She really was so beautiful.
Why, he asked himself, are you thinking about that?
He didn’t have to answer. He could see.
Shaking his head, he smiled back at her and asked, “How many daiquiris can a guy be expected to drink in one morning?”
She nodded. “Good point. What’s happening?”
“I am here to be a partially useful laborer. You can have the use of both of my arms, both legs, and about half my brain.” The rest of my brain, he did not say, is busy thinking about this girl I know.
“That’s a pretty good offer,” she said. “And it just so happens that I have a job for half a brain. Follow me.”
She led him through a maze of book stacks, tables, and shelf units until they ended up in a nook by the rear wall.
“I’m about to blow your mind,” she said.
He fought the urge to reach for her. She was completely irresistible. “Thank you for the warning.”
“My pleasure. Okay. These two boxes,” she gestured to the two hulking cardboard containers taking up most of the nook, “have board games in them. I have this fantasy of creating one of those board-game diners in here.”
“You’re turning this into a restaurant?”
“No, but I’m zoned to sell and serve food in here. We’ll start with pastries, and maybe move into the intricacies of soup and sandwiches sometime in the future. But for now, I want to make this area of the store the game sector. Square tables here and here, funky lamps hanging over each, shelves full of board games that people can come in and play. Good, right?”
He could see how excited she was by the idea.
“Great,” he said. “I love it.”
She looked at him sideways. “Really?” she asked. The vulnerability in her voice stopped him from answering glibly.
“Really,” he said. “I think it’s a great idea.”
“You’re not going to tell me all the ways in which that’s inviting flood, fire, or famine?”
He shook his head. “Maybe later,” he said. He’d have to see how things looked before he’d make a judgment. Besides, he thought maybe she was joking.
She gave a halfhearted chuckle. “Want to hear what my dad said when I told him about it?”
“Depends. Will I still like him after you tell me?”
Shrugging, she said, “I still like him.”
“Okay. Tell me.”
“Ahem,” she said, clearing her throat and preparing to give a monologue. “Do you ever,” she said, hand on her heart and voice pitched low, “plan on making money in your store?”
“Ouch.” Fletcher watched her face for signs that her heart was broken. Hadley loved her parents, practically worshipped her dad, but sometimes they did not understand her. Looked like that hadn’t changed in the last few years.
“There are ways to turn the game-room thing into a money-maker,” she said, “but there’s something so much more awesome about just making this a place where people can come hang out. Make memories. Enjoy each other.”
Fletcher was having a hard time focusing on what Hadley was saying because that busy, non-resting half of his brain kept telling him that this would be a very good moment to kiss her.
Come on, brain, he thought. Stay with me.
“So how can I help make this free enterprise happen?” He asked, avoiding looking at her mouth. Almost avoiding looking at her mouth.
“If I bring you a chair and a very large Diet Coke, will you go through these board games and see if all the pieces are included?”
He looked at the boxes. They must have originally held washers and dryers. Industrial-sized ones.
“Okay,” he said, hoping that she would tell him the boxes also contained about two dozen throw pillows from Pier One taking up most of the space. These boxes were huge.
“Do you think you can handle it?” she asked.
Oh, now it was on. “Do you recall that I have a degree in engineering?”
She grinned at him. “Then one half of your engineering brain might be exactly what I’m looking for.” She reached behind one of the boxes and dragged out a paint-covered folding table. “Here, help me set this up,” she said. They unfolded the legs of the table and she pulled an armload of board games out of the first box.
Plopping them on the table, she promised to return with a tall, icy soda within “not too long,” which, in Hadley language, meant, if memory served, any time between five minutes from now and next February.
He slipped the lid off the first box. Every piece inside seemed to be in pristine condition, much of it still wrapped in plastic. He pulled everything out anyway and checked the pieces against the rule sheet. Looked great. He boxed it all back up and set it aside.
The next box was a game of Life, held together with duct tape that had turned brittle. When he opened it, he was hit with the smell of nostalgia, specifically his great-grandmother’s house. There was a hint of that smell here in the shop—the dusty, musty smell of old books—and the game board seemed to be made of that scent. The tiny cars that held pink and blue peg people, the spinning dial, the crumbling cards and stock certificates all held an air of antiquity that lent a strange gravity to the kids’ game. Fletcher went through the box, pulling out some of the pegs that seemed to have been chewed on, and decided that enough of the original pieces still existed that four people could play.
By the time Hadley came back, Fletcher had gone through eight games and three puzzles.
He pointed to a pile on the edge of the table. “These are keepers. That puzzle is still sealed, so it didn’t take much for me to decide it was all there. Those two,” he said, indicating the other puzzle boxes, “are a mess. So many different things are going on in there, I don’t really think you even want to look.”
“Great,” she said, and pulled the boxes to her heart. “I’ll find something to do with them.”
He pointed out the other piles. “These games have everything. This one smells like my grandma’s house. And these are missing one or two pieces, but I wrote down what they were so we can probably find them in there somewhere,” he said, indicating the giant boxes. “If you have access to the tables you want, we could get this up and running by next week.”
