Will and I stumble out of the bar, our arms loosely wrapped around the other’s shoulders.

“I’ve got friends in low plaaaaces!” we bellow together, out-of-sync and pleasantly tone-deaf.

I turn my head in time to see Jovie rolls her eyes at Kimber.

“See? No good,” she says.

Kimber laughs.

“Hey, hey!” I say, pointing a finger. “Are you dissing us?”

Will spins around. “Oh, hell naw. You can’t say a disparaging word about the talented vocal duo of Willon and Natefunkel.”

I frown. “I thought it Naten and Willfunkel.

He scoffs. “Uh… no. That’s never been a thing.”

I push him off me. “I beg to differ, sir.”

“Boys…” Jovie says.

Will raises a few lose fists. “I’ll fight you for it.”

Kimber cringes. “Uh-oh.”

Jovie shakes her head. “This man fathered my child.”

I keep my hands at my sides and stand up tall. “She’s got a point,” I say to Will. “We should be role models for your little girl.”

Will nods and drops his arms. “All right—”

I reach out and smack his cheek. “I win!”

“Cheater!”

“Wuss!”

“Boys,” Jovie warns again.

Will and I straighten up and present our hands in surrender.

“Sorry, Jove,” Will says.

“Yeah,” I say. “Sorry.”

She crosses her arms but she’s unable to hold back a smile. “We should get them home before Sheriff Thompson does his rounds,” she says to Kimber. “You guys want a ride back?”

“Nah,” I say, as Kimber’s eyes fall downward. “Want to walk it off with me, Kimber?”

She lifts her head and nods. “Sure,” she says.

“Okie-dokie.” Jovie latches onto Will’s arm. “We’ll see you later, then. Goodnight!”

I wave goodbye. “Night, Jove.”

“Goodnight, Jovie,” Kimber says.

Will throws up a hand. “Bye, Kimber. Bye, Natefunkel.”

I frown as Kimber chuckles.

Jovie sighs and yanks Will toward her car. “Come on…”

We watch as she gets him inside and swings back around to the driver’s side.

“Thank you.”

I look at Kimber to find her staring at me with light, serious eyes.

“For what?” I ask.

She shifts on her toes. “For not making it too obvious why we’re walking,” she says.

“Oh, that?” I swat the air. “No big deal.”

“No, it is. Really. I haven’t...” She slides her hands into her pockets. “After the accident, I got into Curtis’ car at the hospital and I couldn’t breathe. They had to sedate me just to get me home and ever since, I just...”

“Hey,” I say. “It’s okay. You don’t have to explain yourself.”

She swallows hard. “Thank you.”

I gesture to the sidewalk and we make our way there with slow, comfortable strides.

“Thank you, actually,” I say. “To be honest, I was kind of dreading this. You made it somewhat bearable.”

“Why were you dreading it?” she asks. “I thought you, Will, and Jovie were close.”

“Oh, we are. No, it wasn’t them. I was just dreading... you know, Clover. In general.”

She goes quiet for a second. “And Lucky?” she finally asks, her lips curling.

I hold my breath. “Okay, yeah. Her, too.”

Kimber chuckles. “Sorry.”

“It’s all right.” I shrug. “I just always felt like a joke around here. It’s hard to be taken seriously when you drive around in a white truck with a cow on the side, you know?”

“I see.”

“It’s all just temporary, though,” I add. “I’ll be out of here again soon.”

“How soon?”

“Three weeks, tops.”

“Where are you living now?” she asks.

“A tiny shack just outside of Portland,” I answer.

Her brow piques with interest. “Oh, yeah? Do you like it out there?”

“It’s...” I pause. “Well, it’s not Kansas. So, yeah, I do. If that makes sense.”

She nods. “It makes perfect sense.”

I glance over at her just in time to catch a street lamp igniting her pink cheek. “You think you and Curtis will ever get out of here?”

“Uh...” She takes a breath. “I don’t know. Part of me hopes so.”

“And the other part?”

She raises her head and looks around. “Part of me thinks this is home,” she says. “it’s hard to imagine settling down anywhere else. Raising kids, growing old. That’s what Clover was made for…” She peeks over at me and we lock eyes for a second. “If that makes sense.”

I nod. “Part of me wants to say yeah. It does.”

“And the other part?”

I chuckle. “The other part thinks you’re crazy.”

