Evie
When we get to the church, Grandma goes in ahead of me. She likes to get a seat near the front. I know she’ll save me a spot and then she’ll make me sit in it, so I’m not too worried about keeping up with her.
I find Junior and Barbara-Claire near the front steps of the church, their three girls dressed in their Sunday best. But what’s odd is that one of them is on Grady Parker’s shoulders as he runs around in a circle. She giggles so loudly that she snorts, and then she giggles because she snorted, and then Grady starts to laugh at her too.
“The last time you got her all tickled like that, she peed on you,” Junior warns.
Grady freezes and looks up at her. “You need to go potty?”
She nods.
He lifts her over the top of his head and sets her on the ground, and Junior and Barbara-Claire usher all three kids into the church as Grady runs a hand through his disheveled hair. Something is different about Grady right now, but I can’t place what it is. I’ve seen him in a tie before—every Sunday when I’m here in Macon Hills, matter of fact. I’ve seen him in nice slacks, and I’ve seen him in a blazer. I’ve seen him in shoes that don’t have laces or athletic logos on them. So I can’t figure out what’s different.
Grady stares back at me, almost as hard as I’m looking at him. Then I realize what it is. Grady is smiling. He’s smiling at me. And my heart does a little bump in my chest. I jerk my gaze away.
“Clifford,” Grady says with a nod, but his eyes are twinkling in a way they usually don’t, at least not when he normally looks at me.
“Shit-for-brains,” I toss back in acknowledgment. But a grin is tugging at my lips.
He mimes stabbing himself in the chest with a knife. Then he leans toward me. “Pull that knife out, will you?” He reaches over, takes my hand, and lays it on his chest and pretends to pat it around, like he’s searching for a knife. Suddenly, he grabs my hand and holds it tight. “Jesus, Clifford, if you’d wanted to grab my tit, you could have just asked!” He shoves my hand back toward me. “I feel violated.” He lifts his nose in the air.
I look around at the small crowd still standing in front of the church. They’re all deep in amiable conversation. No one is paying us any mind at all.
“You are such an asshole,” I mutter more to myself than to him. And I grudgingly admit to myself that it’s more of a habit than how I’m feeling at the moment. He hasn’t been an asshole. At least not yet, although that tit-grabbing bit was close, since we were standing outside the church and all. I shake my head at him.
“You ready to go in?” He nods toward the church doors.
I glance down at my watch. “We still have ten minutes. You go ahead if you want to.”
He narrows his eyes as he stares at me. “Somebody being mean to you at church?”
I roll my eyes and shake my head. “No.”
“Somebody been too nice to you at church?” he asks. He holds up his hands when I open my mouth to protest. “I know you prefer to keep a safe distance from anybody with a dick, but you can’t blame the guys for trying.” He stares at me, no quirk to his lip, no glint in his eyes, no nothing.
I cross my arms over my chest. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He shrugs. “Every man here, at some point in his life, has wanted to ask you out.” He pretends to think about it. “Except for Junior, and that’s because he met Barbara-Claire before he met you.”
“That is not true,” I rush to protest.
He stands quietly for a moment. “You don’t even notice it, do you?”
“Notice what?”
“When you arrived, all the single men who were standing outside started fiddling with their ties and adjusting their jackets, just hoping you might walk up and say hey.”
I roll my eyes. “You are so full of shit, Grady Parker,” I mutter.
“Don’t believe me, Clifford.” He shrugs. “No skin off my back.”
I stand there and say nothing, because there’s nothing to say that would be appropriate for this conversation.
He inclines his head to the right. “See Milton Thompson over there?” he says. “He asked me about you a few months ago, when you came to see your grandma for two weeks this summer.”
“What did he ask?”
He grins. “He wanted to know if I had any claim on you, or if it would be all right to ask you out.”