Return To You: A Small Town, Second Chance Romance

31. Grace

thirty-one

Earlier that day

*

After my ten o’clock hot stone massage with one of my oldest clients, I review Shanice’s training plan, then follow up with a few orders before taking a minute to check the realtor websites for any commercial leases.

No luck. As I tuck my phone back in my pocket and walk back to the reception to check in with Claudia, George Richardson comes in.

“I was just thinking about you.” I try to mask the sarcasm in my tone, but judging by his pursed lips, I’d call it a fail.

“A minute of your time?” he asks me.

A slew of snarky comebacks pop into my mind, but I choose to save my breath. I guide him to my small windowless office, which was originally a closet but is ample space for what I need: a computer and a minimal filing system. We sit on each side of my sleek glass desk.

“I wanted to pay you the courtesy of a visit, Ms. Harper.”

Seeing as I’ve learned from the grapevine about his intent to sell, and a realtor already showed the place, he’s way too late for a courtesy visit, but I let him talk anyway. It’s not in my interest to be confrontational, so I let him dole out his platitudes.

Finally, he gets to the reason he’s here. “I have an offer in hand.”

Already? My eyebrows shoot to my hairline, but I manage to smile. “Congratulations.”

“Sight unseen, if you can believe it.” He takes a deep breath. “It’s a cash offer, and I’m ready to accept it. I’d like to move quickly on this deal, and I’d appreciate it if you’d help me do so by formally expressing that you don’t intend to exercise your right of first refusal.”

Well, screw that. “What makes you think I don’t want to buy the building?”

He smirks. “I didn’t know spas were so profitable. I should look into that line of investment.”

Did he just assume I can’t afford the building?

Well—he’s right. But it’s insulting. “And why wouldn’t I exercise my right of first refusal?”

The smirk becomes intolerable. “To stay on my good side?”

“Let me recap. You’ve still not fixed the deck, which is a safety hazard to my clientele. You just now have informally informed me that I will be losing my place of business. And you want me to stay on your ‘good side’?” I air quote. I resist asking what being on his bad side looks like. I don’t have time or patience for rhetorical arguments. Instead, I stand. “I’ll have to think on it.”

He raps his fingers on my small desk. “How long?”

“I’ll have my lawyer look into the lease agreement.”

“See, that’s where people like you don’t understand business. You’re going to spend your hard-earned money on a lawyer who’ll just end up telling you there’s nothing you can do.”

I open the door. “Well, it’s my hard-earned money, isn’t it?”

He stands and smirks. “One last thing. The buyer would like a thorough visit. As is her right. And your obligation.”

I nod and shrug. “Of course.”

“Fine then. Miss Keller?”

I whip around to see Amy in the reception area, phone in hand, snapping pictures of every detail in the spa.

My heartbeat picks up, and I clench my jaw to keep myself from lashing out at her. Really? I take a deep breath. “Amy, so nice to see you again!” I take a few assured steps her way. “Claudia, why don’t you show Amy around? I have a few things to tend to.”

“I can show her,” Richardson says.

Screw that. “I’m still running my business from here, so either Claudia or I will be with you. If you don’t mind.”

Amy waves a dismissive hand at me. “Whatever, Gracie. Get over yourself.”

Claudia’s jaw drops open at her rudeness, but I shake my head at her. No need to lose it.

They take their sweet time visiting the whole place, taking measurements, photos and videos.

It’s when they’re finally gone that I feel the world closing in on me. It’s getting real. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s Amy or someone sweet buying the house.

I need a new space, stat, or I’m going to have to shut down.

Feeling depressed by this turn of events, my instinct is to inform the Bitch Brigade. But they’ll march here and make a fuss. It’s the middle of the day, I have clients coming in. I can’t deal with this now.

Ethan? He’s at the farm, enjoying his family. I don’t want to ruin his day. He’ll take it even more personally once he knows it’s Amy buying the place. I’ll tell him later.

Kiara is who I need.

“There’s something to be said about starting over,” she says when she gets here.

“And here I was hoping for a bitching session.” I lick my fingers. Her maple fudge is about to send me into a sugar coma. Exactly what I needed.

“No, but seriously. Do you know that when I left my parents’, I slept in my car for two weeks, until I had enough to pay for a motel?”

I tear up at her confession. “I had no idea,” I whisper. “What-why…?”

She waves my concern away. “Doesn’t matter. Point is, I never, ever would have become a pastry chef without that. Sleeping in my car is what saved me.”

I frown, needing a little more than that.

“This big hotel was hiring night shift cooks. They’d give us the title of pastry chefs to make us feel good, but we really didn’t know what we were doing. Just blending mixes and trying not to burn the shit and being semi awake when glazing. The point is, I took the job because it was a night job, and I found out you can get away with sleeping in your car during the day. At night is where the trouble starts. Cops, other homeless people, overnight parking bans. So I took the first night job I found. And voila. Ten years later, one thing led to another, best chocolate maple fudge in the state—you’re welcome, by the way. Best macarons, best petits fours, best everything.”

“Why d’you leave your parents’?” I didn’t know this about my friend. From what she’s saying, this happened before we met at the incubator.

