Grace and I live in the same town, so I can’t avoid her forever. Once I’m ordained as a priest, I’ll return to Portland. We’ll most likely meet and interact—if she doesn’t move away. I need to get used to talking to her without feeling as if my heart will burst through my chest and land at her feet. I need to get rid of this curiosity that has had me in its talons since the day we met.
“I saw you sitting here and thought I’d stop by and say hi.”
Seriously? Did those words come out of my mouth?
So. Lame.
“Uh-huh,” she murmurs and returns her focus to whatever she’s doing. This is a dismissal if I ever saw one. Regardless, I forge on. I’ve no idea where all this courage is coming from, but all of a sudden, I find myself determined to crack her cool façade.
I take advantage of our proximity and drink her in. Her features have matured with age. Her cheekbones are more defined, her nose turned up at the tip. Her full lips turned upward at the corners as if she’s holding back a secret smile, a contrast to the frown bunching her eyebrows. She bites her bottom lip between her teeth and huffs a frustrated breath.
Wondering what’s made her so angry, I lean forward and catch a glimpse of a spreadsheet filled with numbers on the laptop screen.
Her head snaps back, her eyes narrowing with suspicion.
“Need help?” I ask even though math makes me want to rip my eyes out. Her brows dip even further.
She ducks her head, but not before I see her lips twitch. “Oh, puh-leeze. We both know math isn’t your strong suit, Solomon.”
Seeing that small smile she’s trying to hide fuels me forward. With my gaze fixed on hers, I slide onto the seat opposite her, leaning forward to prop my elbows on the table.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she asks, sounding panicked and no longer pretending to be detached.
At that moment, I see fear in her wide eyes before irritation takes over, but it’s enough for me to realize that the need to ward off people with her attitude might actually be due to fear and anxiety. Apparently, she’s more like me than I realized.
Suddenly, I don’t feel as nervous around her as I was before.
Her lips form a thin line, and she exhales a frustrated breath. “Don’t you have a gazebo to finish repairing?” She jerks her thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the square.
I press my lips together to stop from grinning. She probably doesn’t realize that she just unknowingly let it slip that she knew my whereabouts even though she’s trying really hard to send me running from the booth.
Has she been watching me?
I sit back and watch her as she squirms under my gaze.
“I don’t have time for this.” She pulls the laptop forward and starts to type, dismissing me for the second time.
“I’m really trying here, Grace.” Why the heck am I bothering anyway if she’s just going to bite my head off?
“Trying to do what, Sol?” One brow goes up in question, her eyes still on the screen.
I rub the nape of my neck with a hand. “Look, can we start over?”
Her fingers freeze in the air on top of the keyboard, and she looks at me. “You don’t want to do this.” All of a sudden her eyes narrow with suspicion. “Did someone put you up to this?”
Good God. Why does she have to make it so hard for someone to talk to her? I can see why people choose to keep a safe distance.“Wow, Grace. Your reputation precedes you,” I say before I can stop myself.
Her head jerks up, her eyes wide in panic. The look vanishes as soon as it appeared.
Her nostrils flare, and she bites out, “You’ll have to be more specific than that.”
I blink at her, confused.
“So which one is it?” After a beat, she adds, “My reputation. The one that says I’m a bitch or the one that says I’m easy?”
Wait, what just happened?
Understanding dawns on me and dread quickly follows behind. I want to kick my ass all the way out of Deb’s Diner. “Grace—”
“So you’re here to see if you can get lucky, aren’t you? Jesus. I thought that shit would stay in high school after graduation.” She slumps back in her seat and drops her gaze to her laptop. “Leave.”
I study her for a few seconds. “Shit, Grace. That’s not what I meant.”
“Leave,” she bites out, but I can hear the pain she’s trying so hard to hide through the anger.
I scoot out of the booth and stand in the aisle, but her gaze remains on the table in front of her.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.” I glance around the restaurant before taking a step in her direction and stop. “You’re terrified of anyone getting close to you. I get it. But don’t slam doors in the face of someone who’s just trying to be your friend. Not everyone is like those guys back in high school.” I lean my head closer. Still, her head stays down. “I know you try so hard to be forgotten, Grace, but I see you. And now I know you see me, too.”
With that, I pull back and spin around without waiting for her response. But before I can get far, she calls my name. I stop and face her once more. Her gaze meets mine.
“Fuck you, Solomon Callan.”
I flinch at her words. “All I want is to be your friend,” I say again.
She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Haven’t you heard? Talking to me or being seen with me is enough to tarnish the reputation of a good boy like you.”
Wow, this conversation went south real quick. From the looks of it, there’s no way of repairing the damage I’ve caused with my careless words.
I walk back to our booth where Ivan is still seated, feeling like a monumental asshole.
“Looks like you made quite an impression,” he muses as soon as I settle across from him.
“You think?” I retort.
It rubs me the wrong way that she thinks so low of me. Clearly, she needs some sort of enlightenment. I might rub one out every now and then while thinking about that elegant curve of her neck—God, forgive me—but getting in her pants is not what I had in mind when I approached her.
I grab the menu and pretend to peruse it. “Let’s order; I’m starving. If I have to wait one more second, I might end up eating my own foot.”
“She’s probably just having a bad day,” Ivan mutters, obviously trying to excuse her behavior.
I shrug. “Maybe.”
“Or she’s PMSing,” he muses thoughtfully. “MJ turns into a foul-mouthed beast when she’s going through that.” He pauses. “Speak of the devil . . .” He trails off as the sound of a door squeaking closed joins the diner’s hubbub.
I look up and see MJ, Ivan’s girlfriend, scoot in next to him on the seat and plant a kiss on his mouth. She and Ivan have known each other since childhood, before her parents packed up and left Portland for New York. They only started dating after graduation a few weeks ago when she came back to Portland to visit her grandmother.
She leans back and focuses her green eyes on me, smiling. “Did you finally talk to her?”
“Hello to you, too, Mary-Jane,” I say, shooting Ivan a lethal glare. I should have known that nothing is sacred when it comes to these two. Of course he’d tell his girlfriend everything.