She has a small freckle in her left eye, just to the right of her iris. I don’t know how I never noticed it before.
Heat races up my neck and floods my body. I clear my throat and break our eye contact. “Not much.”
“Do you really think people would want merchandise for the store?”
“Absolutely,” I say, giving her a nod of assurance. “People eat that shit up.”
She shifts her body and her thigh presses against mine as she flattens the paper down on the floor. She leans away to reach into her bag for a pen. A sliver of skin on her torso appears as her sweatshirt rides up. As quick as I notice it, I drop my gaze back down to the plans, and she sits back upright. “Here,” she says, handing the pen to me. “Add your ideas.”
She wants me to draw on her plans? I’m a little shocked she trusts me this much. I study her eyes, looking for any sign that she’s not serious. “Yeah?”
“Yeah! Your ideas are good.” She presses the pen into my hand. “We’re a team, aren’t we?”
Her fingers brush against the inside of my palm and my heart stutters. I curl my fingers, wrapping them around the writing utensil. “We are.” My voice catches in my throat—low and gravelly—when I say this next part. “I always wanted you on my team when we were younger.”
Her mouth twitches with a hint of a smile and her eyes glimmer in the fluorescent lights. “I thought it was just because you felt bad that no one else wanted me on theirs.”
I shake my head. “Absolutely not. I would have picked you over everyone then, and I still would.” I pause, realizing what I just said and how she might take it.Shit, why did I say that?
“I wanted to ask you—what happened the other day? I told you I talked to Harrison and your whole demeanor changed.”
She ducks her head, shaking it as she lets out a soft laugh. “Oh yeah, it was nothing.”
“No, tell me.”
She lifts her head up and I catch a little bit of sadness in her eyes. “It was so childish, but it felt like when I mentioned the rink, you seemed dismissive but then talking to him changed your mind.”
I stop. My heart hammers harder. “You wanted to be the one to change my mind?”
She shrugs and a pink tint creeps across her cheeks. “I told you it was childish.”
“You were the one who changed my mind,” I admit, my voice quiet. “You always believe in me, Willow. You always have. You suggested buying it like it was so simple because you always have this faith in me that I can do anything.”
“Because you can.”
A smile lifts the corners of my lips. “That’s what changed my mind. Not Harrison. Not anyone else.”
Her lips twitch with a small smile. “Good,” she says softly and something unreadable shimmers in her eyes. She taps the paper with her finger. “Get to it, Miller. We’re running out of time.”
I chuckle as I click the end of the pen and start jotting down my ideas. Here she is thinking we’re running out of time, but maybe we aren’t. Maybe this is just the beginning.
Maybe we have nothing but time…
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
WILLOW
Dr. Grey’s tail taps my hand on the keyboard as I wait for Jace to come out from the back. I was on my way to the shop to grab some packages and something inside told me to stop by and leave some pastries for him, since he brought some to the shop the other day.
Tilting my head to the side, I stare back at the cat. She blinks so slow, almost like she’s bored of me. Jace mentioned that she can barely see in her one eye and I can’t help but wonder how much she truly can see.
I scan the rest of her face, then trail down along her body when my breath catches in my throat. My gaze flashes back to her left ear. I didn’t notice it at first, but now that I see it, it’s all I can focus on. Along the left side of her ear, there’s the smallest little indent, as if there was an injury there at one point.
As if she were found as a small kitten with a little piece of her ear missing.
I stare at her a little harder and she cocks her head, almost as if she sees me for a second. My eyes widen as I slowly connect the dots.
“It can’t be.” My brow furrows and I slowly lean forward, resting my left forearm on the desk as I slowly smooth my palmalong her soft fur. There’s a chance she’s one of the kittens I found last summer.
