“We were seated here. It wasn’t a request,” I snapped.

Shepley patted my knee. “I’m driving. You can pour her a Bud Light. Draft, please.”

The bartender placed menus in front of us and walked away.

“Why did you order a beer?”

“I don’t want him telling the cooks to spit in our food, Mare. You don’t have to drink it.”

Thunder cracked outside and shook the building, and then rain began to pelt the roof.

“We can wait for the storm to pass somewhere, but I don’t want it to be here,” I said.

“Okay. We’ll find somewhere else even if it’s the parking lot.” He patted my knee again and then squeezed.

“Hey,” a man said, passing behind us with a friend. He looked drunk already, shuffling to a seat at the end of the bar. His eyes poured over me like dirty water.

“Hey,” Shepley answered for me. He locked eyes with the drunk.

“Baby,” I said in warning.

“Just showing him I’m not intimidated,” Shepley said. “Hopefully, he’ll be less inclined to bother us.”

The bartender returned with my strawberry lemonade and Shepley’s bottled water. “You ready to order?”

“Yeah, we’ll both have the southwest chicken wrap.”

“Fries or onion rings?”

“Neither.”

The bartender took our menus, eyed us, and then left to put in the order.

“Where the fuck is he going?” the drunk said to his friend.

“Calm down, Rich. He’ll be back,” he said, chuckling.

I tried to ignore them. “So, you’re considering the sports scout route?”

Shepley shrugged. “It’s a dream job. I’m not sure how realistic a venture it is, but yes, that’s the plan. Coach Greer said I should apply for a graduate assistant coaching position. He said I’d have a good chance. I’ll start there.”

“But … you don’t play football.”

Shepley shifted in his seat. “I did.”

“You … did? When?”

“Never college. I started all four years of high school. Believe it or not, I was pretty good.”

“What happened? And why haven’t you told me this before?”

Shepley pushed out his water as he leaned further up on the bar. “It’s stupid, I guess. It was the one thing I was better at than all my cousins.”

“But Travis doesn’t talk about it. Your parents don’t talk about it. If you started as a freshman, you must have been better than good. I haven’t even seen any pictures at your house that might insinuate you were in sports.”

“I blew three of four major ligaments in my knee during the last game before the play-offs my senior year. I worked hard to come back, but when I began training for Eastern, the knee didn’t feel the same. It still hadn’t healed, so I was a redshirt freshman. I wasn’t sure how long the coaches would wait, but I knew that even if they gave me the year, I would be done.” He sat up straight. “So, I bowed out.”

“That explains why you always say a different reason for the scars. I thought you were just embarrassed.”