At least now he knew she felt the same way—or did she?
They were dating—or were they?
Even though things had felt so settled the night before, doubts crawled over him like he’d rested his foot on an anthill. He wasn’t sure what had gotten into him; he tended to take things at face value in relationships and had never been one to overanalyze. In fact, he could stand to analyze more, generally speaking.
As soon as he was out of the shower and wrapped in a towel, phone in hand, all he wanted to do was text her—but he hesitated.
He didn’t want to seem too eager. Probably best to wait for her to reach out first. Her desire to hide their relationship, at least for now, felt like a sign he should play it cool.
When he went to bed, he was worried he’d be up half the night tossing and turning, but he passed out almost immediately, lulled to sleep by replaying the best parts of the past twenty-four hours, the parts that were easiest to hold.
The next morning, he didn’t go to work on Merritt’s house, instead returning to the garage. She’d commissioned three pieces of furniture from him: a coffee table, a dining room table, and a bed frame. He’d been working on them in bits and pieces over the past few weeks but suddenly felt renewed motivation to finish her bed.
By the early afternoon, he still hadn’t heard from her, but he tried not to be too concerned. He’d be seeing her at the board meeting that night—the last time they’d be meeting as a group before the pageant—which would be held at his house. So he called it quits early, spending the next few hours cleaning the house, shopping for refreshments, showering, shaving, and, in an optimistic move, changing his sheets.
He’d hoped to have a private moment with her beforehand, especially since Jo and Simon would be out until late, but she was one of the last to arrive, greeting him the same as the rest of them before taking out her notebook and ignoring him.
He didn’t have much time to stew over it, though, because as soon as the meeting started, Larry gave the bad news that Elijah, the manager of Last Chair, had broken his collarbone a few days previously and would have to drop out of the pageant with only a week to go.
“But that’s not the end of the world, is it?” asked Freya through a mouthful of Niko’s homemade tzatziki. “So we have eleven contestants instead of twelve. It’s not like they were doing group choreography or anything.”
“Despite my best efforts,” added Daniela with a grin.
Merritt looked up from her notebook. “Who was he raising money for?”
“The Affordable Housing Fund,” the mayor said, shuffling his papers.
Niko’s chest tightened. The winner of the pageant would dictate not only where the ticket money was donated, but also the proceeds from the silent auction. Thousands of dollars—maybe even tens of thousands. He’d been helped out by the fund more than once when he first moved here, and he tried to throw a few bucks their way whenever he had some to spare.
The thought of them being excluded from such a huge fundraising opportunity felt like a black hole opening in the pit of his stomach—especially considering his own circumstances.
Without thinking, he glanced at Merritt, who was already looking at him with a knowing expression. When she met his gaze, the corner of her mouth turned up in an encouraging smile, and she inclined her head slightly.
“I’ll do it,” he blurted out. Every head in the room turned toward him, his face immediately going hot. Considering how nervous the attention of a dozen people already made him, it was probably a huge mistake volunteering to perform for a crowd of hundreds, but there was no taking it back now.
Even if he made a total fool of himself, he’d be leaving soon, and at least he’d go out trying his best for a cause he really fucking cared about.
“Really?” Larry asked, raising his bushy eyebrows.
“Really. I’ll take Elijah’s spot.”
“Good for you, honey,” said Pam, tapping on her laptop before leaning over to Merritt and muttering, not all that quietly, “I wonder if it’s too late to put them in swimsuits, after all.”
Merritt bit back a smile, her eyes briefly flicking back to his, then away.
At least now he had something new to panic about, pushing his anxieties about Merritt right out of his head. He spent the rest of the meeting wondering how the fuck he was going to compete in a pageant with only a week’s preparation—which at least made it pass in the blink of an eye.
For Merritt, the meeting passedas agonizingly slowly as the day leading up to it.
She hadn’t heard from Niko since he’d dropped her off the night before. As hard as she tried not to read anything into it, she couldn’t help but tally up every possible reason he could’ve lost interest since then. She’d certainly revealed enough unsavory backstory to scare him off—especially now that they’d been apart long enough for the brain-scrambling effects of their chemistry to subside and his head to clear.
They’d agreed to take this leap of faith together, but what if he’d realized, after the exhilaration of the initial plunge, that the water was unbearably cold, the bottom murkier and deeper than he’d thought?
She didn’t like to play into gender roles regarding communication, but she’d dated enough men to know that if they stopped taking initiative this early on, it didn’t bode well. There was something to be said for the idea of the chase.
Even though she knew there was absolutely no reason she couldn’t reach out first, she didn’t trust what she’d say. Shetapped out and deleted half a dozen options, feeling too insecure, too desperate, too pathetic.
Any hope she could be chill and normal about this was already out the window.
