Repose had always been home, no matter if he’d been living elsewhere at times. Raleigh had gone to college in the Capital, and even then, he’d been close enough to come back on a regular basis. This had been the first time he’d away from Repose for such an extended period of time, and he’d been a little surprised by how much he’d missed it. He would have thought the whole thing would have been freeing, but apparently he was rooted here to this town more than he’d allowed himself to believe.
Lifting his beer to take a long sip, Raleigh found himself relaxing into the barstool. It might not have been in his original plans to stop in and have a drink, but now that he was here, it almost felt like it should have been. There was just something unique about it that served to reaffirm all his feelings about making the right choice to come home. He was startled out of his thoughts by the man’s introduction, which was actually probably for the best, in the long run.
“Raleigh,” he offered in return, taking the offered hand and shaking it with the same grip he used for parents on Back-to-School night, confident without being overbearing. Chuckling a little at the weirdness of being welcomed home by a stranger, Raleigh answered, “Thanks. I just spent a year in Tanzania.” He could, and absolutely would, talk about it, at length if asked, but he wasn’t about to subject a stranger to his raving if they weren’t interested.
“I’ll go out on a limb and guess that you’re fairly new to Repose,” he said instead, leaving it to Hugh on which way the conversation veered. There were plenty of newcomers to town who didn’t want to talk about their past, something Raleigh had learnt early on even if he didn’t share the sentiment.