I close the cupboard and decide to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich instead. I grab two plates, knowing Ben could probably wolf down food at any time of day, before opening the bread. He takes a seat at the table and watches me for a long tense bout of silence before he finally speaks again.

  “And now she’s not doing well?” When I look shocked that he would know that, he explains, “I heard you talking about it at the diner the other morning.”

  I hum. “Yeah. Well then you’re caught up.”

  “Is that why you’re here?”

  “Here?”

  “In Pine Hill. You said you lived in Los Angeles at one point, so why’d you come back?”

  I shoot him a teasing smile. “Not just anyone can serve up bacon and eggs at Dale’s, Ben. I mean, do you know how finicky that coffee machine can be?”

  “Right. So…”

  My joke doesn’t deter him, so I try a different tactic.

  “If I told you then I’d have to…” I mime slicing my throat.

  He’s not amused. He just sits and looks at me, waiting. His brown eyes are filled with curiosity like he’s trying to probe the depths of my mind.

  “Sheesh. Relax. It’s really not all that serious. And you already guessed it, pretty much. I’m here for my grandma.”

  I finish making the sandwiches and carry them to the table, taking the seat across from him. It’s cramped quarters, and if I kept my legs dangling, we’d be all tangled together soon enough, our knees banging together, so I tuck my legs up crisscross style and pick up my sandwich, about to take a bite when I realize Ben’s still just looking at me, not touching his food.

  “Would you cut it out?”

  He leans back and throws one arm over the back of the low bench seat. “I’m just annoyed that you can’t seem to carry on a conversation with me.”

  “Maybe I’m a private person. Maybe you should stop sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”

  After a long moment, he looks down and picks up his sandwich, seemingly content to let me have a moment of peace.

  Like a well-planned dose of reverse psychology, his resignation finally convinces me to open up a smidge.

  With a frustrated groan, I plop my sandwich back down on my plate and drum my pointer finger on the table nervously. “Even before I left for college, I knew something was wrong with Nan. She’d started forgetting things, repeating the same things every now and then, but I chalked it up to her age. If she knew her diagnosis then, she didn’t let on.

  “I think now, there were more signs that I just didn’t want to see. Y’know? I was a senior in high school and I wanted out.”

  “Anybody would.”

  His words aren’t the balm I wish they were.

  I study my sandwich as I keep talking.

  “I was about to finish the fall semester of my senior year in college a couple months back when I got a call from Sheriff Corbin telling me my nan had taken a turn for the worse. I mean…it could have been a lot worse. She’d accidentally set fire to her house.” I shake my head at the bad memory. “Left a towel on the stove. Anyway, she’s fine. Sheriff Corbin and the guys were able to get her out before…”

  He leans forward, and I think he’s about to drop his hand on top of mine, to give me comfort, but I pull it away before he can, fisting my hands on my lap.

  “The house”—my childhood home—“was ruined, and it’s fine because she needed to be in a facility anyway.” My words are tumbling out of me quick as lightning now. “I left college to help take care of her, so there you have it. That’s why I’m here in Pine Hill.”

  There’s a beat of silence before he utters a quiet apology.

  “I’m sorry.”

  God, why do comforting words from a near stranger have the ability to unravel my steady facade? I’ve had all this anger burning inside me for the last few years, and there’s no one to take it out on, no one to hold accountable. I can’t sit down at this table with fate and demand answers, but Ben’s here, and his comforting words draw tears to the corners of my eyes. I try my damnedest to keep them right there though.

  I sniff and look away.

  Ben gives me relative privacy to gather myself by picking up his sandwich and taking a huge bite. He groans like it’s remarkably delicious.

  “Now this is a world-class peanut butter and jelly. Wow, where’d you learn to cook like this?”

  A relieved laugh bursts out of me, and I shake my head to let him know he’s being absolutely ridiculous. But he’s helping. I turn back, pick up my own sandwich, and take a bite, feeling the tension start to ease from my stomach.

  He takes another bite and feigns utter ecstasy as his eyes roll back in his head.