“Can you lift square dining room tables into your truck by next week?” she asked. “Because you and your truck are all part of my scheme.”
He didn’t need to answer because she had assumed (correctly) that he would say yes. To all of it.
She pulled another pile of games from the huge box and laid them on the table. “Back to work with you. Be a good boy and I’ll buy you lunch in an hour.” She patted him on the shoulder and left the room.
She seemed utterly unconcerned when she touched him. Like her skin didn’t ignite. How was that possible, when he felt like his entire body was going up in flames when she brushed past him?
He would have to keep it together. It was so new, so rare for her to allow him to help her with anything that he didn’t want to jinx it with saying something stupid about it getting hot in here. But when she stood beside him, when she turned to wave, yeah. Things were heating up.
And now, as he unfolded rule pages for games he’d never seen before or even heard of, it became absolutely necessary for him to learn if she’d been dating anyone while he’d been gone.
He could ask her, but he doubted he could keep the raw need for the answer to be “no” out of his face. He could ask his mom, but that idea had drawbacks, too. All the drawbacks.
But had she? Did she have a guy for any—all—of the years he’d been gone? While he finished school, those last two years after she’d left, he was angry enough that he actually didn’t care. He felt a little sorry for the idea of any guy who would get tangled up in the bizarre game of push and pull that Hadley Booth was so fond of.
Then there were the BLM years, when he spent grueling summers in jump squads, working himself to literal exhaustion everyday through summer and fall until the snow fell again in
October. He passed his winters in classrooms, teaching courses to trainee jumpers, and waiting for the spring so he could go back out again.
It felt surprising now that she hadn’t been on his mind all that time. Maybe his was an attraction that depended on proximity. Maybe there was nothing more to it than that.
But this didn’t explain why he woke up thinking of her every morning.
Or his sudden realization that he had no idea if she was dating anyone now.
He realized that he’d been counting and recounting discs without any idea of how many there were. He started again, placing all the white discs into a pile. Twelve. Great. Now the blue discs. One, two, three… how many men had Hadley dated since they broke up?
Start again. Four, five, six, seven, how long could he see her like this, around town by accident and in her shop on purpose without her realizing that he was falling for her all over again?
Wait. Where had that come from? He wasn’t falling. He was remembering what it had felt like to love her before. When he was a kid. All of that was in the past, except for the very present reactions he was having to her whenever she got close to him.
How many was that? Eight, nine, ten, eleven, what if he asked her out, like for real? Not that he’d been pretending when he took her out to lunch before, but the impulse had swept over him, and he’d surprised her into saying yes. Just like his dad had always taught him. Don’t give her a chance to think about it for too long, because she might say no. Thanks, Dad.
At the thought of his dad’s dating advice, Fletcher remembered talking over the breakup with his parents on a rare visit home from school. His mom had always loved Hadley, so he was careful in the way he talked about her when his mom was around. But later, when it was just him and his dad, he admitted that there was no way he could see them ever getting back together. She’d changed too much. They were incompatible now.
“To be fair,” his dad had said, “you’ve changed, too.”
“You think?” Remembering it now, his reaction seemed unnecessarily snotty.
His dad had eyed him sideways but continued. “This is the time you’re settling into who you’re going to be. Things that mattered to you in the past might not matter so much from here on. And things you didn’t care about might become crucial.”
Fletcher had sighed and flopped down on the couch. Putting his arms behind his head, he stared at the ceiling while he asked, “Did that happen to you? Like, to you and Mom? Did you become different after you were already together?”
“In a lot of ways, we did,” his dad had said, his voice soft. “But not too much in the ways that mattered most.”
“Do you think I’m overreacting?” Fletcher had asked.
His dad moved over to the couch and picked up Fletcher’s legs, sitting under them and letting them drop across his lap. “Fletcher, I know what it means to you to be needed. You know I do. And I don’t think you’ll ever be happy with a woman who can get along just fine with or without you. Not that I’m saying you ought to find a timid little mouse who will wait for you to begin every conversation, open every door, make every decision. That would be miserable. But I think you need someone who can depend on you and who you can depend on. You need to be part of a team. And if Hadley won’t play on the team, she’s got to go. Simple as that.”
Simple? Maybe. She moved away, and he never went looking for her. But easy? No, it had not been easy.
Now, sitting here next to this folding table covered with game pieces in a building curated by every delicious, crazy impulse that made Hadley who she was, Fletcher realized that he’d never been interested in dating anyone else for long because nobody was as exciting as Hadley. Nobody was as fun as Hadley. Nobody could match her sense of adventure, of exploration. Living in a BLM shack on the side of a mountain in Montana? It could have been an extended metaphor for his unwillingness to put himself in any dating scene where he’d hold up every woman to the memory of Hadley Booth.
Because every woman would come up short.
But it didn’t matter because she’d left. Because she didn’t need him.
She’d never need him.
And that was never going to change.
Especially not now, not now that she was doing everything she wanted to do, all by herself.
