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I’ve never been more grateful for kids and their short attention spans.
The little girl takes my hand and marches us out, nearly dragging me from the kitchen with her pint-sized energy.
I stumble after her, but not without stealing one more wondering look at Grant. If I’m gobsmacked, the look on his face says he’s—
I don’t even know.
He’s wearing that particularly strange, impassable look I’ve never quite deciphered.
Only, now I wonder if I’ve just always misunderstood it.
Because I feel like I know that look.
That look screamswant.
And it belongs to a man who’s staring at something he desperately wants and thinks he can never have.
Oh my God.
I’m imagining this, right?
I wonder if the creeper who showed up at Mom’s house actually knocked my head into something and this is all a wild hallucination.
Maybe I’ll wake up in a hospital bed in a life where kissing Grant Faircross isn’t the craziest thing possible. Because the fact that he might have feelings is.
But when our eyes lock, I feel something tighten deep inside me, swirling emotions drawn up into a sweet knot of curiosity and yearning and—
Hope.
There, I said it.
I’ve given myself over to the most dangerous emotion possible after I’ve tried to tell myself for ages I couldn’t possibly feel anything for him.
Not after he chased me out of Redhaven with a flaming word of guilt.
Turns out, I lied.
Deep in my bones, there’s a fresh hope beating faster than my own rabbiting heart, silently announcing how I’ve ached for him, and begging him to ache for me, too.
* * *
Look,I’ve been in awkward situations before.
Flubbing my words on an oral exam and saying something very,verysalacious when I meant something very clinical back when I was grinding away for my nursing license.
Like doing catheter duty and not realizing an elderly man with severe hypospadias had his, um, opening more than an inch below the tip of his junk. He howled with laughter while I searched frantically, and then spent the next hour apologizing until I was blue in the face.
Or the time I didn’t realize the friendly older doctor I thought of as a father figure and mentor only asked me to accompany him to a medical awards ceremony because he wanted to get handsy in the back of his car. Yes, I actually had to knee him in the balls and run with my heels dangling from my hand and my pride just as bruised as his balls.
Somehow, it’s nowhere near as awkward as the post-kiss-that-never-should’ve-happened dinner with Grant.
We both avoid looking at each other the whole time like a single glance will turn us into a puff of ash.
The only one who seems remotely comfortable right now is Nell.
In fact, the little monster has clammed up happily.
On the surface, she’s being perfectly obedient by not egging on the mess she helped create. But it’s not hard to tell she likes watching us squirm.