  “Where’d this bread come from? Some French bakery?”

  I grin. “It’s just your standard white bread from Piggly Wiggly.”

  He chokes on his bite. “That cannot be the name of a real place.”

  “Piggly Wiggly? It sure is. No Trader Joe’s in Pine Hill.”

  “What kind of food can you get there?”

  While we eat the rest of our sandwiches, I regale him with stories about all Piggly Wiggly has to offer: live crawfish by the pound in late spring, cans of soda for less than a dollar, the best local jams and pickles and honey you can find.

  He eats every lick of the PB&J I made him and cleans his own plate in the tiny sink, looking back at me after he dries it so I can tell him where it goes.

  “Just up there on that shelf,” I say, pointing to the right of his head.

  He lays it down carefully and then turns.

  Standing in the middle of the trailer like that—tall and formidable—it’s funny to see how much space he takes up. I think he could easily stretch his arms out and touch both walls if he wanted to. I’d forgotten, momentarily, what a strange thing it is to have him in here with me. I’m always alone here at night.

  The song of the cicadas and crickets pours in to fill the quiet as I finish my sandwich and stand to clean my plate. Ben’s still hovering by the sink, and he doesn’t budge when I come over.

  He turns and props his hip against the counter, and I stare up at him with a quizzical brow.

  When he doesn’t look away, I scrunch my nose. “What?”

  “You’ve got peanut butter on your cheek.”

  I swipe at it with my hand, and his devilish grin spreads wider.

  Clearly, I didn’t get it.

  The paper towel roll is mounted under the cabinet behind him, so I lean forward and yank off a sheet. My shoulder brushes his arm in the process, and that little bit of contact is too much. Alarm bells ring in my head. Every hair on my body seems to stand on end in warning. Tread lightly. This is not a man to trifle with. Ben is…a black hole. And I’d do well to remember that.

  I wipe my cheek, and then wipe it again for good measure. Ben nods, takes the paper towel from my hand, bunches it up, and shoots it through the air like a basketball. As expected, it sails straight into the itty-bitty trash can sitting at the end of the counter.

  “Showoff,” I tease, trying to play off the moment as I take a step back and cross my arms over my chest. It’s a defensive pose and I know that, but we’re in uncharted territory and I’m uncomfortable with all the possibilities that lie before us.

  He said he wanted to see me home safely, and he has.

  I made him a sandwich and he ate it up.

  It’s time for him to leave.

  Leave or…

  He takes a step toward me. I step back. His dark lashes cluster together as he narrows his eyes, looking down at me with a question in his gaze.

  Another step forward and another step back.

  There’s no way around it. Evolution has programmed my brain to be wary of predators his size. He’s more bear than man. What do they feed these NBA players, anyway? Straight protein with an extra dose of steroids?

  Unfortunately, my retreat has only piqued his interest. I would have been better off playing dead.

  There’s a spark in his brown eyes that should make me leery of what’s about to happen, but instead of cowering, I step forward and meet him head on.

  “You’re not going to kiss me, are you?” I blurt out suddenly, holding my hands up to his chest to block him.

  His smile unfurls in slow motion, stopping my heart in its tracks.

  “I was thinking about it.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Ben

  Raelynn’s small hand sits square in the center of my chest in an effort to fend me off, and I comply. I stay right where I am as my heart drums against her hand, a dead giveaway for how I feel about her, but I don’t think she notices.

  Her full lips tilt down in a fragile frown. Her blue eyes are wide, fringed with dark blonde lashes that catch the shallow light inside the trailer. I can count her freckles from this angle. Touch every single one.

  “Ben—”

  She’s breathless.

  I’m in a trance as I look down at her. Two more steps and I’d have her pinned against the edge of her table. My hands could wrap around her waist and I’d lift her so damn easily. The only thing that stops me, the thing that pulls me out of my own head, is that helpless expression she’s wearing, a combination of fear and anxiety.

  I suck in a breath and shutter my want, trying to tease her and lighten the mood.