She laughs, then pauses. “I wonder...”

“Wonder what?” I ask.

“Is it... easier to blend in out there?” she asks. “There’s not a whole lot of crowd to get lost in out here.”

“Yeah, definitely,” I answer. “But...”

“But what?”

“Out there you get lost not because no one sees you but because no one cares about you,” I say.

Kimber nods slowly as she takes in my answer.

We move silently, turning with ease as we reach First Street.

“Hey, can I ask you something?” Kimber asks, breaking the silence. “It might seem weird, but...”

“Yes,” I answer, exhaling hard. “Lucky’s carpet does match her drapes.”

Kimber cracks up, firing a bit a lightning through my toes. “Okay, that’s not what I was going to ask... but I kinda figured,” she adds with a shrug.

“Sure, go ahead,” I say. “I live for weird questions.”

She bites her lip. “Do you remember what you wrote in my yearbook senior year?”

I slow my stride. “Your yearbook?” I ask, innocently.

“Yeah. I was looking through it the other day and I saw an inscription with the initials N.S. and I couldn’t remember if it was you or not.”

“What did it say?”

Kimber pauses on the sidewalk. “I hope you get everything your heart desires,” she says.

My stomach flips at the memory. “Oh, wow...”

“Was it you?”

I scratch the back of my head, hesitating. “Uh, yeah. Yeah. That was me.”

She smiles. “You sound embarrassed.”

“No. Not embarrassed. I forgot that I wrote that. It was so long ago…”

“Did you write it in anyone else’s?” she asks.

I shake my head. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Why did you write it in mine?”

I tap the toes of my shoe along the concrete. “I... wanted you to be happy, I guess.”

Kimber looks up at me, the edge of her right eye just barely visible behind the veil of blonde between us. Her chest rises and falls with thick breaths but she doesn’t speak.

“Kimber, where the hell have you been?”

Our eye contact breaks as we turn toward the man practically shouting from her front porch.

Curtis VanHouten.

His sharp gaze juts at me and his expression quickly shifts to something much warmer and welcoming the moment he recognizes me.

“Nate Scott,” he says, smiling as he descends the porch steps. “Well, this is a surprise.”

Kimber clears her throat. “Nate was just walking me home,” she says.

“From where?” he asks.

“Lucky’s.”

His brow rises. “You went to the bar?”

“Yeah,” I say. “I was meeting up with Will and Jovie next door, so I asked Kimber if she’d like to come along and catch up with us while I’m in town. And she did.”

He nods once. “I didn’t realize you two knew each other.”

“Oh, Kimi and I go way back.” I nudge her arm. “Isn’t that right?”

“Yeah,” she says. “Way back. High school. Junior high school.”

“Elementary,” I add. “Diapers, really.”

Curtis steps closer and drapes his arm over Kimber’s shoulders. “Well, that does sound fun. Maybe I’ll come along next time. I don’t know many of Kim’s friends.”

It’s subtle but Kimber goes stiff beneath his touch. She throws on a smile to not bring attention to it but it’s obvious to anyone with open eyes.

I feign a smile, too. “Sure. That’d be great.”

He stares at me, his fingers coming to a tight grip on her shoulder.

“Anyway,” I say, pointing behind me at the milk truck down the street. “I should get going. Feeling nice and sober now.”

“Drive safe,” Kimber says. “Thanks for the walk.”

“Anytime,” I say, studying her eyes for any hidden signals she might send me.

She gives me nothing. Maybe I just imagined that stiffness from before. Maybe — just maybe — Kimber VanHouten feels perfectly safe in her husband’s embrace. Maybe it’s just my own wishful thinking that she doesn’t.

“Goodnight,” I say.

Curtis waves at me as the two of them turn toward the house. “Goodnight, Nate,” he says.

I hop up into my truck and sit down in the driver’s seat, trying not to make it too obvious how hard I’m staring at them as I turn the ignition.

Curtis keeps his grip on her up the porch steps and she flashes a sweet smile as he holds the door open for her. I’m too far away to tell whether or not it’s real.

Who am I kidding? Of course, it’s real.

Look at her perfect life with her perfect house and her perfect husband. It’s perfect.

Oh, well. Can’t feel bad about losing something you never had a chance to have in the first place.

Still, it was a fun night. I made her laugh.

That was nice.