“Poison’s right.” Justin smirked. “I’m not much of a soda guy. Just throw me a bottled water. The sodium in the hot dogs is going to be bad enough for my body.”
“Give it a break, honey.” Amy turned toward me as she took a lemon-lime soda. “Justin’s on this healthy food kick. I haven’t had a French fry in months.”
“Now, that’s true love.” I grinned at my friend. “I think I’d ditch Greg if he started feeding me health food.”
Greg handed me a hot dog. “At least I know where I stand in your priority list now.” He nodded toward the condiments table. “You’re not going to have onions, are you?”
I grinned. “I love onions.”
He shook his head. “I guess necking on the couch is off the agenda for this evening’s activities.”
Amy shook her head. “TMI, guys.” She paused, then pointed to a man who walked toward the concession stand. “Isn’t that Dustin Austin?”
I put mustard and ketchup on the dog and frowned toward the approaching figure. It was Austin with his Hawaiian shirt, Birkenstocks, and, in deference to the weather, long shorts. The guy’s gray dreadlocks bounced as he walked toward us. I hadn’t talked to the guy since he had broken my friend Sadie Michaels’s heart and dumped her to return to his wife. I hadn’t even known the guy was married. “I need to have a little talk with the jerk.”
Greg held my arm, which also kept me from throwing my hot dog at Austin as he walked by. When he reached the table, instead of buying his meal, he walked around the table and kissed Kacey on the lips. Apparently she was the mysterious wife, and, of course, she was younger than either Austin or my friend. Sadie had just turned forty; the women’s group at the church had invited me for her black party. I wonder if Austin was the one putting the “fat” ideas into her head. I turned away and took a bite of the hot dog, hoping the food would keep me from making a scene.
“You guys already out of here? We have another round starting at one.” The man who had registered our group stood between us and the car.
“We’ve got reservations in town.” Justin shrugged. “What can I say, newbies.”
The man looked us over and nodded. “We’ll just have to make you want to come back.” He held out his hand. “I’m Taylor Archer, vice president of the Coastal Geocache Club. Four years running now.”
“You must like the hobby a lot.” Amy leaned into Justin, taking his hand.
“I love it. You wouldn’t believe the stuff I’ve found just lying around. I have a metal detector, too, but you have to have a permit for it in national forests or state parks. And they’ve been good about allowing us to hold these monthly get-togethers here, so we don’t want to mess with that.” Taylor took a breath.
“Besides the fact that you wouldn’t want to break any laws,” Greg added to Taylor’s list of reasons.
He grinned. “Yeah, there’s that. But mostly all the stuff we find here is just things people have left behind while they’re camping or hiking. It’s not like it’s a Confederate battleground or a historical site.”
I knew from personal experience that historical objects were hiding everywhere, including an old shed that had been turned into an art studio. “You’d be surprised what can turn up where you don’t expect it.”
“True that.” Taylor waved at another group. “I’ve got to go. Check us out on the web. Kacey over there’s our webmistress, and she’s crazy-good about keeping our page current.”
I looked in the direction he was pointing and confirmed that Austin’s latest love was the computer guru Kacey. Now the guy’s website skills made sense. Of all the businesses in South Cove, Austin’s Bike Shop had been the first on the web and had the best site even now.
The four of us walked back to Justin’s car and sat inside as we ate our food. Finally Amy spoke. “Wow, I guess you can’t know what anyone is really thinking.”
“She doesn’t seem Austin’s type, that’s for sure.” Greg took a sip of his cola.
“When I talked to her, she said she’d gained weight when he left her. I can’t imagine how little she was before.” Kacey seemed to have a thing about her weight, even though I thought she looked amazing.
“There’s no way she thinks she’s heavy.” Greg rolled his eyes. “I don’t understand women and their weight obsession.”
“She’s totally different from Sadie.” I peeked around Greg, and watched the couple near the table. “I hate saying this, but she seemed nice. I kind of liked hating the woman for what she did to Sadie.”
“We all make our own choices.” Greg crumpled the hot dog paper wrappings and held out his hand for mine. “She’s not the one you should be mad at. Dustin didn’t tell Sadie he was still married. And he’s the one who broke it off.”