I don’t really know what swooning feels like because I’ve never swooned for any man before, but that’s got to be what that aww-melty-I-fucking-can’t-resist-this-man feeling is.
Anyway, I’d texted back to ask what ‘going to work with Josh’ meant but hadn’t gotten a reply until I’d looked at my phone this morning.
His reply had come in at two a.m., and it had been just a series of emojis. A fire truck, a flame, a grinning face, a head exploding emoji—which I hope means his mind was blown by something and not that he actually saw someone’s head explode—and a face with stars in the eyes.
Now I’m sitting at the counter, picking at my pancakes at seven a.m., and wondering if I can sneak up to his apartment without Bruce noticing because I really want to know more about why and how Alex had gone to work with Josh.
And maybe kiss Alex in a way that the public shouldn't see.
“What are you doing here?”
I look over as Ruth climbs up on the stool next to me.
“Having breakfast. Why is that weird?” I ask. Verynotnonchalantly.
She grins. “Because it’s super early and you never get pancakes during the week. You only get yogurt or smoothies,” she says, setting her school backpack on the stool next to her.
Thea drops Ruth off here for breakfast every morning on her way to her physical therapy clinic, and Ruth either walks with her friends from here or Harley comes over and gives them a ride.
“I get pancakes sometimes.” I take a bite. “I love pancakes.”
“But they take too long on a weekday. You only get them on the weekends.”
Bruce comes through the door from the kitchen with Ruth’s breakfast. “She’s been here for half an hour already,” he tells her, setting down her omelet and toast.
“You were here at six thirty?” she asks, jumping off her stool to go behind the counter to pour a glass of juice.
“So? I come in early sometimes,” I say.
Bruce is writing on two sticky notes. “But only when you have a really good reason.”
“Maybe I do.”
“I’m sure you do,” he agrees. “But he’s not up there.”
“Where is…” I stop myself. “Who?” I ask. But it’s obviously too late.
Bruce actually grins as he leans over the counter and affixes the sticky notes to the stands for the day’s straw poll.
What’s more fun? Early morning fishing. Watching the Revelers and Rascals play hockey?
I lift wide eyes to my step-grandfather. “It’s not even a question about Alex today?”
He points at the note about the hockey teams. “I’d say that’s about him, at least partly.”
I smile. “Yes, it is.” He’s definitely a part of the teams, and how fun it is to watch them.
“He left with Quinn about ten minutes before you came in,” he says.
I’m not going to keep pretending that I don’t know what he’s talking about. “He left withQuinn? What for?”
“He’s going to work with her for a bit,” Bruce says, lifting a shoulder. “She’s doing some landscaping over at the Carpenters’ place.”
“He texted me at two a.m.!” I exclaim. “He was out working with Josh.”
“I know,” Bruce says.
“They were at a fire seven miles west of Bad,” Gerald Collins calls out.
