Derby is on the porch.
No bike this time. He must have parked farther back, or maybe I did not hear over my own heartbeat. He is dressed in dark jeans and a black shirt, cut on, hair still damp from a shower, beard trimmed just enough to prove somebody, possibly him, tried. In one hand he holds a small bunch of wildflowers that look like they were stolen from a ditch or threatened into arrangement. In the other, a brown paper bag.
I open the door.
He looks at me standing inside my own place.
His eyes move over my face, then the room behind me, then back.
“You invited?” I ask softly.
His mouth curves.
“Trying to be. But I’m not coming it. It’s your first night.”
Smiling, I nod. “What’s in the bag?”
“Coffee filters. Pancake mix. Dinosaur gummies.”
My throat tightens.
“And flowers?”
He looks down at them like they betrayed him. “They were on the side of the road.”
“You picked me ditch flowers?”
“They looked free.”
I laugh, and the sound settles into the little trailer like furniture.
Derby’s face changes.
Softens.
Only for me, maybe.
“Thought I’d ask you out,” he says.
My heart stumbles. “Out?”
“Date.”
The word sounds strange in his mouth.
Good strange.
“Not fake?” I ask.
“No.”
“Not protection?”
His eyes darken. “Always some protection.”
“Derby.”
He exhales. “Not strategy. Not for the town. Not because you need a guard.”