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home by, like, one.”
    “Not Patrick,” I said.
    “I don’t know what you think happened, Cat,” Christian said. “It was just the bunch of us hanging out.”
    “Then why do you and Beef and Tommy keep skulking around? Every time I see the three of y’all together, you’re deep in conversation. And every time I come over to say hi, you shut up quick. So what’s that about?”
    “Cat?”
    “What?”
    “When’s the last time you came over to say hi to me or my friends? Two years ago? Three?”
    I scowled.
    “I suggest you work on your details before tossing out your conspiracy theories,” he said. “You think I’m not broken up bythis? You think I’m not mad as hell? Patrick’s just about my best friend, even though he is—“
    “Gay?” I threw out. The word felt sharp in my mouth, but I’d had it with
you knows
and veiled references.
    “I was going to say straight-edge,” he said, meaning that Patrick wasn’t as wild a partier as him and the others. His tone made me blush because somehow he’d gone and made it seem as if
I
were the one being judgmental.
    Yet it was an odd twist of language. Based on the way people usually used the words, Christian was
straight
and Patrick was
gay
. But Christian, when he got wasted, was
gay
if you used the old-fashioned, oh-so-merry definition of the word, while Patrick was
straight-edge
because he didn’t drink to the point of passing out.
    “You’ve got a major chip on your shoulder, sis,” Christian said.
    “Don’t call me ‘sis,’” I said.
    Christian pushed himself off the wall and said, “Hey, there’s Tommy and Beef.” He raised his voice. “Dudes! Over here!”
    My stomach dropped, and I hightailed it back inside the building, where I made a beeline for the refreshment table. That was where the crowd was. That was the best place to hide.
    I reached for a cookie I had no intention of eating. As I did, my arm knocked against an elderly woman’s frail frame. She turned sharply, and my heart clutched up. It was old Mrs. Lawson, Tommy’s
grandmother
.
    The entire Lawson clan was as rich as sin, and I figured they stayed in Black Creek just so they could lord it over the rest of us.
    They hadn’t always been well-off. Tommy’s great-great-great-grandfather was one of the first people to homestead Black Creek, way back when it was a decent trading post. Then a railroad was laid between two bigger settlements, and suddenly there was a lot less traffic through Black Creek. The final blow came when the TVA dam was built on Brigham River. The dam cut off Black Creek from the other towns, because who in his right mind would drive an extra twenty miles around the new man-made lake to reach what was nearly a ghost town already?
    Tommy’s grandfather Merrit Lawson had enough money to get by, but no more. He opened the Come ‘n’ Go for those who stayed put, and when the feed store went belly-up—due in part to Merrit’s ties with the banker, who refused to change the terms of the feed store’s loan—he bought it for a dime and turned it into the local Buy-Low, where Aunt Tildy worked as a cashier.
    Now there were Buy-Lows all over the state. The Lawsons had built themselves a small empire, and they were too powerful for their own good. That was why I stepped back nervously when old Mrs. Lawson turned from the refreshment table.
    “And who are
you
, young lady?” she said.
    “Cat Robinson?” I said, hating the way my inflection went up as if I weren’t sure of my own name. But good heavens.Maybe I did maintain a low profile, but Mrs. Lawson knew who I was. There were like five hundred people in Black Creek, period. Everyone knew everyone.
    “Tildy’s girl?” she said.
    “Yes, ma’am. Tildy’s my aunt. She works at the Buy-Low.”
    She clucked. “I know who she is. She needs to teach you some manners.”
    Oh, nuh-uh. I hadn’t been rude. I had accidentally and
lightly
hit her arm with mine. And no one had the right to disrespect Aunt