One More Time by Caitlin Ricci

wouldn’t be able to tell something was off, so it was unlikely Caleb could. But I wanted to be careful just in case.
    “Hey. Decide that you needed to eat?” I asked.
    Caleb smiled at me and I smiled back. It was easy pretending everything was fine.
    “Yeah. I finished a package of cookies and realized I needed to eat more than that for dinner.”
    I laughed, and I was glad it sounded natural. “Well, here is definitely better than cookies. I can promise you that.”
    He started looking through the menu, and I watched him. “What do you do?” I asked after a few minutes.
    “Graphic design. How are the chicken tenders?”
    I wasn’t going to say my mom’s food wasn’t good, so him asking was kind of a moot point. “They’re nice.” Roxie brought out a basket of fries for me and a side plate for me to put the ketchup on so I didn’t get it all over my fries.
    “What’ll you be having, Trent’s friend?” she asked.
    “Roxie, this is Caleb,” I said. “He just bought Rocky Creek Stables.”
    He put the menu down. “Hey. Iced tea and chicken tenders please.”
    “You got it.” The menus stayed on the table, and she went to put his order in while I started on my fries. I pushed them toward him so he could have some too, which he did, so I was glad Roxie would bring out as many baskets as I could eat. I’d need all the fried, salty comfort food I could get that night.
    “Rocky Creek Stables?” Caleb asked as he finished one fry and reached for another.
    I nodded and thought it was weird he didn’t know what the place he bought had been called. “When I was a kid it was a touristy place. Your property backs to government land so the Smiths used to take people through there on the trails. It was kind of a big deal when they stopped the rental business since, as kids, we used to go onto their property and feed the horses. My first job, when I was fifteen, was cleaning out stalls there until I was old enough to lead some of the rides.”
    “Huh. No wonder everyone seems so intent on me getting horses back out there. Even my youngest nephew asked me today if I could buy him a horse and keep it on my property.” Caleb shook his head, then wiped his hands on his jeans.
    “How many nephews do you have?” I asked.
    He pulled out his phone and slid his finger across a few times before handing it to me. I looked down at a picture of the same pretty woman who was up on his bookshelf. Only this time she was older and had three little kids with her. The biggest one was almost as tall as her. “That’s my sister, Marie, and her three kids. The shortest is Ben, Robbie is the one in the middle with the red hair, and Daniel is the one that’s nearly scowling beside her. He’s fourteen.”
    Caleb rolled his eyes, and I smiled. “Cute kids. I can see some horses in the background.”
    He nodded and took his phone back. “Yeah. They show them. Mostly in western pleasure. Sequined shirts, black leather chaps, saddles with lots of silver on them.” He shrugged, and I wondered why he didn’t seem to like horses at all. Sure, some people just didn’t like them. But I wasn’t one of them, and he had all that land….
    “But you don’t?”
    Caleb made a face. “Show horses? No. Not at all. I can ride, but I don’t show. It’s not something I’ve ever been interested in. Her kids seem to like it, though, so that’s great for them.”
    “But you do like horses?” I asked.
    He shrugged. “Yeah. I do. I guess. I mean, riding is fun and they’re beautiful animals.”
    “Then why not have some?” I might have been pressuring him, or being a pest, or whatever else. But he had all that land, and it was already set up for horses. And he liked them. He’d just said that. From his house and knowing that he’d paid for it in cash, I knew his reasons weren’t that he couldn’t afford them.
    Our food came before he had a chance to answer me. Then for a while there, we just ate, making soft noises as we enjoyed