AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Thanks! We spent a long time on it.” Hannah slowed down so she wouldn’t cut herself while preparing the bread for Michael’s sandwich.
“I can tell.”
Hannah’s face heated up as she tried to think of something else to say. Michael’s presence scrambled her brain entirely. She finished up his sandwich and brought it out.
“Here you are,” Hannah said.
“Thanks. See you next time.” Michael nodded and headed out.
Hannah sighed. How was she supposed to get Michael to ask her to the luau if she could hardly string together two sentences that weren’t related to taking his order? He hardly noticed her, period. She went back through that brief conversation and kicked herself for missing out so many opportunities to make herself stand out.
“You guys are going to have a booth at the luau?” Luke said.
“Yeah.” Hannah messed around with a stack of cups, watching Michael’s back as he disappeared around the corner.
“Cool. I’m excited. It’s been a long time since I’ve been.” Luke munched on a chip.
“Yeah,” Hannah said again, all the energy to chat gone. All of her thoughts were on Michael and how she could capture his attention next.
CHAPTER FOUR
Dane Taylor leaned back in his seat, a small smile on his face. He’d just finished reading Alissa’s article on the luau and as always, he was impressed. She managed to distill all of the excitement and anticipation into the article even though she had never been. He could practically feel her excitement coming through the page.
He shot back an email with his feedback on the article, then stretched, his shirt coming untucked a little. He still felt strange dressing down to some degree at work, even though he could see how much he’d loosened up in general since he started dating Alissa. He stood and tucked his shirt back in all the way. Despite Alissa’s influence, he still felt a little uptight in comparison to everyone else in town in his tailored pants and shirts.
The luau was a perfect example of that. Despite Alissa’s incredible article making the event sound fresh and exciting, he couldn’t fully embrace the idea of something so frivolous. They were in New England. Why were they going with a Hawaiian themed event? Were people going to dress up for it? In the middle of the summer? Why was everyone going all out? He brought this up to Alissa and she laughed, squeezing his hand and telling him to not think too hard about it.
And he desperately wanted to. But his brain kept going into analysis mode. He was able to shut it off at times, but it had been locked on for the past few days. It wasn’t that he didn’t see any upsides. He could see several. It brought tourists to the area, which brought money to the area. That was always a good thing. But it was just a party for the sake of having a party, a concept he never fully understood. It was frustrating, to say the least.
“Hey, Dane,” Josie Garner said, appearing in the doorway of his office. “I’m heading out.”
“Okay, thanks for letting me know. I’ll lock up.” Dane couldn’t keep his frustrated mood out of his voice.
Josie started to leave, but paused. “Is everything okay?”
Dane ran both of his hands through his hair. “It’s just this luau. I’m just not getting it.”
“It’s a luau. What’s there to get?” Josie asked.
“See, that’s exactly it.” Dane sighed. “Everyone here seems to be able to get into things like this around here and I just can’t. Alissa’s so enthusiastic about it and I don’t want to burst her bubble.”
“Is her article on it not good?”
“No, it’s great. I can see why it’s exciting, but I can’t personally feel it within myself. That’s why I’m even more confused about myself,” Dane said. “I thought I’d shaken off the old me and fully embraced this town but I feel like I’m going backward. Like the other day, we saw some surfing lessons being advertised and I just couldn’t bring myself to do it with her. I could tell she was a little sad about it even though she was also nervous to try it too.”
His fears and anxieties started to bubble over. He was in love with Alissa, and the thought of disappointing her because of his inability to loosen up made his chest tight. Her smile made his day brighter every time and he didn’t want to dim that, even a little bit. But at the same time, so many things she wanted to do made him reflexively refuse to do it, at least in his head.
Josie studied him, then leaned against the door frame.
“Well, you definitely have changed a lot lately. So you shouldn’t beat yourself up about that,” she said. “But Alissa has really helped you come out of your shell. Think about it. Remember that time you guys went hiking? You hadn’t wanted to do that but it was a good time.”
Dane did remember. He wasn’t very outdoorsy. At most, he liked to walk around in a park or along the beach. But Alissa had wanted to go for a hike on a day trip, so he’d gone with her. He’d gotten a million mosquito bites, got a few gnarly blisters in his new hiking boots, and had almost fallen twice, but it really was fun to see all of the beautiful views together.
“True,” Dane murmured.
“So I’m sure you’ll have fun once the luau actually happens,” Josie said.
“You think so?”
