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She flinched and charged forward, pretending she hadn’t heard Mike call for her.
“Rose! I know you can hear me. Will you wait up?”
She stopped, turning to find Mike marching right toward her. If this wasn’t rock bottom, she didn’t know what was. Everything just kept getting worse. Rose glowered at him, prepared to unleash all of the emotions she’d stored away since moving from Utah, but he surprised her by holding up both hands like he expected her to spew fire itself from her lips.
“I’m sorry,” he sputtered. “About yesterday. I didn’t know.”
“You… didn’t… know…” Her eyes narrowed.
“About the gallery. I had no idea what was going on. I was only going off the last thing I’d heard about you and that was a couple years ago.”
“Then why even bring it up?” she demanded. “You could have just asked how things were going. You didn’t have to—” She cut herself off, realizing how utterly ridiculous it sounded for her to expect such a thing. Mike had only been making conversation. Rose let out a sad sigh. “It’s fine.”
“Really? Because you didn’t seem fine yesterday.” He peered at her closer. “And from the looks of it, you don’t seem fine right now. Did something happen? You didn’t bring us our food.”
Heat burst beneath her skin, and she looked away. “It’s fine,” she repeated. “It’s not like everyone gets to live their dream, right?” Forcing a laugh, she set her eyes on a spot just above his right shoulder so she didn’t have to look him in the eye. “The odds are against us from the start, you know. So?—”
“At least you tried,” Mike blurted.
That grabbed her attention, and she was forced to gaze into his green eyes like before.
“So many people can’t even do that much. Then they’re left spending their whole life wondering what if. Don’t you think it’s better to have tried and failed then to never have that experience?” He sounded weirdly intense about the matter, and it left her wondering if he was talking from personal experience.
“Maybe those people are the smart ones. The dreamers, they still have their dreams. People like me… all those dreams are broken.”
Mike took a step closer, and his voice softened. “But those dreams never take flight. They’re like exotic birds kept in cages.”
Rose couldn’t find the words to respond. His statement was a little too personal—not at all the sort of conversation she’d expect from him. Mike had always been closed off when they were younger, more so when they’d hit their teens. Was it possible he was hiding something from everyone?
She’d always thought he might be—well, before yesterday, when she’d overreacted.
Once again, her blush returned, and she had to look somewhere else to avoid his scrutiny. “I’m sorry about yesterday,” she murmured. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”
“Yeah, probably not.”
Her head snapped up and she gasped. “Well, that’s being blunt.”
He chuckled. “You said it, not me. I just agreed with you.” He tilted his head, his eyes filled with a small bit of amusement.
Squirming beneath his attention, but unable to bring herself to look away, she blurted the only thing that came to her mind. “Lacey has your table now. She’s off her break, so if you need anything, you can ask her. I’ve officially been let go.”
“I know.”
Her brows furrowed. “You do?”
He chuckled again, rubbing the back of his neck and tilting his head. It was as if he was just as uncomfortable as she was. “I figured you wouldn’t just up and leave. After the spill and you not coming back… it made more sense that you were…” He pressed his lips together. “Anyway, that was why I came out here. I wanted to catch you before you left.”
“You did?”
“Sure. You have an eye for detail, right?”
“I guess.”
Mike took one more step toward her. “What I mean is that you have a knack for artsy stuff. You can tell just by looking at something whether or not it’s gonna work. Like if I asked you to help me with some interior decorating?—”
“Oh, I don’t have any experience with interior design. But that’s what Katrina does, so maybe she could give you some advice.” Rose offered him an apologetic smile. “I did take maybe one class on it, but?—”
“But you get the idea of design. And you have an eye for how colors work together, too.”
