She gasps as she grabs hold of my arm and looks down behind our shoulders to see my sodden pants. “Oh my god, I’m sorry! I swear I didn’t realize.”
“It’s okay,” I say as all my focus snaps to her grip on me. Knowing I shouldn’t, I loop her arm through mine. “I know you secretly wanted to make me explain to my colleagues why it looks like I pissed myself.”
She laughs. “I’d like to point out thatyouwere the one who insisted on this walk in the first place. If it were up to me, I’d already be halfway back to Larkwood.”
Discomfort squirms in my stomach. “If you’d driven with those tires in this weather, you’d be in a ditch right now.”
“Wow, worry much?” she says as the rain begins to let up as quickly as it came.
I let out an exhale. “Trust me, I’m well aware of my capacity to overthink things.”
She’s quiet for a minute. “You know, you’re surprisingly… self-aware,” she finally settles on. “And kind of tragic.”
“Some would say anxiously considering every possible outcome is a superpower.”
“Sure, but I don’t just mean your overthinking,” she muses. “What you said earlier. About choosing not to be in a serious relationship because you don’t want to saddle anyone with your issues? It’s weirdly considerate but also… everyone has baggage, Jude. Relationships are meant to help us grow, and I’m a firm believer that everyone deserves to find their person. I’m sure there’ssomeoneout there who’d be willing to, you know…” She swirls her sandwich in the air. “Deal with you.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“I’m serious! I’m beginning to think these wedding planning tasks are exactly what you need to see what’s possible if you just open yourself up a little.” She gently hits my shoulder with the sandwich. “A hoagie fetish doesn’t need to be your only option.”
“Please—don’t start feeling sorry for me. I’m not celibate, if that’s what you’re thinking, and I have more than enough on my plate between work and my family.”
“That’s right, your mom is a pretty big deal,” she says slowly before smiling at me. “I can’t imagine what that’s like. The only thing my mom is famous for are the teenie-weenies she microwaves for Patriots games.”
“Can’t say I’ve ever tried a teenie-weenie, but that honestly sounds nice. The obscurity—not the mini hotdogs,” I clarify.
Gracie’s eyebrows pinch together. “Trust me, feeling obscure isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.”
The way she says it feels like a knot in a thread that I want to untangle. “So, you’d rather have notoriety?”
She lifts her shoulders. “I don’t crave fame, if that’s what you mean. But I wouldn’t hate it if I were someone’s most important person someday.”
I think of Gracie, holed up in that cottage day in and day out. How fiercely she’s trying to hold on to it. Something’s not adding up. “I hate to break it to you, but living in an isolated cottage probably isn’t the most direct path toward a Happily Ever After. Maybe you should get out more.”
“I get out!” she protests. “I’m out right now, aren’t I?”
“A work meeting doesn’t count as ‘getting out,’?” I respond. “That’s like listing laundry as a hobby because you technically do it in your free time.”
Her gaze narrows. “Staying at Larkwood isn’t just about living my best homebody life. It’s about fighting for what one of my closest friends wanted for their home and trying to protect myself and my colleagues from losing our jobs.”
“Gracie, my grandmother left the estate to me. She knew my views. If she wanted it to continue running as is, she could have left it to my mother.”
“So, your mom thinks it should remain a wedding venue, too?” she asks, eyes going bright with validation.
“She thinks it should be kept in the family,” I confirm. “She’s not a huge fan of change.”
Understatement of the century. For a moment, the lid covering every messy feeling I have about my mom is lifted, and I have to force it back down. This isn’t the time or place, but I make a mental note to call and check on her later.
“Well, I guess that makes two of us,” Gracie responds. “If Agatha really didn’t care what happened to Larkwood after she passed, then why would she have left the cottage to me? She clearly wanted me to continue working there.”
We’re approaching her car, but the rain has started back up again with a fresh roll of thunder. I stop in front of it with a fresh twinge of doubt about my grandmother’s wishes. “I don’t pretend to know what Nana’s grand plan was. But now that it’s mine, I know what I intend to do.”
Gracie glares up at me. “Only if I don’t change your mind first.”
“And what if I said staying with a friend overnight would put you on my good side?”
“I would say you’re lying,” she replies, opening her bag to fish out her car keys, which have a key chain of the pretty zombie lady fromCorpse Brideattached.