“Doesn’t matter. What are we going to do about you? Where’s your beau?” She looks around like Ethan should have been here the whole time.

“Oh—he’s with his family. At the farm.”

She nods. “I remember. Barbecue at the farm. So why are you here?” She frowns. “Isn’t he leaving like… tomorrow or something?”

“Day after tomorrow. It’s best this way. I… Ethan has his life with the service. He… we…” I swallow. “I think I need time to myself again.”

“I hear you. I couldn’t live with a man. Or anyone.”

My heart stutters. “See—the thing is, I can live with him. I want to be with him. So. Bad. It’s-it’s terrible.”

“Sounds like it,” she snorts, then looks at me. “Hey, Gracie. Sorry. I didn’t mean to… you’re a fucking mess, aren’t you?” She leans next to me, suddenly grasping that I’m getting way emotional.

“I’m trying not to be a mess. But he’s easy to get used to, you know? It’s going to feel so empty when he’s gone. I’m going to feel being alone. His toothbrush is next to mine, his favorite beers are in the fridge, his shoes are in the entrance—”

“He takes his shoes off?”

What? “Well, yeah… I mean…” Doesn’t everyone?

“You got him pussy whipped. Sorry if that’s not PC.” She laughs, hiding her mouth with the back of her hand. “Wait ’til Colton hears that.”

Colton? Think of it, Dad and Colton don’t take their shoes off. What does it matter? “Why would Colton… what does he have to do with it?” I am so confused with Kiara right now.

“Sorry for going on a tangent there. Back to you. So, bottom line, you’re happy he’s leaving because you were getting used to him. Makes sense. Makes perfect sense.”

“It does?” She makes me feel better. I thought I was being a bad person there, for a while, wishing him gone so I could get back to not dreaming the life I will never have.

“Yeah. You finally have something good. Something scary and big and life changing. Why keep it?”

My heart hammers. “You’re just plain cruel, Kiara. I know you don’t mean it. But that hurts.”

“Butterfly,” she says, taking my hand. “You’ve been through shit, and you found a balance. And I admire you for that. But you can’t stay stuck there forever, only taking care of others, never taking what you want. Ethan is your man. I can see how happy you are with him. Don’t let his macho speech about how much the country needs him fool you. If he’s the one for you, he’ll find a way to be with you.”

“How did you know he says his country needs him?”

“Just a wild guess,” she states. “But more importantly, he’s going to want you to tell him you want him. Guys like him, all muscles and big talk, they’re softies inside. They want to be wanted. Don’t forget that.”

“You’re so right,” I breathe, thinking of my conversation with Ethan about why he’d been gone for so long.

Kiara stands and claps her hands. “Gotta go. I’ll put the therapy session on your charge card. As for Amy, I suggest the Bitch Brigade get together and sew little voodoo dolls and we get busy with pins and shit.” And just like that, she gets a smile out of me.

That evening, as I’m getting ready to go to bed, my phone rings with a local number that’s not in my contacts. It’s probably a marketer. I find it so annoying how they trick you with numbers that are local. There should be a law against that. Impersonation or something.

On the other hand, it could be a client who needs to change their appointment for tomorrow. Or a lead on a new building. Everyone in this town seems to have my number, and it’s fine by me.

I pick up.

“Did I wake you, sweetheart?” Ethan’s low rumble shoots straight to my core.

“Aww, honey, you can wake me anytime you like.”

He says sweet little nothings to me.

”How’d you get my number?” I ask.

“Uh—still the same number.”

Right.I erased Ethan’s number a week after our breakup. Guilt eats at me that he kept it, and I didn’t.

Ethan doesn’t seem to pick up on that. He tells me he’s about to have a nightcap with his dad and he’ll be staying the night at the farm, then he tells me sweet little nothings again, and then we hang up.

It’s going to be like that, moving forward. We’ll be together on the phone more than in person. I should get used to it.

After we hang up, I save his contact, then do my evening routine in the bathroom, taking more time with my lotions, the toner, the serums. It’s soothing. I notice he left his toothbrush here and his backpack. I almost call him back to tell him, but it’s stupid. Lynn will have a toothbrush for him. Or maybe he just carries spares in his saddle bags, who knows? He’s so used to not having a home.

That makes me sad, so I try to think about happy things as I slide into his jersey for the night. About what our life together will look like. About the fact that he kept my number in his phone for all these years.

I wonder what the time difference with Brussels is. And does that mean it’ll be morning there when it’s evening here? Or the opposite.

I always get confused with that.

We’ll have to schedule our calls. Get into a habit, if his job allows it.

It’s a good thing I’m my own boss. I can make and receive calls whenever I want. I suspect it won’t be the same for Ethan. At least one of us will need to be flexible.

I’m not really tired anymore. I thought I was, and then… my mind started on its own little path. So I pull out my souvenir box, sit on the floor with it, and go back down memory lane.

Just like usual. Life is different, and it’s the same in a way. In a way better way, of course.

Just not everything I hoped for.

It never is. For anyone.

Like anybody else, I need to deal with what I can have, and cope however works for me.