Uh oh, she thought to herself. Don’t start thinking he’s cute.
A tiny voice in the back of her head said,Too late.
Thankfully, nothing ever stayed heavy between them for very long. “Oh shit,” he said, eyes widening. “I didn’t ask: how was your first day?”
Thank God, she thought, and readily launched into a recap of her day. He made far fewer faces than he dad, and burst out laughing when she described the “relaxation corner,” with its sofas, chairs, rain machine, and essential oil diffuser.
“It’s relaxing!” she protested.
He pressed a hand over his mouth that did nothing to stem his laughter. “I’m gonna tell Ghost we need one.”
She threw a balled-up napkin at him, and the way it bounced off his forehead, and landed right in her mostly-empty coffee cup sent them both into fresh peals of giggles.
When he finally had to go – and she was shocked to see that two hours had passed, and that most of the customers had filtered out, save a few older men reading paperbacks in the corners – he said he’d see her tomorrow, and waved as he backed out the door.
“Not your boyfriend, huh?” Dad called from the counter, when he was gone.
“Definitely not!”
~*~
She couldn’t wipe his smile from her mind, though. Couldn’t get over the change in him tonight, when he’d embraced what she suspected was a whole lot of self-actualization.
She went home, changed into sweats, and had just collapsed onto her ugly secondhand sofa in front ofHouse Hunterswhen Ava called.
“You have to slap a pretentious wanker today?” Ava asked in a horrible attempt at a British accent.
“Of your many talents, impressions aren’t one of them,” Leah said, and Ava laughed. “And no, I didn’t even see him. I’m an accountant, remember? Not his personal assistant.”
“There’s always tomorrow,” she said in her normal voice. “Seriously, though, how was it?”
“It was good.” Which was what she’d been saying all evening. She walked through the same summary she’d given her mom on the phone, and her dad, and then Carter at the coffeeshop. “First days are always kinda weird, you know?”
“I know.”
“But it’s afantasticjob. Plenty of breaks, nice office, close to home, and the shop…I think I’m gonna be thanking your mom for the rest of my life.”
Ava chuckled. “Don’t say that if you don’t want to get roped into babysitting.”
“Bring on the babies.”
“You haven’t seen Ash when he’s having a tantrum. Oh my Lord, can that kid scream.”
Leah still found it hilarious that Ava had a little brother younger than her own three kids. It was a reminder that, though so much of Knoxville was just as she’d left it, a lot had changed, too. Babies were born, bars were bought…and former star quarterbacks spiraled into depressive episodes.
“Hey,” she said, during a natural lull in the conversation. She heard small voices in the background, and Mercy’s deep, bass rumble, and knew she would need to say goodnight soon. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about Carter.”
“Carter?” Ava sounded surprised. “Oh, about the whole getting-punched-in-the-face thing?”
“No, he told me that story.”
“Yikes.”
“No, I…he’s been coming by the shop a lot in the last few days. I think we’re kinda building a have-dinner-together habit or something.”
“A what now?”
“Tonight,” Leah pressed on, feeling a surprising surge of annoyance, “was the first time I’ve seen him smile – really, genuinely look happy – since I got home.”