He felt himself slump, and he put his head in his hands.
When he felt a hand on his shoulder, he jumped up out of his seat.
“Hey,” Hadley said. “Hungry? We should go get lunch.”
He shoved the game pieces into the empty box, clearing off the mess in one swipe. “I better not,” he said. He handed her a piece of paper with his notes scrawled on it. “Good luck with this,” he said, gesturing to the room at large. “It’s going to be good.”
It’s going to be good. He continued to say that to himself as he walked back to his parents’ house. It’s going to be good. He’d figure out how to break himself of the Hadley habit. Again. He’d find a new way to feel that kind of electricity she brought into his life. He’d arrange his schedule so he wouldn’t accidentally see her in town.
And sooner or later, he’d learn to believe it. It’s going to be good.
Chapter 12
Hadley packaged up the next load of donations for Greensburg Cares for Kids and walked it to the fire station. If she hoped to run into Fletcher, she didn’t say so. Whom would she have told? Since the day last week when he’d come to help her at the shop, he’d been cold and silent. So much so that Hadley found reasons to say no to invitations from Rose. She knew she couldn’t say anything about him to Savanna, because Savanna seemed to like him less every day. Hadley would have liked to forget about Fletcher Gates, but her brain had a hard time convincing her heart it was a good idea.
She waved at Savanna through the station window and propped the huge box against the wall so she could open the door. Not that Savanna was thoughtless, but it wouldn’t have occurred to her to get out of her seat to open the door for Hadley. She chose to see this as a positive thing—Savanna knew Hadley was capable.
“Sit here and wait for me one minute,” Savanna said. “I have a meeting with the chief and then I have things to tell you.”
Because these might be things Hadley wanted to know, she agreed to wait.
Dropping the box in a corner, Hadley blew out a breath and grinned. It was getting cold outside, and afternoons became dark earlier every day. Autumn was Hadley’s favorite time of year. She loved the smell of chimney smoke rising up through the older neighborhoods, the cold nights and warm afternoons, high school football, and pumpkin spice everything.
This year she’d invited her family to come back to Greensburg for Thanksgiving at her place. Somehow, they’d agreed. It had seemed like such a nice idea until she actually began dealing with logistics.
Her kitchen held one small bistro table that could technically be surrounded by four chairs; however, setting four plates on the table would be pushing it. The couch in the living room was comfortable, and everyone could eat with plates balancing on their laps, but the whole equation changed when you added in Edison.
Every equation changed when Edison and her mom were both involved.
Hadley’s mom had always been pretty uptight, but after she’d started making embarrassing amounts of money, her uptightness had grown to unheard-of levels of propriety. Apparently, her money taught her that there were certain things that Were Done, and certain others that Were Not Done. Tech jobs Were Done. Seasonal capsule wardrobes Were Done. Vacations to obscure tropical islands Were Done. Tiny dogs in huge apartments Were Done. Spoiler: Huge dogs in tiny apartments? Were Not Done.
Hadley knew that with her parents and her sister coming for dinner, there was a small chance that they’d want to stay with her, but a significantly better chance that they’d stay in a hotel. She’d heard from Elias at the gym about a guy who’d recently renovated a historic house on the river into a bed and breakfast that was getting some decent attention from regional publications. Eli
as spent mornings there in the state-of-the-art gym doing personal training and group classes. She pulled out her phone and sent him a text, asking if he’d find out if there were a couple of rooms for the Thanksgiving weekend.
He answered back right away.
For you? Anything. I’ll make it happen.
For my parents, actually, and thanks.
They’re catering turkey dinner. You want reservations?
Not a bad idea, but Hadley was certain that Thanksgiving dinner delivered in any way other than homemade was Not Done.
Can’t make it. But 4 for Friday breakfast?
Crème brulee French toast…
(insert yummy noises) I’ll save room.
And then we’ll work it off.
She would have preferred to at least think about the decadent breakfast before planning how to minimize the calorie excess, but Elias thought about that kind of thing all day, every day.
Sleeping arrangements taken care of, Hadley began a list on her phone of what she’d need for the dinner. Turkey. Potatoes. Pie. Rolls. Something green. Cheese platter. Whichever color of wine Was Done with turkey.
Savanna’s “one minute” meeting was lasting longer than Hadley was willing to wait. Every passing moment was another chance for Fletcher to walk in and find her there and pointedly not speak with her. It was so confusing. She thought that things had been going so well between them, but now he was freezing her out. No thank you. She’d rather not experience that today.
She closed the notes on her phone and was ready to leave when the door opened from the engine bay and Nick Baxter came into the reception room.
“Hadley!” Nick looked as happy as he could possibly be to see her.
“Hi, Nick,” she said. The idea of sitting here waiting for Savanna and chatting with Eager Nick made Hadley tired. “I’m just heading out.”
“Oh, is that your box of donations?” he asked. “You’re amazing. So much good stuff. On our last call we ended up handing out a bunch of blankets.”
Always You: A Sweet Romantic Comedy (ABCs of Love Collection Books 5-8) Page 28