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Chapter 6
The idea of meeting up with Grant again made me more jittery than I was willing to admit, but my curiosity grew with each interaction we had. When I arrived at the house, I brought in my container of muffins and set them on the counter, like a peace treaty.
When Grant pulled into the driveway in his beat-up muted red Chevrolet, I found myself straightening my skirt and brushing my fingers through my hair. He knocked twice on the door, and when I came to answer, I was surprised to see just him and none of his coworkers.
“Where’s Beau?” It was the first thing out of my mouth. He looked right past me.
“Nice to see you too.”
I mentioned the muffins on the counter, and he just made a small sarcastic snort. Okay then, so much for a peace treaty.
“So, did you get a key made?”
Yes, and I shouldn’t give it to you, considering how terrible your attitude is now. “Yeah. Here you go.” I held out the key copy, which was cut out with yellow paint and pink flowers on it. He raised one eyebrow and stared at my hand before hesitantly grabbing the key.
The second his hand brushed past mine, warmth spread throughout my body. My fingertips felt hypersensitive to his callused ones. He must have thought it, too, because he jerked back quicker than I could. Or he genuinely was that annoyed with me.
While he was distracted by measuring the countertops, I took a moment to get a good look at Grant. His dark brown hair was shoved into that same ratty Braves cap with a contractor pencil stuck behind his ear. His brown eyes focused on the measuring tape below him, and I watched his every movement. His Carhartt’s were hanging over his work boots coated in dried mud, and his navy blue shirt was covered in dirt stains and seemed a little too tight. The shirt molds into his back muscles with every stretch he made to show off all of his fit lines. Not many men around Lakeshore were built like this. We succumbed to either creepy older men or nineteen-year-old frat boys in this town.
To break the uneasy silence, and as an attempt at figuring out this odd man, I asked him a few questions.
“So, how much do you work?”
“Seven days a week.”
“What about hobbies?”
“This is my hobby.”
“Do you do anything other than work?”
“No.”
“What about your friends? You must hang out with them?”
He placed the measuring tape on the countertop loudly. “Are you going to spend all morning pestering me about my personal life?”
I placed my elbows on the counter and leaned over. “Maybe. It’s kind of fun trying to read you. You have a perfect poker face.”
He looked me dead in the eyes. “This is just my face.”
I would probably giggle if he didn’t look so stern, but I was sure now was not the time. The next thirty minutes were filled with me asking him questions and him deflecting with dry answers.
Grant was like a big vault with a code you couldn’t figure out. And it was confusing because I wanted to take a hammer to the vault and beat it till it opened, but I also wanted to whisper nice things to it, say the magic words, and watch it open up to me slowly.
I tended to ask too many questions, especially since I spent most of my time with six-year-olds who asked ‘why?’ every time I opened my mouth. After seeing how annoyed he was getting, I decided to stop distracting him from work and grabbed my keys.
“All right, well, I guess I better let you get to it.”
As I headed toward the back door, he quickly replied, “Wait—uh. What about you? What do you do outside of work and stuff?”
I turned back on my heel to humor him. “I spend a lot of time with my best friend, go to different school events, volunteer, paint, bake, and shop. You know, basic stuff.”
He looked at my hands, which were fidgeting with my keys. “That sounds about right.”
I cocked my head to the side in confusion. “What does that mean exactly?”
As he opened his mouth to reply, my phone rang loudly in my hand, which made both of us jump a little.
