you know?”
“Small-town gossip.” He gave her that cute little boy grin, the one she hadn’t seen for years until he’d flashed it a couple of times in the last week. “I was working with Deacon today, and Blair had told him. And apparently, Blair had heard it from her mother who heard it from Reagan who had asked her mother to ask Blair to make sure her brother had supper in case Reagan wasn’t back in time.”
“Wow. That’s quite a grapevine,” Athena said, feeling a little bit like she’d really like to be a part of the big happy community like that. But being a nurse who traveled from job to job the way she was, working with hospice, she moved around a lot.
“Are you going to tell me what to do?” Preston spread out his hands. “I’m at your service.”
Athena gave him some instructions, and he started moving chairs around and getting tables set up.
After they’d been working quietly together for a bit, he said, “I’m going to ask you something. Is that okay?”
“Of course. You can ask any question you want to.”
That seemed weird. He asked her if he could ask a question.
His hand fiddled on the back of the chair in front of him before he picked it up and moved it.
He set it down in the spot where it belonged before he turned back and said, “I was talking to Deacon today, and he said that he was starting a choir. No long-term thing. He just thought it’d be fun to practice a few weeks and sing a few songs in the spring festival. No years-long commitments or anything.”
He moved another chair, and after he had set it down, he went to get another one and didn’t say anything more.
“Was there a question in there that I missed or something?”
He chuckled, then looked up at her. “No. I guess I was just trying to figure out how I wanted to say this.”
She wished he’d just say it. “Do I look like I’m going to bite you or something? Am I that scary?”
“You have no idea how scary you are.”
“Oh, stop. You’re like twice as big as I am. How in the world could I be scary to you?”
“Your scariness has nothing to do with size.”
“I think I’m offended. You said I had scariness.”
“Please don’t be offended. Because that’s scary too.”
“Okay, fine. I’m scary. I kinda feel like you’re putting off whatever question you want to ask me. Just ask already.”
“I’d rather talk about how scary you are. That’s actually kind of fun.”
“Apparently, I hadn’t been scary enough to get you to quit drinking,” she said and then wished she hadn’t said anything.
But she supposed there was no point in beating around the bush. He’d been drinking for years, and surely, he didn’t want her to pretend he hadn’t been.
“If anybody could scare me into quitting, it would have been you.” The tease was out of his tone.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought that up.”
“Why not? It’s not like I want everyone in my life to pretend that I wasn’t an alcoholic for a decade. That is my truth, and I need to face it. Although, hopefully I can also be given a little bit of grace, if I say that I’ve changed.”
She jerked her chin. He was right. That was a direct answer to what they’d been talking about yesterday, and she said, “I’m sorry. You’re right. If you say you’ve changed, then I should believe you unless your actions say something different.”
He smiled at that and set the chair down with his hands wrapped around the back of it, leaning on it. “I want to know if you’ll go to Deacon’s choir practice with me.”
Her eyes fluttered, and her head jerked up. She’d been in the middle of tying a big blue bow around the net of balloons, and she looked back down, focusing on getting the ribbon to flow just right before she finished and stepped back, looking at her handiwork.
“Looks nice,” Preston said.
“Thank you,” she said, rolling his question over in her mind.
Of course, she wanted to go with him. She couldn’t stop the fluttering of her heart and the eager lift of her chest.
But it wasn’t a good idea. Nothing could come of it. There were too many people she knew who had gone down this road and had nothing but heartache to show for it. She wasn’t going to do that herself. It was foolishness.
Not to mention, she was only going