Page 89 of Falling

Maybe I should get a cat. They’d be fine in an apartment. Or a fish.

Theo licked his nose.

I was halfway through drawing a breath to ask him what I ought to do, since I was ready to take any and all advice, when the bell over the door rang.

Angela stepped into the coffee shop, face breaking into a broad, bright smile as her gaze fell on me. I nodded to the coffee I’d gotten her—the same lavender syrup triple shot hemp milk latte she’d gone for last time, according to Iggy—and her smile brightened even further.

She was really nice. I liked her a lot. I would’ve liked working with her. In my last job I’d always been kind of an outsider since everyone believed I’d been hired out of cronyism rather than merit. Which may or may not have been true. But, based on what Angela had told me, I’d fit right in in Chicago. And no one could say I’d been hired for anything but being good at my job.

Even if the whole community had come together to make me look better at it than I was. Joel always said fake it ’til you make it and he was living his dream life now. I could do worse, I figured, than taking a leaf out of his book. So to speak.

“Miles!” she enthused, taking the seat opposite me. “Gosh, and coffee. You know how to treat a girl right.”

A nervous laugh escaped me. If Angela noticed the nervousness, she didn’t acknowledge it.

She picked up the mug and breathed in the scent of the coffee, making a happy sound. “I’m so glad your application meant I got to discover this little town!” she said. “It’s adorable and I haven’t stopped thinking about my last coffee from here.”

“It’s pretty great coffee,” I agreed. Theo made a tiny, unhappy sound, reminding me he was there. “And you can’t beat the company,” I added, petting him again.

“I’m going to assume you’re including me in that,” Angela said. “Although, the dog is cute.”

“I think that’s why they keep him around,” I said. “You were, uh, visiting family, right? They’re all doing okay?”

Angela lit up. “You remembered!” she said, then launched into telling me about her niece winning a school science contest, her mother’s ongoing feud with the HOA over a red mailbox, and her brother’s latest get rich quick scheme involving ostriches.

I listened and laughed in all the appropriate places. This didn’t feel at all like a job interview, and as the subject changed from Angela’s family to the weather, the town, the library, I started to relax.

“You know, I’m really not an outdoorsy person,” I said when Angela observed that the hiking around here must have been incredible. “I did kind of learn to fish a few weeks back, though.”

Angela raised a brow that said go on.

“Booker—he runs the bar the library backs onto for reasons of town planning inscrutable to my librarian mind—took me on a fishing trip. He said it was in exchange for his help with library card signups. Anyway, I did my research ahead, obviously, and I think he was really impressed. Right up until a trout—I’m assuming here it was a trout, I never actually saw it—grabbed the line and pulled me into the river.”

Angela clapped a hand over her mouth, eyes dancing with suppressed laugher.

“Like fully into the river, all the way,” I continued, since she was obviously enjoying the story. “I had to let go of the rod before it dragged me away. The worst part—or best part, depending on your point of view—was that while I was flailing around, I grabbed hold of something. That turned out to be a trout.”

Angela’s eyes widened.

“So I held onto it because I didn’t know what else to do and kicked my way back over to the shore where Booker hauled me up. I’d never seen him so pale before or since. I couldn’t think what else to say so I started explaining to him that the wool pants and blazer I was wearing would actually put off heat now that they were wet so it wasn’t critical to dry me off or anything. I’m still hugging a trout at this point, by the way.”

Angela lost the battle with her laughter and broke into giggles.

“So when I finish explaining about the heat-providing properties of wool, Booker just stares at me for a few seconds. Then he points at the trout and says, ’you’ve gotta throw that back.’”

“No!” Angela gasped, laughing again.

I laughed too this time, remembering the look on Booker’s face, the way he’d gone from panicked to practical in the space of a heartbeat. I loved that about him.

I...

Loved him.

I loved him.

I’d known, but the thought hit right in the center of my chest as I remembered the rest of that day. Booker’s concern, and his practicality. The way he’d taken it all in stride. He’d never told me I’d screwed up, never even tried to offer advice about how not to get pulled into the river next time.

He’d let me curl up beside him for the rest of the day watching mindless comfort movies. He’d made me dinner. He’d let me be, without judgement or asking for anything except my company.