Her lips twitched. “No, I did not.”
He smacked his forehead like something had just occurred to him. “Oh.Then you must have threatened me with dire retribution if I left!”
“Okay, okay, I see what you’re saying,” she said, rolling her eyes playfully.
He crossed to her and put his hands on his shoulders. “You don’t have to apologize to me for being here for you,” he said, his tone shifting into seriousness in a flash. “And before you even start, you don’t have to thank me either. Iwantto be here for you.”
“What if Iwantto thank you?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Nice try. I see that you’re trying to build a loophole, but the committee has denied your request.”
She reached up and grasped his hand in hers. “Okay, well, then please just know that I am exceedingly appreciative, especially since I know that you have to be up so early for work in the morning.”
He did wince at that. “Yeah, okay, that’s not going to be fun, but I’ll grab an extra cup of coffee. I’ll be fine. It won’t be worse than when Izzy was up all hours every night.”
“Fair enough.” Those years had beentough.
“And,” he continued, “after I’m done working, I’ll come by to help finish the cleanup.” When she opened her mouth, he placed a finger over her lips. “No arguments, Cadence.”
“Fine,” she grumbled. “Thank you.”
“Hm, sneaking that loophole in. Very slick, Meadows. Okay, okay. If I don’t head out of here now, I’m never going to get gone.” He leaned in and gave her a peck on the cheek.
Cadence wished very much that it had been more.
“Bye. See you tomorrow.”
That part, she liked.
“See you tomorrow, Cadence,” he said. He seemed as though he enjoyed the words as much as she did.
After he left, pausing to shoot her a wave before he climbed up into his truck, Cadence pressed her hands to her chest as her eyes filled with tears. Tonight had been a real indication of Tyler walking the walk, not just talking the talk. He had been patient, selfish, intentional. He’d acted all the ways he said he had wanted to act.
And this had confirmed something she’d been suspecting for a while now.
She wanted to give him another chance. She truly, truly did.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“I don’t know how you do that,” Garrett commented as he pulled to a stop at a red light. Eleanor was touching up her lipstick using the mirror in the passenger seat visor.
“Put on makeup?” she asked absently, checking for smudges.
“In thecar,” he explained. “How you don’t end up with lipstick up to your eyeballs is a mystery to me. Have you considered giving up this whole bookstore thing and becoming a surgeon? I think you have the steady hands for it.”
“Oh, bite your tongue,” she said with a laugh. “I’m not giving up the bookstore when we’re this close! And blood makes me squeamish,” she admitted. “Whenever Jeremy came home with scrapes, I had to pretend it was ketchup so I could patch him up without getting queasy.”
“Okay, maybe not surgery, then,” he allowed.
“And if you think this is impressive,” she continued, capping her lipstick so she could blot carefully against a tissue, “you should have seen me when I was young. I would do my eyeliner in the car back then. It makes me shudder now just thinking about it. I’m lucky I didn’t lose an eye!”
“The follies of youth,” he said. “But, to your point, I never want to see that. I would pull over immediately, thank you very much.”
“So responsible,” she teased.
He reached over and squeezed her hand before, responsible as always, putting both hands on the steering wheel as the light turned green.
They were on their way to Anchor Bistro to see June perform at the open mic night.Eleanor had planned to start getting ready earlier, she really had, but she’d gotten caught up in installing some of the bookshelves that had arrived at the shop the day prior. She had started out confident that she’d gotten them secured to her walls properly, then promptly second-guessed herself and asked Garrett to come check her work.
