Everett and Teddy had very different childhoods. How did their backgrounds and families affect their confidence in their own abilities and their determination to follow their dreams?
How do Everett and Teddy change each other’s trajectories? What do you think the future holds for their relationship?
Keep reading for an excerpt from Kerry Winfrey’s next novel . . .
JUST ANOTHER LOVE SONG
Coming soon from Jove!
I’ve imagined running into Hank Tillman roughly one million times since we graduated from high school fifteen years ago. Maybe he’d see me walking my Great Dane, Toby, down Main Street, my hair blowing in the wind in a casual-yet-gorgeous way, and he’d be rendered speechless by my beauty. Maybe he’d see me at work and be impressed that Sandy Macintosh had grown into a competent, successful, but (most important) extremely sexy business owner. Or maybe he’d see me attempting to play basketball with my best friend Honey’s three kids, and he’d be mesmerized by my athletic prowess and ease with children (forget the fact that I can’t make a basket to save my own damn life, and that Honey’s six-year-old, Lydia, makes fun of me every time we play because she’s a bad sport).
But never, in any of my wild imaginings, did I picture our reunion happening in the soda aisle of Tillman’s Grocery, with me covered in dirt, my hair twisted into a messy, lopsided bun, as the Santana and Rob Thomas song “Smooth” played softly through the grocery store speakers.
“Hey, Sandy,” he says casually, as if we see each other every day, instead of our reality, which is that the last time I saw his face in person was right after I kissed him goodbye and he went off to college.
And what a face it was . . . and is. I allow my eyes a moment to roam over him, to take in the lines that weren’t there fifteen years ago, the crease of his forehead and the crinkles by his eyes. The way his nose is just the slightest bit crooked because he broke it at football practice freshman year, when he was the only freshman to make the varsity team. Those eyelashes that made me jealous, because they were longer than any boy’s really had to be and mine were always so short and stubby. I have the desire to reach my hand out and touch his face, to run my fingers over the topography there and see what’s changed.
His eyes dart over my face, like he’s doing the same thing, and I look away quickly. I’m covered in dirt because, well, I’ve been in the dirt all day, installing a new garden for a client. I ran to the store because my employee, Marcia, has a monstrous Diet Coke addiction and gets twitchy if I don’t keep the mini fridge at the greenhouse stocked.
I try not to wonder what he thinks of how I’ve changed over the past fifteen years. Because, after all, this is probably the first time he’s seen me. I use social media just like anyone else, but mostly to keep up with everyone who moved out of Baileyville, or to like the constant stream of kid photos that Honey posts. I keep my personal updates to generic sunrises, and my business account is nothing but pictures of gardens and flowers. My online presence is negligible, just the way I like it.
But I’ve had plenty of opportunities to see Hank, of course. Album covers. A recording of Austin City Limits on PBS. A magazine article here and there. Because Hank Tillman became what he always said he’d be: a musician.
I try not to look at that stuff, because I try not to live in the past, try not to think about all the things I said I’d be back then, back when we were seventeen and stupid and so, so in love.
“Hey, Hank,” I almost whisper, willing myself to look anywhere but at him. I glance at the root beer, the orange soda, but I look back at him as he sticks his hands in his pockets. My eyes dart to his arms sticking out below the rolled-up sleeves of his faded red flannel shirt. They’re tanned and rough, like he’s spent the entire summer, his entire life, outside.
I hate this, hate that he’s somehow become even more handsome and that I know all these details about him down in my bones, like they’re a part of me, like I’ll never be rid of him no matter how hard I try. He moved on, I remind myself. He left town and he left you and you did just fine for yourself, didn’t you? You own a business. You have a house. You have employees and a dog and a front porch and a very expensive espresso machine.
I know I should be an adult here, make polite conversation, ask him why he’s back in town . . . but every cell in my body is screaming, Get out of this store now! I attempt to walk past him, but my bare arm brushes against his bare arm and I gasp. It’s been so long since the last time I touched him, and it’s pathetic the way that grazing his arm brings me right back to being seventeen and in love, the radio playing in his truck, the windows open and the breeze warm as we drove the winding back roads of Baileyville.
The case of Diet Coke slips out of my hand and crashes onto my toes. “Shit,” I mutter as I bend down to pick it up.
“Are you okay?” Hank asks, reaching out to help, but I just nod quickly.
“I’m fine!” I say, pretending that it doesn’t feel like one of my toes is on fire. “I gotta go!”
I turn around, attempting to make my way to the cash register as quickly as I can. From now on I will not enable Marcia’s addiction; trying to be a good boss only injures my foot and makes me run into my first love.
“Sandy . . . ,” he says, and I turn around. Our eyes meet, and I see it all for just a moment, a flash of everything we went through when we were just kids. Passing notes in class. Promising everything. Kissing in his parents’ barn. Never dreaming that things would end up this way.
“It’s good to see you,” he finishes. I nod, not trusting myself to speak. Because what could I say? Well, it’s not good to see you, Hank, because I like to pretend you don’t exist.
Instead, I just hobble to the register.
* * *
—
MARCIA CLAPS WHEN I walk in the door, holding the box of Diet Coke aloft. “Thank you so much, and wait, are you limping?”
“I think I broke my toe when I dropped this case of poison liquid on my foot,” I say, handing it to her. “I’ll take over the register if you can go put this in the fridge.”
“My hero,” she says, hugging the box.
“You need help,” I tell her.
“And you need medical attention,” she says before heading to the break room.
I smile and roll my eyes, then lean over the counter and take a look around me. The interior of my greenhouse, Country Colors, isn’t huge—this room, with the register, is fully enclosed and full of garden tools, indoor plants, and lawn decorations. But the double doors open into the greenhouse proper, where we keep the plants. Not that we have many customers right now, because it’s July. Everything’s planted, and as the saying goes, the corn should already be knee-high. There’s still plenty of gardening to be done, of course, but people have their eyes on harvest, not putting new plants in the ground, so we’re in a bit of a slow period until things pick up for the pumpkins and mums in September.