This sparked a flurry of debate among the women over which famous person they would most enjoy going on a date with, and then some gentle ribbing when Miriam’s answers were exclusively people who had been in the movies twenty or thirty years prior.
Eleanor listened more than participated, her worries drifting back to the forefront of her mind. She watched June flicker between worry and optimism, thought back to Diana’s worries about confessing her love, and wondered when real life had intruded on her own honeymoon phase with Garrett. Oh, things were still wonderful between them most of the time, but she couldn’t help but worry that the idyllic early stage would come crashing down if Garrett and Jeremy didn’t get along.
Whoever decided that falling in love was so complicated?
She didn’t dare put the question to the group, lest she get another answer like Miriam’s proclamation that she had to accept uncertainty in her life.
Uncertainty was the pits.
Even so, she couldn’t find herself longing for a simpler life, one where things were clearer. Her marriage with her ex-husband had been characterized by very clear roles, for example, but she wouldn’t go back to that in a million years, not now that she’d been reminded what real love and closeness felt like.
So maybe she could manage it all.
Still, she would be happy when she finally had a few more answers about how her son and her boyfriend got along.
CHAPTER NINE
When nobody had knocked on Levi’s door a full thirty minutes after June was meant to come by for his first singing lesson, he had no choice but to admit to himself that he’d been stood up.
He was surprised by how much it stung. He was a grown man, and he barely even knew June, but, still. He was extremely disappointed that she hadn’t come, that they hadn’t gotten the chance to rectify that “barely knowing each other” thing.
He sighed. There was only so much he could do. If she didn’t want to spend time with him, or if some other priority had gotten in the way of her coming by, that was out of his control. Hewaskicking himself for not exchanging phone numbers with her when they’d set up the time and date, but that wasn’t something he could control either.
The cancelled plans had gotten him in the mood to do something beyond kick around his house and noodle on the guitar, however, so he decided to bundle into his outdoor clothing and stop in at the grocery store. He didn’t really need too many things, since he’d stocked his fridge with snacks and beverages; he’d planned to, at the end of their lesson, tell June the truth about his identity and invite her to spend time with him in a more social capacity, and he wanted to have somethingtasty to put on the table if she agreed. Normally, he would have asked a woman to a date at one of the cool, hole-in-the-wall places he knew in Nashville.
He had spent alotof time picking out snacks at the store, because things were really different when he was the one who had to supply the food. Admittedly, however, this had not provided him with the kind of pantry staples that he would need to cook for himself.
Also, he was still riding a little high on the anonymity of Magnolia Shore, where nobody knew him other than the guy who had bought three different types of olives.
Indeed, the moment he walked through the front doors of Country Corner Market, Kelly, the woman who worked there, shot him a playful grin.
“Let me guess,” she said. “You want one of those fancy, wax wrapped sausages to diversify your offerings.”
Levi had skipped over the meat sections on his first trip in case June was a vegetarian, but now that Kelly mentioned it…
“You’re a born saleswoman, Kelly,” he said. “I will definitely be adding one of those to my list.”
“They’re back by the deli section,” she said, pointing.
He gave her a wave of acknowledgement, then headed in the direction she’d indicated, leaving her to go back to putting price stickers on the bundles of fresh-baked cookies that had left the most wonderful aroma in the air.
Levi made a mental note to swing back around and buy some of those before he left too.
He added two of the small sausages to his basket when he couldn’t decide between the one that was listed as spicy and the one that was listed as mild, then picked up an extra carton of milk, because he was running low. He lingered over buying a cod fillet for dinner, then nabbed a lemon to season the fish. Heheaded into the grains aisle to find some rice pilaf to round out the meal…
Then, he stopped. June was in the aisle, squinting at the back of a package of rice.
Before he could decide if he should approach her or just turn around and pretend that he’d never seen her, June looked up, saw him, blinked in surprise, and then gave him an apologetic wince.
“Oh dear,” she said.
Well, leaving now would make this already highly uncomfortable situation even more awkward, so he approached her with a faint smile.
“Urgent grocery trip got in the way of our appointment?” he said, making certain that his voice was pitched toward lightness, so that she didn’t think he was truly angry. Because he wasn’tangry, not really. She was obviously well within her rights to not spend time with him. He was definitely disappointed, though.
She scrunched her nose up even more, and he was irked to find that he still found her totally adorable.
“I would have texted you,” she said. “But we didn’t actually exchange numbers. I’m sorry about that.”
