Bottom line is if he stays away from Amelia, I’ll have no problems with him, even if some primitive senses deep within me are humming in warning. The man’s not my problem.
“So glad you like it,” he says, hands on the end of the table now, leaning over to get closer to us, like he’s sharing a secret. “That pesto is a family recipe with a secret ingredient, and I grewthe basil myself. I convinced the boss to let me start an herb garden, next is gonna be a vegetable garden, if I’m lucky, but she’s a tough sell. I gotta keep working on her.” He winks at us, and I think my momgiggles.
“CHEF!” Lexi’s voice could shatter glass and thank God the lunch rush is over and there’s few patrons here besides my mother and me at this point.
“Whoops, gotta go,” he whispers to us at full volume, and then he lumbers off, back to the kitchen. “Coming, boss!” he hollers out to her as he goes.
Cheeks flushed, my mother looks at me and trills, “Well, he seems interesting.”
TWENTY-TWO
AMELIA
“Let’s get started,” Rory says, stepping around her desk in the New Heights office to take a seat across from me.
I sit in front of her, the optimist in me trying to convince me this is agoodtalk. That her text didn’t mean something bad. We’re just going over the terms of the grant and what it means.
But if that’s the case, why is my stomach sinking further and further down the longer I sit here, her professional façade impenetrable, not the familiar casual elegance I’m used to from her.
“Let’s.” I try to force my voice to sound chipper, and I hope she doesn’t notice the strain in it.
Three family dinners and two girls’ nights out might not be enough for her to pick up on things like that from me just yet.
It took Weston less than an hour to learn my tells, but he’s clearly one of a kind.
“Your grant paperwork came back with some questions,” she says, tone diplomatic and neutral, without a hint of the inviting warmth I’ve gotten so used to, as she pulls a printout out from somewhere beneath her desk.
My stomach, already hovering somewhere around my asshole, hollows. I don’t think I ever grasped how scary this woman can be. Maybe I still don’t.
“What kind of questions?” I ask, my voice even higher pitched than normal.
“Well, one point that needed clarification was your income.”
Rory uses a glittering pen to tap at the section I recognize from when she helped me fill out the paperwork. Employer name and wages, and then I had to submit proof of those. That was all factual.
“Mmm?” Words don’t seem to be coming to me right now.
“There was concern that your income hasn’t been very stable in recent months, that you aren’t meeting the minimum threshold to qualify for the grant geared toward remote workers.”
“Oh.” My voice falls flat.
My work lately has been less than great. That’s why Weston let me help him with painting, so he could split his earnings with me and free up his time to work on my engine. But even working with him, it’s not like that was exactly a formal job that I can put on the paperwork, and it wouldn’t qualify as a remote position, either, so that’s no help to me with this.
Unless I want to get a job here more permanently and swap the grant I’m applying for… I guess that was a fun pipe dream while it lasted.
Nope, today’s a day the pessimist in me is going to win. The optimist got too long of a run anyway. I should buckle up now before this ride dips any lower because, knowing my luck, it can go alotlower. Like six feet under.
Rory continues, still brusque with me in a way that confirms half of me was right. The shitstorm is just beginning. “That doesn’t mean we can’t still get you approved for that one. And there are other options. If you decide to take a job locally, oropen your own business here, we do have other grants you may qualify for.”
Why does she sound so detached? Is this how she always sounds and I’ve never noticed?
Or are the alarm bells ringing in my head indicative of real danger here? The kind I haven’t had to run from in so long I almost let myself get comfortable for a minute.
“Now, I know when you filed this I said you didn’t have to make up your mind until the approval was back,” she continues, “but I would strongly suggest you not resubmit your application, nor swap to another grant type, without the intention of residing here permanently.”
Her brows rise ever so slightly, in challenge.
Does she know?
