Nine
Jillian felt like two different people: one who wanted to lead with her heart and one who knew to lead with her brain. Her heart was still swooning like the heroine of an old-timey black-and-white movie over an almost kiss. What would it be like if they had an actual kiss? Her head was telling her to smarten up and protect herself.
Wanting and taking were two different things. She couldn’t take for herself without directly impacting her daughter. And no matter how she felt, Ollie would always come first.
She bit her lip, still staring at Levi like he was a complex riddle she could solve.
“You keep looking at me like that, we’ll never figure out what to do here,” he said, smiling at her from as far across the room as he could get given the mass amount of… stuff packed into the room.
Jilly’s heart did an unsteady jig in her chest. At nineteen, she’d met Andrew, had a whirlwind romance, gotten pregnant, and moved away. Getting caught up in “feelings” was how she’d ended up a thirty-year-old single mother who didn’t date.
Who didn’t want to date. Until Levi.
Giving herself a little pep talk about acting like an adult, she went to see what he was looking at. Levi lifted a framed photo out of a box he’d opened.
Jilly took it, ran her fingers over the dusty glass. “This is amazing.” It was a picture of Pete and Gwen standing in front of Pete’s, a sign over their heads saying: GRAND OPENING . They looked so young and full of life, happiness, and hope. She loved knowing that in some cases, happily ever after really did work out.
When she looked up to say as much to Levi, he was so close, her mind went right back to what it would feel like to kiss him. She set the frame down, stepping back, because she couldn’t breathe if they were sharing air, and nearly tumbled over a box. He caught her, both of his hands reaching out to steady her.
“You need to stop falling for me,” he said.
Jillian laughed, and she knew he’d made the cheesy joke to settle her nerves. Which just made her want him more. He dropped his hands and gestured to the room.
“There’s so much history in here,” she said, looking anywhere but directly at him.
“What should we do? I feel weird letting you help with this. I’m getting an apartment out of it. What do you get?”
Time with you. She took another step away, looking around the room, trying to picture what it could be like when it was cleaned up. She marveled at how much fit inside what had to be less than five hundred square feet.
There were boxes stacked higher than she was tall. Some had MENUS scrawled along the side, others had COOKBOOKS . Standing in the center of the room, because the ceiling was pitched, was a ten-foot lamppost clock that looked vaguely familiar. The metal was battered by time and weather. It was amazing. There were tin signs, old barrels, wooden boxes, and pallets.
Levi picked up their lemonades, and passed her hers. She took another long sip, enjoying the taste puckering her tongue.
“Just as good as I remember,” Levi said. “This might be too much for just the two of us.”
He was right. “On it.”
Jilly pulled her phone from her pocket and texted Grayson, Beckett, and Presley in their group thread. “Gray was heading over to the mainland to grab some things but he should be back soon. I’ll see if he or Beckett can help.”
“I can’t ask everyone to drop what they’re doing and help with this.” He set his lemonade down and put his hands on his hips. They were narrow, but his chest was wide, and she wondered what he did, besides running, to stay in shape. Way to stay on topic, Jilly.
“Isn’t that part of why you’re home? To help your dad?” She put her lemonade on one of the boxes.
Levi turned to face her, his gaze cloudy. “That was part of the plan, but he’s too stubborn to take help from me.”
Jillian pursed her lips, fighting the urge to point out the irony.
Levi pointed a finger at her. “I see what you did there.”
“Beckett said you’re making dinner for all of us at the lodge. Consider this our way of working for our supper.”
Levi laughed and Jillian felt a little thrill rush through her. It was nice to be funny to someone other than a nine-year-old.
“Okay. If we can sort through some of it here,” he said, picking up a box and testing its weight before bringing it closer to the door, “we can decide what needs a more thorough look. Pete didn’t seem very discerning about what to keep.”
Jillian turned her body so she could slink between some of the boxes and see what else was hiding.
“What kinds of things do you want for the museum?”
Jillian smiled, an idea formulating. “Originally, I’d thought it would be great to take vintage pieces that represent Smile, but looking around,” she said as she did, “I think we can do more. Pete’s been feeding people in this community for thirty years. What if we put together a retrospective of sorts? A way to show him what he means to everyone.”
Her phone buzzed in her pocket. Checking it, she smiled and held it up before setting it down. “Help is on the way. Gray will be here in an hour. Beckett’s doing a tour so he’ll come by this afternoon, and Presley is headed over now for a little bit before her town council meeting.”
Levi walked closer, his gaze locked on hers. “You’re a problem solver.”
She huffed out a short laugh. “I guess so.” It wasn’t like there was someone else around to solve problems for her. She was used to seeing what was needed and putting a plan into action.
He stopped directly in front of her, and this time, reached out and stroked his thumb over her cheek.
“I have a problem,” he whispered.
Jilly swallowed past the dryness of her throat. “What’s that?”
“I really like this woman but she’s scared. How do I spend time with her without spooking her?”
Despite the fact that her heart was racing like a speedboat, she managed a laugh, and finally, her head and her heart merged into one being again. “Just be patient.”
His gaze flashed with understanding. His fingers curled around the nape of her neck.
“I can do that,” he whispered.
He didn’t move to kiss her or close the distance between them. She realized, as her breath caught in her throat, that she wanted him to. In this moment, right now. Not because of the past or because she’d always wondered. Simply because she still had a very real crush on the man in front of her.
Maybe it was reckless not to think this through. Or maybe it was time to stop overthinking every little thing. The space between them dwindled.
“Knock, knock,” Presley said from the open doorway.
“We need to shut that door,” Levi muttered, stepping back.
Presley’s gaze locked on Jilly’s and the excitement in her eyes nearly made her groan. There was no way Presley wouldn’t corner her about this at the first opportunity. More than that, she knew Presley would push her toward Levi, because despite her own rocky past with love, Beckett’s girlfriend was a hard-core believer in happily ever after.
Especially if it meant she got to play the role of Cupid.