“Oh, that kind of friend. Why would your friend have you meet him in Houston when New York’s only an hour away?”

“Well, he’s not exactly meeting me there.”

“So, why are you going to Houston to meet somebody who’s not exactly meeting you?”

“It’s a long story,” I said, shrugging my shoulders, hoping he’d drop it.

“Montana, what are you up to now?”

William knew me sometimes better than I knew myself. For years he’s seen my plans range from the incredible to the unbelievable. He was fishing.

“Montana, what’s going on?” Now he was cutting his eyes, shooting a glance.

“Nothing is going on.”

When he was fishing, he usually stayed quiet for a few minutes, knowing that it was only a matter of time before I offered whatever information he requested.

“I’m meeting my husband in Houston, okay? At least one of them. Then I’m moving on to Detroit, Atlanta, Los Angeles, and D.C.,” I said, sounding ridiculous even to myself.

“You have husbands in all of those cities?”

“Potential ones, yes.”

“Montana, this wouldn’t have anything to do with your little sister’s engagement party, would it?”

“How do you know about the party?”

“Montana, if your mom knows, the whole world knows.”

“Well, no, this doesn’t have anything to do with Sheree.”

“Montana…”

“It doesn’t!”

“Montana…” Raising the pitch of his voice and the height of his eyebrows.

“Okay, so what if it does? Is there anything wrong with me wanting to show up to my baby sister’s engagement party with an engagement announcement of my own? If I don’t, I’ll be the last Moore family female past puberty that hasn’t been married at least once.”

“Montana, there’s no magic to getting married. The magic is in staying married. Most couples plan for the wedding and never think about the marriage. Take my mother and father, for example. They stayed married for almost fifty years before he passed away. He worked the same business, drove the same van, and stayed in love with the same woman. Every night at six o’clock, there was an oven-cooked meal sitting on the table.”

“The same one?”

William cut his eyes while he continued driving.

“No, I know. I get it. But William, everybody isn’t like your family, certainly not my family, that’s for sure. Some of us don’t have the luxury of having our food or our relationships oven-baked.”

“Yeah, then you can’t complain when it doesn’t taste as good or stay heated as long,” he responded.

“Yeah, but if you ask someone who’s starving, I guarantee you they won’t mind if it’s a little bland or a little cold, as long as it’s filling.”

“Maybe. But there’s a big difference between filling and fulfilling.”