He rushed them through checkout, even letting Andra pay for a small portion of the groceries because he didn’t dare argue with her and give the grocery checker a reason to claim domestic disturbance.

Once the groceries and Andra were safely loaded into his truck, he blew out a long breath. “I’m sorry about that.” He forced a chuckle. “I think I might be the first black guy this county has seen outside a TV screen. I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

She tucked her hands between her knees, pressing her palms together and staring out the side window. “They weren’t looking at you, LJ.”

His shoulders hunched tighter, because white people always rushed to make excuses. As if racism wasn’t a thing anymore, because in their world, it wasn’t. So they gave everybody else the benefit of the doubt, like they didn’t even realize that meant they were doing the opposite to you.

“Yeah, Andra. They were.” It came out harsher than he’d meant it to, so he swallowed and said, “It’s fine. I knew when I moved to Montana that I was in for some wide eyes.”

It was even worse back home, though. The store manager still tracked him from aisle to aisle even though he’d never stolen in his life. The Lower Ninth hadn’t had its own grocery store since Hurricane Katrina. Everybody knew exactly where he came from as soon as he unfolded his little wheeled cart, and they always expected him to lift a few items to make up for the bus fare on the three different route changes he had to wait through to get to the nearest store. Only in the middle of winter was it cold enough he could make it home before the milk started to turn.

It was the stares, even more than the weight of the groceries, that made him insist his mama let him do the shopping.

How was she getting by now? Before he left, a store had finally moved into the Lower Ninth—not a supermarket, but a corner store opened with the life savings of a guy LJ had bussed tables with back in high school. He’d bought everything he could there but still had to trek to town for the meat and milk. Mama had the cart, and the neighbors had promised to pitch in, but it was a lot of weight for her. Even when he’d bought his truck and moved out to his uncle’s ranch, he’d done the shopping for her every weekend.

He tossed his hat on the seat between them, trying to shake off his mood. It was going to be different up here. It had to be.

“I’m sorry,” Andra said. “I didn’t mean to say . . . Anyway, they do it to me, too. If it makes you feel any better.”