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She stepped back, studied the results of her work, adjusted a couple of flowers.
“I could say the same about you.”
“Me? Not really. His is natural, innate. I had to work at mine. Youcan’t be shy waiting tables or tending bar—at least not if you want to pull tips. So that helped me push through.”
“‘Shy’ isn’t a word I’d use to describe you.”
“Not now.” She centered the vase on the island. “You didn’t know me when. I didn’t have a real date until college.”
“Were all the teenage boys blind and deaf?”
That not only earned him a smile, but she stepped over, kissed him. “I was the skinny new girl who didn’t have much to say for herself. The one who sat in class—fully prepared, because them’s the rules—but prayed the teacher wouldn’t call on her.
“Now, college, I knew I’d be there for four years, so I could reinvent myself a little. And I practiced.”
“You practiced?”
“Sure. Today, I’m going to speak to three people, and I’m going to pay attention to what they say. Today, I’m going into that coffee shop, and I’m not going to sit alone hunched over the table, because I’m going to get a job. After a while I didn’t have to think about it every time, or talk myself into it.”
She patted his chest. “You’ve always been confident. Some of us pretend to be until we learn to be.”
“Looks like you learned.”
“I did.” She walked back, adjusted one more flower in the vase. “I expect Liam was always surrounded by friends, or those who wished they were. Nell, popular girl, but not one of the mean clique. She had the looks, the style, the brains, and that sense of fair play. You? More the loner with a small, tight group of real friends. Like the police chief. None of you had to battle shyness because you always, always knew who you were. I had to figure out who I wanted to be, and, well, be.”
“And did you?”
“I did.” She leaned into him, comfortable, easy, with the flowers she’d arranged behind her. “He thought he stole that from me. Rozwell. That’s his purpose, to take who you are, erase it. For a while I thought he’d succeeded. But he didn’t. Whatever he took, I’m still me.”
He stroked a hand down her back. “It seems to me that who youare isn’t someone you had to figure out, just someone you had to dig out. She was always there.”
“That’s a nice way to think about it. And this.” She lifted her face, kissed him again. “This has been really nice. Now I have to go up and get ready for work. I don’t want to be late. The boss could fire me.”
The dog followed her upstairs. Miles nearly did himself, before he told himself to stop being ridiculous. When she came back a half hour later, hair styled, makeup perfect, uniform crisp, he sat at the counter working.
“Have to go. Have a good meeting tomorrow. And you.” She bent to the dog. “Be a good boy and play fetch with Miles.”
“Miles will no longer participate in that activity.”
“Hard-ass.” But she kissed him yet again.
He walked her to the door battling the urge to ask her to come back, to just come back again after she’d closed. And told himself it was too much and too fast.
He watched her walk to her car with the dog whimpering beside him. Maybe he regretted not asking her, but they both needed their own space, their own time.
When he closed the door, he found himself annoyed by the silence, and annoyed he felt annoyed by it.
He liked the quiet.
He went back, grabbed what was left of his beer, his laptop, took them both outside. And went back to work.
The meal portion of the family meeting would consist of chops on the grill, basted in his grandfather’s special sauce, his grandmother’s potato salad, grilled vegetables, and his mother’s strawberry shortcake.
But business came before food, and for this, they gathered around the dining room table with glasses of sun tea or lemonade.
Events—summer weddings, engagement parties, family reunions, a few new fall packages under consideration.
Nell discussed Nick’s promotion, some changes to menus, and the success of—and the glitches in—Picnic by the Lake.
