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He shrugs innocently. “What’s what for?”
“That!” I point at his crooked grin.
“You’ll see.”
“Gage!”
He drops a kiss to my forehead on the front step. “You’ll find out at the shop.”
“Are you sending me something again?”
“Maybe,” he says, then heads down the steps, waving goodbye.
But I race down after him. “You sent me flowers yesterday.”
“I know.”
“And you just told me you always believed in me.”
“I know that too.”
He’s doing so many things for me. Words and deeds. They’re both terrifying and thrilling.
“I love them all. And I love these secret dates.”
“Me too.”
But I still don’t know what to do with all these new emotions jostling around inside me. I rise up on my tiptoes and kiss him once more. Then I look up. Sigh. Shake my head. “No snow today.”
“Maybe tomorrow.”
He leaves and when I get to work, a delivery woman heads into the shop a few minutes later. “Are you Elodie?” she barks.
“Yes.”
She hands me a white envelope the size of a card. I rip it open. Then laugh. It’s a print of one of the graffiti roosters from our first date. I open it and read.
Remember our first date? That time we went on a ferry ride and had our first kiss. Meet me at the ferry terminal tomorrow morning for our secret date.
I clasp it to my chest, my heart fluttering.
36
OUR SECRET DATES
Gage
“Let me get this straight. You’re recreating the dates you never went on? The ones you used when you made up the backstory of your fictional romance?” Grams asks as she makes an early morning run to the restaurant supply shop with me.
“Creating them,” I explain as I put bags of chocolate chips into a shopping basket.
She shakes her head, but doesn’t try to hide her amusement.
“What’s so funny?”
“Gage Reginald Archer,” she says, like the grand cat who ate the canary.
“Why are you Gage Reginald Archer-ing me?” I ask as I locate some organic coconut in bulk and scoop some into a bag.
