“Okay.” Her tone seemed extra cheerful. He chalked it up to an extra dose of Christmas spirit. Her oldest son would be home from college tonight for the next three weeks.
“How long do you think you’ll be?” Joan asked. There was a steady beep in the background—the oven timer. She’d asked him earlier if she could put a pie in the oven for her son’s welcome home dinner.
“Joan, if you’re hinting you’d like to leave before I get back, go ahead. There’s nothing pressing between now and the weekend that needs to get done.” She was famous for beating around the bush sometimes.
He glanced up and down the block while Joan gave him the rundown of de-installation appointments she’d booked today for after the new year. A car pulled into the empty spot at the curb in front of him. It was familiar, and it took him a second to understand why.
Orange Outback.
A daisy air freshener dangling from the mirror.
In the backseat, the perpetual red-lidded tub filled with her decorating supplies.
It was Layla.
“Brant?” Joan’s voice sliced into his ear.
His phone almost tumbled from his hand. “Yeah?”
“I asked if you’d be in on Friday.”
“Friday? Yeah—I think so. Listen, I gotta go.” He almost didn’t disconnect the call before he stuffed his phone back into his pocket.
Layla had turned the engine off. She sat there, looking in the opposite direction, right at the guys working on the cafe roof. Like she knew exactly where to find him.
She was here.
She’d come looking for him.
While she sat in her car, Layla sipped from her thermal mug. At one point, her hand pressed against her chest as if something alarmed her. He looked beyond her car to his guys on the roof. That daredevil kid Ronnie who he’d had to reprimand already for violating safety protocol was rappelling off the roof. Stupid kid.
Brant was torn between staying exactly where he was so he could watch her for a while more and tapping on her window.
But what if she drove away?
What if this was an opportunity and he missed it?
What if?
Brant pushed away from the wall, not wanting to chance it, and approached her side window. He knocked softly.
Layla almost hit the roof. Her hand flew to her chest again as she whirled around in the driver’s seat. It took a moment for her to realize it was him before the tension left her face. She unbuckled herself and was out of the car a moment later.
“Hey, Brant,” she said softly when she came around the car to the sidewalk where he stood frozen in the same spot.
He braced himself against the wall again. “How’s it going?”
A thousand questions crouched on his tongue. But he couldn’t speak now that they faced one another. He wanted to listen to the sound of her voice. He wanted to concentrate on the one dimple that flashed on her left cheek when she spoke sometimes. He’d missed it so much. And above all, he hoped she’d say the words he wanted to hear, that she’d come to see him.
“I’m doing well. You?” She tilted her head, her gaze roaming his face.
“Busy. Winding down before the holidays though.”
“That’s good.” Her tone was wistful, her words drawn out, like the trickle of a late-summer stream washing over a rocky riverbed. Her dark hair tumbled in silky waves over her red parka. She looked refreshed and happy.
He snapped out of the Layla-induced stupor and crossed his arms. “This is too big of a coincidence. Don’t tell me you were just driving by.”
“Someone told me where you’d be.”
