Page 117 of Not So Very Sensible

“Um, I can’t. We kind of need you in here—”

“No, we don’t,” Mrs. Bennett called from behind them. “Ellie can stay right there for as long as she wants. We’ve got this covered. And if you want to leave, that’s okay too. And Ethan?”

“Yes, Mrs. Bennett?”

“We’re expecting you to join us for dinner tonight. Okay?”

He peered at Ellie, but she moved her head away, as if embarrassed. “Is that okay? I’d kind of hoped you might want to have dinner with me.”

“It’s okay,” she murmured. “Mum likes an early dinner on Saturday nights, so we could still go out afterwards. If that’s what you meant.”

“Of course that’s what I meant. Oh, I forgot about Charlene. She’s the youth group worker I work with. She came to lend moral support. I might need to send her home in my car.”

“Or she could catch a train.”

“Great idea.” He glanced back at her mum. “Thank you. I’d love to.”

A pleased smile creased her face. “Good.”

Good? No, this was great. This was amazing. This was perfect. A dream. An answer to prayer.

Chapter 22

It was one thing to dream about the man she had long admired returning to her life. It was quite another for the man of her dreams to see the reality of what she was like. And nothing said reality like looking in the mirror and realising her eyes had slitted to unrecognisable size and colour, while her nose had expanded to twice its size from all the crying and sniffling she’d been doing. How Ethan could say he wanted to spend time with this was beyond her. But maybe that was how attraction worked: The externals didn’t matter as much as the inner connection. All those inner qualities one person appreciated about another. All those invisible ties crossing and recrossing, braiding together like a rope. A strong rope that could not be easily broken. And with God at the centre of both persons, well, what a strong cord that could be.

Yet she still couldn’t believe he still wanted to talk to her, with her red eyes and snot infestation on his collar after her epically awful breakdown earlier. Ugh, she was so gross. And yet, he hadn’t seemed to mind. Had seemed relieved that she hadn’t pushed him away again.

And now he was waiting in the living room while she fussed with her hair and makeup so she didn’t look quite so bedraggled as before. Yet she didn’t want to look like she was trying too hard either. Especially not when he’d said he’d appreciated her realness and lack of artificiality.

She finally gave up trying to look perfect and tiptoed down the hall. Traced the cover of The Nonesuch she’d placed on the side table. Peered into the living room to see him smiling at the silver-framed photographs on the mantelpiece. They were probably dusty. Probably embarrassing. But they were normal pictures of her sisters and herself, even if the most recent one had likely been taken more than fifteen years ago.

A floorboard squeaked and Ethan swung around. “You looked cute.”

Cute?

He held up a frame. “This one. You looked like you were dressed as Winnie the Pooh.” He pushed up his glasses. “Was it a dress-up day?”

“No. I chose to dress like that every Thursday when I was twelve.”

He snickered. “You’re funny.”

“You’re weird. What kind of question was that anyway?”

He replaced it. “I don’t know. I guess my family never had dress-up days like that. We tended to dress up to look like the perfect people in Dad’s political photos, not because we were having fun.”

Poor Ethan. She took a step closer to him. His gaze lowered then instantly shot up. She raised a brow.

“You look different than before.”

“I was aiming for less red.”

“You achieved that. And achieved something more.”

“What’s that?”

He held out a hand, tugged her closer. “You’re beautiful.”

She smiled. “You probably need to change your prescription.”