Page 38 of Where You're Planted

“They’re not really my friends.”

“Not yet. But they could be, right?”

“I guess.” Briar looked longingly at the other kids but hesitated.

“How about you try it for five minutes? And then if you aren’t feeling it, you can come back to your book.”

Briar weighed this silently and finally dragged herself across the playground.

“She can be slow to warm up,” Tansy explained, eyes fixed to her daughter’s retreating form. “Sometimes I worry she’s too attached to me and, like, not attached enough to other people.” She covered her face, shaking her head. “God, you do not care about my child’s antisocial tendencies. Sorry.”

He shrugged. “No, she’s right. Other people are terrible.”

Tansy snorted and finally faced him. “Well, maybe I don’t want her to grow up to be a surly grouch.”

“Like me?”

A smile warmed at the corners of her mouth briefly. “You’re kind of great with her, actually. With the cicada stuff and the hat thing earlier. She’s been overly attached to it since the…”

“Hurricane?” he supplied when she trailed off.

“Yeah. Not to keep grossly oversharing our personal business, but she’s been struggling a bit. That hat—yourhat—has been like a shield for her. But her school has a strict policyagainst them. Apparently, four months is the time limit on accommodating a child’s strug—” She shook her head and amended, “Quirks.”

“She could have kept it. I have three more.”

“It was a big deal for her to give it back.”

“All right. Offer stands, though. If you want it just in case.”

She tilted her face, studying him quietly. He stopped chewing under her scrutiny, somehow more uncomfortable when she kept her thoughts to herself than when she lobbed insults at him.

Finally, he asked, “What?”

She picked up her own disaster of a taco but didn’t bite into it. “Just trying to reconcile this guy with the one who doesn’t do relationships or emotional bonds.”

“So you heard that.” Jack opened his hands on the table. “I was talking about my staff. Keeping things professional.”

“Oh, okay, youdodo emotional bonds, just not with your staff? My mistake.” She was teasing him, but there was an edge to it. He couldn’t imagine why it bothered her, why shecaredat all.

“I don’t enjoy all the unnecessarytalkinginvolved,” he said.

“In relationships?”

“In…” Jack shook his head. He sensed she was ascribing some extra weight to his replies, some deeper meaning. Which was exactlywhyhe didn’t love talking. “Yeah, fine. I don’t really do relationships. I prefer uncomplicated. Quiet.”

“Is that why you aren’t married anymore?”

Jack choked, and a sharp bit of shell lodged in his throat. He coughed violently for several seconds, eyes watering.

“What was it? The kid thing?” Tansy asked.

Jack’s insides went leaden. The loosened piece of shell scraped painfully down his throat when he swallowed somewater. “What kid thing?” He was trying to catch up with her knowing he’d been married in the first place.

“You said you don’t like kids, so I thought maybe she wanted them and you—”

“Did I say I don’t like kids?”

“You balked at the idea of story times.” She curled her fingers into air quotes. “They’reloud, and they can’tread. That vein under your eye pops out any time they so much aslookat the ferns in the courtyard.”