’d heard Ava’s voice, his big, broad-shouldered frame had seemed to shrink in on itself, and his polite “perfect host” mask had reappeared. He was Mr. Licking Thicket again, the town’s Best In Show and pride of the Johnson clan.
“Ava, have you ever thought that maybe… maybe the Brooks you knew was simply a teenager who was trying to figure out who he was? That he was trying on different parts of his persona to see which one fit best? You were eighteen for God’s sake. He probably didn’t even know who he was at the time.”
“Maybe so. But the night we were crowned Mr. and Ms. Licking Thicket, I thought he was going to give me his class ring as a promise. Everyone had said so. Megan Dayton had heard from Enji Ishida who’d overheard Brooks’s sister Gracie talking at the food trucks the night before about how Brooks was going to give me a ring at the dance.”
“And he didn’t.” Honestly, hearing this story was a little bit like watching Groundhog’s Day for the fiftieth time. I just had to grin and bear it even though I’d rather scratch my eyeballs out. But there was a tiny part of me a smidge more interested in hearing the details now that I’d actually met the villain of the tale in person.
“No. He gave me a trophy he’d won to remember him by. A little plaque that had his name on it.” She yanked her feet off my lap and stood to root around in my bags, presumably for more snacks. “And a fucking cow horn attached. As if I needed any more cow merchandise for fuck’s sake.”
“Okay, I wasn’t going to say anything, but the cattle themes around here are a bit too—”
“And did it have a key on it or a special meaning?” she asked, interrupting with her usual rhetorical question. I’d learned years ago not to interfere with the natural pace of the retelling. “No. Nothing. He just thought I’d like a little something to remember him by. And then he said he was sorry he’d led me on, and he was going to Columbia instead of UT, and he wished me all the best, but he was gay.”
I mouthed the next words along with her. “Onstage. Right when the curtain opened and the mic went live for us to accept our crowns.”
She wandered over to the little window facing the fields. “The words I’m gay reverberated around that barn like a shotgun had gone off. The whole fucking town heard it. Everyone gasped. Little old ladies fainted. Children cried. It was a whole scene, Mal.”