“I appreciate all your help,” Gray said formally.
Noah abandoned packing in favor of following Gray to the door, firing off more questions having to do with the combustion temperatures of different building materials.Gray rattled off the combustion temperatures with the distracted patience of a man who accepted that this was simply how departure worked now.
“Hey, Gray,” Cassidy called, from her table by the window.
He paused at the door and looked back at her.“Yes?”
“I finished my puzzle.And my teacher couldn’t solve it.I had to explain the answer to her.”
“That’s awesome!Congratulations!I’d love to give it try, sometime.”
Cassidy beamed, and Bonnie’s heart did a little flip flop of delight for her daughter.
Gray glanced in her direction, caught her gaze with his, and smiled briefly, intimately, at her before he left.
Disgust coursed through her.A person would think a woman her age could have a man smile at her without blushing like a teenager.But apparently not.
Bonnie watched him go and returned to shutting down her computer.
She was fine.
Everything was fine.They were on a first-name basis, he’d put his hand on her shoulder the last time she was at the fire station, and he'd just shot her a smile that would melt steel.She could handle this.
She couldnothandle this.
She found the notebook at eight-thirty that evening when she was picking up the kids' backpacks from the kitchen floor so she could sweep under them.It looked like Cassidy's homework notebook.Same cover, same color.She nearly put it back in the backpack without opening it.
But it had fallen open, and the entry at the top of the page, written in her daughter's neat, deliberate handwriting, said:Day 9.He knows when to stop talking.Most people don't know when to stop talking.
Did Cassidy have her first crush on a boy?Equal parts terror and elation roared through her.Bonnie looked at the notebook’s cover.It was labeled, in Cassidy's printing:OBSERVATIONS.PRIVATE.
She should close it.Put it back.But she’d been delaying having those conversations moms needed to start having with daughters around this age, and she really needed to know if it was time to bite the bullet and have The Talk.
She would just read one more entry.
Day 6: He fixed the broken hinge on the waiting room door.Nobody asked him to.He just noticed it was broken and fixed it.He put his screwdriver back in his coat pocket after.He carries tools in his coat.
Bonnie sat down heavily at the kitchen table.Gray had fixed her outer office door last week.
Day 4: He brought coffee for Mom.She said she didn't need it.She drank the whole cup.
Day 11: Mom did the thing she does when she doesn't want to look at someone.She looked at her computer screen for a really long time.Mom’s a fast reader.She doesn't actually need that long to read her computer.
Day 13: He didn't answer Noah's question about his dad.Said his dad wasn't around much.Mom looked at her computer extra hard after that.Note: find out more.
Bonnie closed the notebook.Set it precisely back on the table.Pressed her palms flat against the table as if the kitchen might tilt.
Her nine-year-old was building a logic puzzle of whether or not Gray liked her mother.
And Cassidy's not wrong about any of it.
That was the worst part.The observations were accurate.The inferences were spot-on.Cassidy had looked at the available data and reached the correct conclusion, and she was nine years old.
What made itevenworse was she was sitting in her kitchen, a grown woman, and she’d been telling herself for two solid weeks that she was not thinking about Gray day and night.
She got up.Filled a glass of water at the sink.Stood looking out at the dark backyard.
DidGray like her?
