They sat there for at least two hours, and still, Diana could have easily stayed there for another few hours.
Eventually, Eloise got distracted by using the sandwich toothpicks to try to build a little pyramid, grapes serving as the anchor points to connected the different sticks. Diana noticed that she and Anthony had scooted gradually closer to one another until they were seated close enough that her pinky brushed the outside of his hand where they were both bracing their palms against the picnic blanket. She felt a little spark of electricity jump between that barely-there point of contact. Part of her felt a like a giddy teenager again, trembling with excitement when she nudged her crush in the hallway at school.
“This was amazing,” she said quietly to him as Eloise muttered to herself about toothpick physics. “Like, seriously amazing. I don’t know how to thank you enough.”
He began shaking his head before she was even done speaking.
“No thanks necessary. I told you, I want to spend more time with you.” He paused, glancing over to where Eloise was eyeing her tower critically. “I didn’t exactly plan for my daughter to be present when that happened but…”
“But Eloise is precious and wonderful and it feels right, having her here,” Diana said, which made Anthony beam with parental pride. “Besides, you’re not as good at talking about books as she is.”
He laughed. “No, that is true enough. Still, I had also thought that I would, you know,askyou before our next encounter.”
She looked out over her store, lit up with little lights, full of the remnants of a delicious meal, and full of people she was beginning to care about a great deal.
“No,” she said quietly, half to herself. “This was perfect.” Then she gave him a look. “I mean, next time, ask me. But for tonight, this was perfect.”
A bright, hopeful look crossed his features. “Next time?”
She nodded. “This date was about a million times better than any of the ones I’ve gone on after meeting somebody on a dating app… and it wasn’t just because of the venue or the picnic, as wonderful as both things were.” She felt herself blushing as she admitted, “It was because of the company.”
His answering smile made her feel practically giddy.
“Diana,” he said seriously, “I would really like to kiss you now.”
“I would really like that too.”
They had to be quick, as by unspoken agreement, neither of them wished to grab Eloise’s attention. But she was stilldistracted, so they dared a brush of their lips against one another, just a brief press of mouths that, for all its brevity and chaste nature, still sent a thrill through Diana.
The lighting in the room was dim, but she thought she saw a blush on Anthony’s cheeks. Maybe he too, felt the thrill.
They turned back to Eloise, offering praise when she presented her toothpick geometry with pride. And if their hands inched a little closer together, so that they were touching, their pinkies hooked together, well… Eloise didn’t notice, and that was good enough for Diana.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Eleanor was half tempted to pinch herself as she stared out at the space before her. This had to be a dream, right?
Although if itwasa dream, it was one from which she did not want to wake up, so she was going to hold off on the pinching, actually.
“Looks pretty good, huh?”
Eleanor turned to see Garrett coming in from the kitchen, two mugs of coffee in his hand. She accepted one with a murmur of thanks and took a deep sip. It was made just the way she liked it.
“That’s decaf, by the way,” he said with his typical barely-there smile, which remained, as ever, hidden beneath his bush of a beard. “You’re already practically vibrating. I didn’t think we needed to add any more caffeine to the mix.”
“That’s probably fair.” Eleanor huffed a little laugh. The bookstore’s opening day festivities weren’t set to start for another hour, but she had woken up with a jolt at about four that morning, only to find herself too excited to go back to sleep.
It was just all sowonderful.
The bookshelf made for a perfect centerpiece that made it more than worth all the drama that had led to acquiringand building it. The shelves were all stacked with neat, colorful spines of books, a few select choices facing outward so that readers could get the full effect of the covers. Eleanor had decorated different sections to accompany their themes; woodland creatures for the children’s section, a plush dragon perched atop the bookshelf in the fantasy section, stars and moons painted on the sides of the shelves that housed the science fiction texts. She had been alittleworried, when she’d first had this idea, that it would be too much, somehow, that it would make the whole thing look too cluttered or too cutesy. But Diana and Cadence, her two visual design-minded friends, had encouraged her, emphasizing the importance of trusting the process.
And it had turned out just as Eleanor had first envisioned it. No, evenbetterthan she had envisioned it.
“You happy, Ellie?”
Eleanor tore her eyes away from her store to look at Garrett. Her boyfriend was gazing down at her with adoration… and determination, as if he planned to take action against anything that dared not make her happy. That look filled her with tenderness. Garrett might have a rough exterior, but once he let you in, he was little more than a big old marshmallow. She adored him for it.
“I’m very happy,” she assured him. “But also kind of in shock. There were some points where it really seemed like we would never get here.”