  “So kissing is off the table?”

  My joke doesn’t calm her worries. She looks deathly serious when she replies, “Absolutely.”

  “Then stop looking at my mouth.”

  Her eyes jerk up to meet mine. “I wasn’t!”

  I laugh and attempt to move past her, but her flimsy hand keeps me pinned right where I am. She levels me with a shrewd stare I’m sure she hopes will make me quiver; it doesn’t.

  “What’s your game, anyway?” she asks with an interrogative tone. Her hand starts pushing against me, but I don’t move. I take that pressure and feed off it. “What are you playing at? You and your teammates make some kind of bet to see who can bag a townie?”

  I hold her gaze and reply honestly. “No.”

  “Is this a diversion for you then? Some kind of midlife crisis?”

  I scratch the back of my neck, fighting against an amused smile. “How old do you think I am?”

  Her fingers fist my shirt in desperation. “Spit it out then! What are you doing with me?!”

  Her question stops me dead in my tracks.

  What am I doing with her? What the hell am I doing here? In her trailer?

  Truthfully, I haven’t thought that far ahead with Raelynn. For so long, everything in my life has been so damn complicated. Except for her. When I’m with her I feel like a teenager again—back before the scouts started noticing me, back when basketball wasn’t my whole damn life. I chased girls. I fell for them and they wanted me right back. It was easy, fun, nothing like the last few years.

  How do I say that though?

  How do I look at this woman I still barely know and say, I like the way you make me feel. I like your presence in a room. You draw me in and I don’t have a fighting chance of staying away from you.

  She narrows her eyes, and I know if I stay in this trailer with her for one second longer, I’m going to lose the battle against the devil on my shoulder. It’s time for me to leave. I shouldn’t drag her into my mess.

  I step away and her hand drops from my chest, hanging limp at her side.

  “Thank you for the sandwich,” I say, ducking my head.

  We touch, shoulders and hips grazing as I dip past her to get to the door of the trailer, and my body lights up like I’ve been plugged into a socket.

  Fuck.

  I slam her trailer door open, and when I make it outside, it feels like I’m resurfacing from a suffocating depth. I can’t get enough air. I look back and Raelynn’s standing in the door of the trailer, her eyebrows furrowed, her blue eyes carrying all her secrets. She just told me kissing was off the table, and now she looks pissed at me for listening to her. I get it, Little Bird. I want to kiss you as badly as you want to be kissed.

  I keep my focus straight ahead as I get into Leanna’s car and start to drive away. It’s dark and quiet out on the road. I don’t fiddle with the radio. I keep my hands at ten and two as I debate whether I did the right thing. I hate that I left her. A bigger part of me hates that I went to her home in the first place, but it’s too late to backtrack. The writing’s on the wall: Raelynn and I will collide. There’s no way around it.

  Once, midway back to Coach Dalton’s property, I flip on my blinker, turn off on the side of the road, and prepare to U-turn back to Raelynn’s trailer before I curse myself and continue on my way.

  I have no choice but to not visit her at the diner in the morning. I’d forgotten—what with everything else going on—but I have to fly out to New York for my meeting with Nike and my Olympic promo shoot.

  There’s a helicopter waiting for me at the compound at 5:15 AM. It takes me to a small private airport in Austin, and from there, I take a plane to New York City alongside my manager, assistant, and PR rep.

  “You look tired. Have you been training too much?” my manager asks once we’re in the clouds.

  I shake my head, trying to fend off his concern. “I’m fine. Training’s fine.”

  “Right, well we need your million-dollar smile today. You’ll need to turn it on for the cameras.”

  I level him with a stare that’s dripping with so much disdain I’m surprised he doesn’t piss his pants. He’s talking to me as if I don’t already know that. As if I haven’t shot a thousand of these commercials before.

  He gets the hint and backs off, returning to his laptop and leaving me in peace.

  I stare out the window of the small jet, wondering how early Raelynn has to get to Dale’s to get ready for the breakfast rush. She’s always going a mile a minute by the time I arrive. She needs more help. Another coworker to help her out.

