I peeked. Under the beard, he was smiling. “I actually don’t have anything against flannel shirts.”
His eyes glinted with amusement. “Sure.”
I thought of telling him about the flannel shirt I pulled out sometimes for comfort and then decided to let it go. I’d exposed enough. “My point is, I had my whole life sort of planned. Away from Mackinac. And now there’s this bend in the road.”
“You’ll be fine.”
The words raised echoes of a starlit night long ago. “So you said. Before. That night…The summer before I went away to school.”
“It’s different now,” he said.
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” I confessed. “Like, I’ll either lose my job and be living with my mom until I’m forty-five, or I go back to Chicago and I’m alone with my books and acat and a bunch of dying plants.” The words tripped over one another. “Not that I would hate that. I like books. And cats. But what if I never find the One? I could die alone and never have sex again.”
“Not happening,” Joe said firmly.
“Is that an offer?”
He laughed. The jerk. “When I said this was different, I meant you’re not the same person who left six years ago. You’ve learned things. Done things. You’re not going to lose all that knowledge and experience just because you move home.”
“Oh.” I was silent, digesting that. “Thanks.”
He met my gaze, that little smile touching his mouth. The connection tingled from my collarbone to my knees. “Anytime.”
And then he didn’t talk to me for a week.
—
“I talked tomy mom,” Hailey announced, her face shining with excitement. “She’s going to help us with the food for the tea party.”
“That’s wonderful.” I grinned at my mother, folding fudge on a marble slab. “Imagine that. Mother-daughter bonding over baking.”
Mom’s lips twitched. “I don’t hear you asking to make fudge.”
“Because the last time I tried, I burned the whole batch.”
“You were fifteen. Guess you’ve learned something since then. I can let you have some fudge,” Mom said to Hailey. “If you want.”
“That would be great! We’re making layer cake, pound cake, two kinds of pie, and three kinds of cookies and scones.”
“How many people are coming to this party?” Mom asked.
“I’ll come,” Zoe said from behind the register. “If I’m invited.”
“It’s your party,” I said to Hailey.
“Of course you can come! You’re invited, too, Mrs.G.”
“Can I bring Beverly?” Zoe asked. “She loves Anne of Green Gables.”
Hailey’s forehead crinkled. “Mrs.Powell?”
“Hey, teachers are people, too,” I said. And Mrs.Powell was the one who had put Anne’s book in my father’s hands all those years ago. It would be good to catch up.
“Sure, okay. You can bring a date, too, if you want,” Hailey said generously to me.
My mind flitted to Joe. Not that we were dating. We weren’t having sex. He’d barely even spoken to me since we got back.
“Ask Daanis,” Mom said.
