He sighed and rubbed at his forehead. He wasn’t getting anywhere with these thoughts, just like he hadn’t gotten anywhere with them in the days that they’d been running around his brain.
He forced himself to refocus on the hinge. It wasbentbut not exactlybroken. If he could bend it back into place, it would hang right again. That would save the expense of replacing it, and Garrett always believed in fixing something when it could be repaired, instead of defaulting to purchasing a new one. Besides, if he recalled correctly, these hinges had been special ordered. Who even knew if the manufacturer was still making this exact model? If he couldn’t fix this one, he’d have to send out for a new one, possibly a new set, and that would leave the sign hanging crooked for a while.
He thought he could get it back in place. He just had to be careful not to break the thing further with his fiddling…
Garrett had been so successful at making himself focus on the repair job that he didn’t initially notice when a very small voice called his name.
“Um, Garrett?”
His brain finally caught up with his ears, and he looked down to see…
Eleanor.
He jolted so hard that he nearly fell off the ladder.
Garrett’s instincts told him to race down the ladder as fast as his feet could carry him, almost as if something deep inside him feared that, if he blinked, she would prove a mirage and be gone. But he forced himself to carefully put down his tools and then, just as carefully, climb down the rungs. The last thing this whole mess of a situation needed was for him to break his leg too.
When he got to the ground, he saw that Eleanor looked sheepish. She was winding and unwinding her fingers, clenching both hands together nervously. The sight of her nerves made Garrett feel anxious too. He didn’t know how to read this mood in her.
“What can I do for you, Eleanor?”
Inwardly, he winced at the stiffness of his words. He wasn’t trying to hurt her. Of course he wasn’t. But he would be lying if he didn’t admit that she had hurt him with this strange disappearing act. And maybe it wasn’t only his feelings that were hurt. It might have been his pride a little bit too. He wasn’t necessarily proud of it, but there it was.
She didn’t answer right away, instead just shuffling her feet against the pavement. He let out a slow breath through his nose. He didn’t know what to make of this situation, but he obviously wasn’t going toforceher to talk to him or be with him.
He just wished he understood.
“Okay,” he said when the silence stretched. “Listen. I’d like to have this resolved, but maybe you don’t want that. And since I’m a little busy at the moment…”
He turned and began climbing again. He’d only gotten halfway up when her blurted words stopped him in his tracks.
“I got scared.”
Garrett turned slowly to look down at her. Her cheeks were bright red, but she had her mouth set in a determined sort of way.
“I… don’t understand. Why on earth would you be afraid? Afraid ofme?” The mere thought was horrifying, so he was glad to see her eyes go wide with genuine surprise. She shook her head so furiously that her ponytail lost a few strands of hair.
“Gosh, no,” she said. “Never. No. I just…” She took a steadying breath. “I got scared that learning that I have… intense, big-picture feelings for you might, you know.” Another quick shuffle during which her eyes darted to the side. He could tell that she had to force herself to look back at him. “That you’d get scared away. Or think that it’s too much. ThatI’mtoo much.”
“Oh,” Garrett said, his mind racing.
Oh, goodness, his poor sweet Eleanor! When she said it outright, he could understand why she might think that, but heneverwould have gotten to this conclusion himself.
“Ellie,” he said, his heart twisting in his chest as he looked down at her. For the first time in days, however, it was twisting with happiness instead of misery. “The idea literally never even occurred to me.”
“It didn’t?” she asked, a thin note of hope in her voice.
“Honey,no,” he said firmly. She had been brave, and now it was his turn. “Sweetheart, when your brother accidentally told me that you were thinking about our future, do you know what I felt?”
She shook her head.
“Relieved,” he told her. “I felt relieved and happy, because I’d been thinking more and more about how I couldn’t picture a life where I could live without you. But I didn’t want to say anything to you yet, because I was the one who was afraid of scaringyouoff.”
“Really?” The hope was stronger now than it had been before.
“Really. I was all in on you from the start. A man doesn’t give up his decade-long no dating streak just for anyone, you know. Pretty much as soon as we got together, I knew that you were it for me.”
“I… didn’t know,” she said. She sounded as though she was witnessing something wondrous for the first time.
