“Good.”
Before leaving, Connie stole a root beer barrel candy out of the dish on my desk like she wasn’t the one to refill it weekly. She kept Life Savers on her desk, which I, in turn, raided every chance I got. Isaac kept old-fashioned strawberry candies on his desk. Nobody touched those. The gooey middle grossed me out. Every once in a while, I tried one just to make sure I still hated them.
Five minutes before my phone consultation, my phone chimed with a notification for GoWithFriends. I only had one notification set, and it was for Grace. They had the feature to make it easier to chat with people you’d hit it off with. I just used it so I didn’t have to check in constantly and see that she’dstill ghosted all of us. I couldn’t exactly check in ten seconds after she did, though. It would make her suspicious.
Connie texted with a heads up that my phone consultation was ready anyway, so I ignored the app and launched back into work. I answered calls, finished sending emails, had a planning meeting with Isaac, got my haircut, and drove home. All without seeing what Grace was up to. My self-control when it came to her was legendary. Too bad there was no one to brag to about it. I had told exactly no one about my feelings for her, although I suspected Isaac knew.
Once home, I changed clothes, made myself a protein shake, and headed into my home gym in the basement, propping my phone up on the treadmill while I warmed up with a jog. It was time. I scrolled back through the comment feed in the app to see where Grace had checked in and started reading.
Grace: Hi guys.
Five seconds later:
Lacey: Where have you been?
Pretty sure Lacey had an alert set for Grace, too. Or maybe she just spent too much time on the app. She was always on there.
Grace: I’ve been busy at work.
Jackson: The most generic non-answer in the history of non-answers. But in all seriousness, we don’t have to talk about Knead unless you want to.
Stella: What Jackson means is spill. Also, Knead is now Dean. You’re going to confuse the new people if you keep calling him that, Jackson.
Jackson: The new people don’t care. I care. Unless Grace doesn’t want to talk about it. Then I don’t care either.
Grace: Why don’t we wait for Knead/Dean to show up before we dive into this.
Jackson: Good call.
Jackson: Unless you want to DM me. I can keep a secret.
Stella: He cannot.
Jackson: You’re right. I can’t keep secrets. You can still DM me, though.
I laughed and scrolled down until I saw that Grace had logged off not long after that. I checked the time. She’d probably be right in the middle of dinner with Piper. It wasn’t a good time to bother her. And yet, I really wanted to bother her. About anything.
Having a nice modern house was great and all. But it was just me here. There wasn’t music loud enough or a show interesting enough to make me forget that. Not that I didn’t ever have plans on a Friday night, but tonight, I had nothing, and the person I most wanted to make plans with would be surprised to hear from me.
I was about to close up the GoWithFriends app when Lacey spotted my check-in.
Lacey: Dean/Knead! Get Grace to come to tomorrow’s group activity. We’re hiking a two-mile loop. We start at eleven a.m. Lunch after!
Dean: I’ll do my best.
Grace: I’m a firm maybe.
Whaaat? When did Grace check back in? Apparently, the alerts didn’t work if you were already on the app. Well, if she had time to sneak up on me, then she had time to answer her phone. Not wanting the sound of the treadmill getting in the way, I powered it down and moved to kettlebell deadlifts, leaving my phone propped up on the now-quiet treadmill while I waited for her to pick up.
“Dean?”
“Hi, Grace.”
“Um, hi. Why do you sound out of breath?”
“I’m exercising.”
“Oh. In that case, it’s fine. We can talk later.”
