Sloane nodded in agreement, did a really wild laugh that was a good 70 percent nerves, and took the glass back up to the house. The lawn mower started back up, and Sloane allowed herself one last peek at the shirtless bartender.

She didn’t think Ms. Peggy counted as an audience, but she surely wasn’t about to tell him that.

Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

The long southern goodbye was a torturous, unnecessary ritual that sucked the soul from your body before spitting it out in the heat to bake. A routine involving small talk, gossip, and politeness. A ritual of pain and suffering.

Brady was there now. Frustrated, hot, and a sighing-grunting zombie of a man, going through the motions of trying to leave.

But he couldn’t.

He was stuck in a loop. An old loop constructed from tradition and did you hear abouts. Might as well have been a steel cable coated in concrete.

Unbreakable.

Though Brady had still tried.

After putting the lawn mower back into the shed, he’d slipped into his shirt and loaded the several plastic bins Sloane had picked out into the truck. He’d been ready to go right then, but Sloane was still in the house, and he doubted she’d let him get away with fleeing the scene. So he’d gone back into the house to give Ms. Peggy-Stares-A-Lot a nod.

That nod hadn’t done jack squat.

Instead, he’d been an unwilling participant in the nearly-hour-long dance of trying to leave.

In the house, Ms. Peggy wondered if Sloane had heard about some woman named Deirdre and her recent divorce. Sloane hadn’t, so she’d, for whatever godforsaken reason, needed to learn, and Ms. Peggy had been more than happy to educate her. On the front porch, Sloane had made a comment about her brother, which had, in turn, had them devolve into talk about his ex-girlfriend, some kid named Justus, and an unfortunate haircut. On the sidewalk—no joke, two feet from the truck—Ms. Peggy had commented on the heat. That seemingly harmless complaint had thrown them all down a rabbit hole, where they fell past the seasonal topic of the festival, a mention of Sloane’s parents (who had been in the pageant), a longer mention of Carol, and then to the parade. And then, when escape was finally in sight, Ms. Peggy had actually gotten Sloane to roll down her window seconds before Brady had been ready to hit the gas.

“You know, building a parade float is a lot of work, but I have an idea on how you could be lazy about it and still look good. Either of you know Roger Norman? He should be around your age.”

Sloane’s nod was immediate. “I went to school with him. He’s a good guy. Quiet but nice. Married…Zelda Keller, right?”