Coda 01 - Promises

little, and I realized I wasn’t the only one who had forgotten she was there. “You have temporary plates. Is this Jeep new?”
    “Yeah, I bought it from Jared.”
“Oh really? Jared, I didn’t think you owned a car.”
    I was glad she couldn’t see me roll my eyes. “I own a car. I just prefer riding my bike.” Why did everybody think that was so weird? “Anyway, technically he bought it from Lizzy.”
    “It’s great for the trails here, isn’t it?”

    “That’s partly why I bought it. Speaking of trails, some of the guys at the station were talking about Culver’s Trail?”

    “Never heard of it,” Cherie said.
    But he was looking at me. “Culver’s Trail isn’t a four-wheel drive trail,” I told him. “It’s for hiking and biking. It’s one of the easier mountain biking trails around.”
    “Really? They said it was pretty tough.”
    I grinned at him. “They must be wimps. Hey! Are you planning on buying a mountain bike?” Suddenly the idea of having somebody to ride with had me excited.
    “Should I?”
“Absolutely!”
    We finally found the spot. We dug up the metal box and opened it up. In addition to the log book, it had an assortment of random items inside: a green plastic army man, a playing card, a ten sided die. We hadn’t thought to bring anything with us to add, so we settled for writing our names in the log book and then headed back to the Jeep.
    “Shotgun!” Cherie called. She looked a little embarrassed about having said it, but I understood.
    “That’s only fair, since you had the back seat on the way up.” But it didn’t work. Matt was still talking to me more than to her. Back in town, she gave it one more try. “Are you sure you don’t want to come in for a drink?”
    “Thanks, Cherie, but Jared’s sister-in-law is expecting us at her house for dinner.” I was surprised at the lie but tried to nod convincingly. “Have a great night.”
    He seemed to be happy that she was gone.
“Great!” he said happily. “Let’s go get that beer I owe you!”
    “Matt, you do realize that this is a pretty small town. Anywhere we go, there’s a chance she’ll see us and know you lied.” “Oh.” All the wind had gone out of his sails now. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
    The idea of spending another hour or two together definitely sounded better than going back to my empty house, and I was pleasantly surprised that he seemed to feel the same way. “We actually could go to Lizzy’s. It’s Saturday. She’s probably halfway expecting me to show up.”
    Brian wasn’t home, but Lizzy was. And, as I had predicted, she wasn’t surprised to see me. She did, however, raise her eyebrows at Matt. He excused himself to find the bathroom, and she immediately turned on me.
    “On a date?” She narrowed her blue eyes at me.
“It’s not a date!”
“It looks like a date.”
“It’s not.”
“He sure seems to be spending a lot of time with you.” “He’s new in town. He doesn’t know anybody. That’s all.”
    “Jarhead,” she said in exasperation, “if you think that man doesn’t have other options, even in this town, then you must be blind. He chose you.”
    I knew she was right. Hadn’t I just seen him lie to Cherie so that he could spend the evening with me? And she wasn’t the only single woman in town by any means. She might have been the only one who had gone to the trouble to track him down at his house, but that only meant she was the most aggressive of the lot. But he was adamant about being straight, so where did that leave us? I could feel myself blushing as I thought about it.
    “What are you two talking about?” Matt asked as he strode back into the room. “Looks like you’re embarrassing Jared.” “Hair,” Lizzy said, without missing a beat. “Can you believe that mess he has on his head? I keep telling him to get it cut!”
    Matt frowned at me and inspected the dirty mop on my head. I tried not to flinch under his scrutiny. I suddenly had great pity for the monkeys at the zoo.
    Then he turned to Cherie, eyebrow up, a ghost of a grin on his face, and said, “I like it.” And that’s when I knew I was a complete fool, because my heart swelled up and threatened to burst through my chest, and I knew I was turning tomato red. Matt had already turned and vanished into the kitchen.
    “I don’t know who he thinks he’s fooling,” Lizzy hissed at me across the room, “but this is definitely a date!”

    H E DROPPED by the shop several