Trouble (Dogwood Lane #3)(51)

He heads for the door and motions for me to follow.

Once we’re outside, he moves the bucket holding the door open and locks the building. I head to my car and deposit my bag. When I turn around, he’s standing behind me.

“It’s taking you long enough,” he says.

“It’s been two minutes.” I laugh. “I’m ready now.”

“Let’s go.”

Before I realize what’s happening, we’re shoulder to shoulder, going down the sidewalk.

The breeze rolls gently around us as we walk beneath a giant pine tree. The air is scented with the woodsy, citrusy smell of the trees. It settles some of the adrenaline pumping through my veins.

“You didn’t bring your sketch pad,” Penn notes as we pass a bench.

“I know. Sometimes I think having it on hand when you’re experiencing something takes away from your creativity. It’s kind of the same thing as losing a moment because you’re trying to take the perfect picture for social media.”

“I don’t do social media.”

“Nothing? Not even one site?”

“Nope. If I don’t know you in real life, I don’t need to know you online. Besides,” he says, “I’ve looked at that stuff long enough to know it isn’t good for you.”

“How do you figure?”

“I don’t know. Have you ever logged off one of your app things and felt better about yourself? More motivated? Have you ever thought, even once, ‘Man, I’m really kicking ass over here’?”

I consider this. My timeline is full of my Los Angeles friends and their curated content of parties and events. Their lives look picture perfect, except I know the truth.

“True. But it makes it easier to check in with my parents and my sister,” I say. “There are good uses for it, you know.”

He just shrugs.

I take in his profile. His jawline is rugged and sharp. I’d venture to guess his nose has been broken at least once, but somehow it gives his face character. There’s a mole next to his nose that’s so small that I haven’t noticed it before. I wonder what else there is to know about him.

“Have you always lived here?” I ask.

“I went to preschool right over there.” He points to a little gray building with a faded rainbow sign. “I cut Claire’s hair one day. Oh, and then this other time”—he grins—“it was pouring rain. There was a dog in the play area outside, and I let it in. Want to talk about getting in trouble.”

I laugh. “You’ve been ornery from the beginning, then.”

“So it would seem.”

We walk together quietly. A car passes every now and then, and Penn waves at each one. I wonder if he actually knows them all or if it’s some form of southern hospitality I don’t yet understand.

He seems content to just walk and enjoy the quiet. It’s not at all like my old friends and their constant use of their phones. Heck, even the men I dated spent more time on their devices than talking to me. Penn isn’t even talking to me. He’s just being with me.

“Let’s cross here so I can show you the church.” He starts across the middle of the street. There are no cars coming, but there’s no crosswalk either.

“Isn’t this illegal?” I ask, speed-walking to keep up with him.

“Probably.”

“Um . . .”

When we make it safely to the other side, he looks down at me. “Live a little, Avery.”

I instantly miss “Ave.”

We take an alley behind a big brick building before coming upon an old church. The stained glass windows are breathtaking as they reflect the late-afternoon sun.

“See that?” Penn asks. “That spot up there in the steeple? Where it kind of looks broken but it’s not?”

“Yeah.”

“There are musket balls stuck up there from the Civil War.”

My jaw drops. “Really?”

“Yeah. Tennessee is the only state that had a battle fought in every single county during the war. Only Virginia saw more battles than we did.”

He says this like it’s common knowledge and takes off again. This time, I remain a few paces behind him.

My mind is reeling. What else does he know?

“Matt and I were convinced a ghost lived up there,” he says, pointing to the top of a building that looks deserted. “We used to sneak in there with little ghost-hunting kits we made up. I think Dane and his friends would try to scare us sometimes and make us think we’d made contact, now that I think about it. It was a good time.”

I imagine a little Penn with his flashlight and rubber boots and can’t help but smile. “Those must be great memories. I can see why you and Matt are so close now. You’ve been friends forever.”

“Yeah.” His arm brushes mine as we step over a broken piece of sidewalk. The spot where our skin touched is hot. “Did you do stupid stuff like that as a kid?”

“My childhood was nothing like this.” I laugh. “It was basically an instructional on how to grow up and not get in my parents’ way.”

His forehead creases. “What’s your mom do?”

I look at his face and watch him watch me. There’s something pure and untainted about it, and I don’t want to spoil that yet.