Page 72 of The False Flat

Did I remember? As if I hadn’t thought of that moment three times today already. I nodded.

“I told Elaine about the kiss. I had to. I felt horrible about it.”

The kiss. Horrible.

I’d misheard him for sure. I plucked one of the cookies out of the bouquet and started eating it. Chocolate chip or snickerdoodle, I didn’t know because . . . food? Now? I was far from hungry. But I needed something to do with my hands and my mouth. For all I knew, I had accidentally picked up the new-client file and was snacking on a color-coded chart. This was so unexpected.

“She wasn’t happy. But she’s trained to help people work through relationships, so that’s what she wanted to do, work past it.”

“Oh, well, that’s great. And you don’t have to worry about me doing anything like that—”

“She was willing to work past it, but that kiss . . . Penelope.” My name came out on a sigh that entered my body like the breath I needed to take. “I don’t want to move past it. I want to live in it. I want to do it again.”

I sat there, speechless, a doofus with crumbs falling out of my mouth.

He scooted to the edge of his seat, his smile huge under his stupid mustache, his adorable mustache. His hand rose to my face, where he dusted off the corner of my mouth.

“Will you go out with me?”

Unable to speak, I bit my lower lip and nodded.

How the eff was I going to date this man?

CHAPTER 28

FIRST OFFICIAL DATE

“Where are you taking me?” I fingered the blindfold across my eyes as I sat in Grant’s passenger seat on our first official date, Sunday, September 10. Grant had wanted to wait two weeks to show Elaine respect, which had been fine with me because I’d needed to adjust to the idea. But I hadn’t really adjusted, I’d just panicked, and barely functioned, having to turn clients into numbers even though we were discussing finance, and even that hadn’t worked. “I’m taking this thing off.”

“Eh.” He pulled my hand away from my face. “Not yet.”

“Grant, this thing is itchy. What’s it made out of anyway? Horsehair?” I didn’t want to tell him, but I liked the itchy blindfold. It was oddly soothing, the uncomfortable thing to focus on instead of my anxiety over this date.

“Wool. And we’re here.” He shifted the car into park and turned off the engine. “Keep it on. I’m coming around to get you.”

He opened my door, bent down, and lifted the blindfold. His proximity flipped my stomach.

I stretched and surveyed our surroundings.

Like a diving board waiting for a diver, so was the rock before us, a jumping-off point for the eyes as they scanned the world below. The carpet of trees gave way to a city turning on at dusk. High up on this mountainside, it was as if a basin had scooped up the setting sun, serving it when it was the most awe inducing, something you wanted to be suspended in.

I thought back to our seconds in the rain, where sunset-colored powder pooled at our feet. This was another occasion I’d tuck away, but now, Grant and I were together, and were I to kiss him—

“This is my version of Chattanooga’s Sunset Rock,” he said. “We can hike to the actual Sunset Rock tomorrow if you want to, but there’s something about this spot.”

“We’re in Chattanooga? Isn’t this two hours away from Nashville?” I lost time when I was with Grant. Two whole hours had melted away. “Wow. This is the most spectacular sunset I’ve ever seen.”

“You know that generic ‘happy place’ people talk about? This is mine. It feeds the soul.”

We stood in silence, transfixed by the energetic colors fading into one another. Once the majority of the sun had nestled into the trees, leaving a generalized glow behind, Grant pulled a blanket from the bag at his feet and then lined his hands up, looking from the ground back to the sun like he wanted to make sure the blanket was in the perfect spot.

Under his spontaneity, a sense of order defined his life. To look at me or my office, you’d think we had the same values. But step into my home or look under my skin, anything below the surface, and I was a mess. What if he was only attracted to the superficial me? He’d seen some of my cracks, but he hadn’t glimpsed the faults that waited to swallow us both.

Suddenly the peace of the sunset was being stretched tight like the corners of Grant’s blanket.

But as he patted the ground beside him, his smile gave me a piece of myself I wasn’t sure had ever existed before. That single possibility that this was the person I’d needed but had been afraid to find filled a hole in my heart, despite all my reservations. But my heart was still like swiss cheese, and the other holes mocked me, reminding me that if I continued down this path with Grant, I’d have a lot more to lose.

I took a deep breath and fought the fear that clung to the future moments, a fear that all this could end.