  “You look like something’s troubling you.”

  I turn to see my assistant wearing a tentative smile.

  I shake my head. “It’s nothing.”

  “I know it’s a pain, but would you mind—”

  She holds out her laptop for me to take, and I don’t hesitate. I can’t keep biting heads off just because I’m in a foul mood. My assistant walks me through the deck of slides Nike sent over for us to review before the meeting later. I spend the rest of the flight familiarizing myself with the final designs of the sneakers as well as the campaign options they’ve suggested, and I’m glad for the distraction.

  Once we touch down in New York, a driver whisks me straight to the studio for the Olympic promo shoot. The two other athletes, the gymnast and the soccer player, have already arrived and are sitting side by side getting their hair done when I walk in. I wave and make a point to stop and chat with them for a few minutes so we’re all comfortable enough with each other to ham it up in front of the cameras. I’m grateful that their personalities will carry the team considering this kind of stuff makes my skin crawl.

  Brie’s a tiny gymnast, and the representatives for the Olympic committee obviously get a kick out of setting us side by side for candid shots. For an hour straight, we pose and joke around. I spin a basketball over her head and whisk it away before she can get it. I stand aside and watch—genuinely awestruck—when she pulls off some kind of standing flip while the cameras roll. The shoot team eats it all up.

  The next hour, they do close-ups of the three of us grouped together while we wear our Olympic gear and hold up the gold medals we won back in the Rio games. They tell us they plan on putting the images on billboards across America, and Andie and Brie seem genuinely excited about it. I just want to get back to Pine Hill.

  On the way home on the plane, I scroll through my private Instagram feed and pause when I find a photo Leanna posted a few days ago. She and Raelynn are sitting side by side on the couch in Leanna and Trey’s cabin, and Raelynn is holding up a bottle of nail polish and giving the camera a cheesy smile. Without thinking, I screenshot the photo and crop it down so only Raelynn is in it. I save it to my camera roll on my phone then check to make sure it’s there. Bright-eyed and carefree—she’s the embodiment of sunshine.

  The photo isn’t enough.

  I open my phone’s browser and type her name into Google. The first results don’t come back fruitful. It’s a unique name, but I still need to narrow it down. I type in “Raelynn Birdie Texas” and still, nothing comes up that seems related. Then I switch to “Raelynn Birdie California” and an article pops up at the very top of the search results.

  Caltech Students Named Goldwater Scholars

  I skim the body of the article that mentions the three Caltech undergraduates who were named Goldwater Scholars last year for excellence in STEM fields. On the right of the short article, there are photos of the three recipients, Raelynn beaming among them.

  Beside her photo, there’s a short paragraph describing her accomplishments at Caltech.

  Raelynn Birdie, a junior studying engineering and computer science, just completed her first year working in the lab of Melissa Olmsted, Caltech professor of computer science. Birdie is interested in designing systems that integrate algorithm and sensor design to better observe phenomena previously impossible to measure with traditional methods. Birdie plans to maintain her position in Professor Olmsted’s lab through the remainder of her time at Caltech as they work in collaboration with the Event Horizon Telescope to capture images of black holes and analyze them to learn more about general relativity in the strong-field regime.

  My eyebrows are in my hair.

  What the hell did I just read?

  General relativity? Black holes?

  What in the world is Raelynn doing at Dale’s Diner?

  Chapter Twelve

  Raelynn

  I’m chugging along on a conveyor belt I can’t escape from. What little money does come in goes right back out. I wake up early on my day off from Dale’s and count the cash in tips I received the day before, playing the game where I triage pressing life matters: do I want to fill Nan’s car with gas or take it in for the oil change that was due six months ago, do I want to buy more prepaid minutes for my cell phone or get some groceries. I settle on putting half the cash toward gas (that’ll last me a few measly days) and spend the rest on the oil change. The guys at the mechanic shop try to sell me other services, crap I’m sure the car truly needs, but until it actually sputters and dies on me mid-drive, I’ll take my chances.