Chapter Seven #2
Charlie was typing now, his fingers sailing over his keyboard, while Alice sat back in her chair, holding her mug in both hands, her eyes on him but slightly unfocused, like she was thinking hard about something else.
The light from the big front windows caught in her hair, making the caramel strands glow.
She must’ve gotten some kind of color added in. Last I remembered, it was so dark, it was almost black. She didn’t need to change it. Her original color had been nice. Real nice. But this was good too. It suited her.
I frowned at my phone. Was there something going on with her and Charlie? He was a good bit older and didn’t seem like he was her type.
Not that I knew what her type was. I barely knew anything about her, aside from the bits I’d picked up in the years I’d been going to Joy’s. She was quiet. Polite. Always smiling at customers, even when they were rude.
She’d grown up in Colorado but had gone to college at Savage University in California, my parents’ alma mater.
Four years ago, she’d moved here from San Francisco and owned her little house.
She always wore the same pair of silver hoops.
Her voice was quiet, but her sneeze was loud enough to make people jump.
She liked to read. Her favorite book was The Shadow of the Isle. I’d overheard her mentioning it and looked it up. A fantasy story written over seventy years ago, and she’d read it at least twenty times.
I knew a few things about Alice Clark, but not her type. If I’d been asked after she kissed me, I would have said maybe it was me. Now, I wasn’t so sure.
I really didn’t like being unsure about anything.
Once I got my coffee, I grabbed one of the last available tables, and Deke joined me soon after.
We shot the shit for a while, him telling me about his latest carpentry projects and the plan he had for building a deck on the back of his and Phoebe’s house.
Between family and friends, it’d get done in a weekend.
Luckily for all of us, he’d finally accepted his place in the Kelly fold, so it was no longer a struggle to get him to accept we wanted to help.
We’d finished talking about lumber prices when Alice started packing up her things. She slipped her laptop into a worn canvas bag and tucked her mug onto the dirty dish tray at the end of the counter before heading for the door.
I didn’t think. I just stood.
“You headed out?” Deke asked, his brow raised.
“Yeah,” I muttered, grabbing my coffee and sticky bun. “Catch you later. Tell Phoebe bye for me.”
He nodded, not pushing. One of the many reasons I liked the guy.
I made it to the exit a second before Alice did. Her eyes rounded at my sudden appearance.
“Evening, Alice.” I pushed open the door and gestured for her to go ahead. She passed by me, giving me a whiff of cinnamon and other spices I couldn’t name, murmuring, “Thank you.”
I followed her out, calling her name again as she hurried down the sidewalk.
She paused midstep, turning around slowly. Her hair shifted over her shoulders, catching the fading light. “Yes?”
“You headed home?”
She nodded. “I am.”
“Where’s your car?”
She glanced away, her fingers tightening on her bag strap. “I walked today.”
I frowned. Her house wasn’t far, but it wasn’t exactly close either. “Let me give you a lift.”
“That’s okay. I like walking,” she said, then added, “It’s nice in the evenings.”
“It is nice, but it’s getting late. It’ll be close to dark by the time you make it to your place. I’ll drive you.” I nodded toward the street. “My truck’s right there.”
“There’s plenty of light still. Really, it’s not necessary.”
I couldn’t say why I was pressing this, just that I didn’t like the idea of her walking the quiet streets alone. And I had a feeling she wouldn’t have turned me down if I’d made the same offer a couple weeks ago—before I was a jackass to her.
“It’s not necessary, but I want to do it anyway.” I held my arm out toward my truck. “Come on. It’ll only take a couple minutes.”
She hesitated, looking up at me, her eyes shadowed in the low light. Finally, she gave a small nod. “Okay. Thanks.”
I took her bag before she could argue, and she followed me to my truck. She didn’t say anything as I opened the passenger door and set her bag on the floorboard. She climbed in, smoothing her sweater around her hips, her movements neat and quiet.
Once I was behind the wheel, I pulled out of the lot, the silence between us thick enough to chew.
After a minute, I cleared my throat. “You've been going on a lot of dates lately.”
She glanced out the window. “Not really.”
“I saw you with that guy at the diner. The one who kept making you laugh.”
She huffed. “I saw you too. And yeah, he was kind of funny.”
“And?”
“And nothing.” Her hands were stacked neatly in her lap, and her body was as close to the door as she could get without falling out.
“Not going out again?”
“He asked, but I don’t think so. We weren’t a match.”
I risked a glance at her. She was staring out the window, her reflection in the glass faint and unreadable. Guilt burrowed deep in my gut, but I didn’t know what to do with it.
“How’d you meet him? Was he a customer too?”
“No. I don’t make it a habit of asking my customers on dates. That was a one-time thing.” She tucked her hair behind her ears then shook it back out to curtain her face. “I learned from my mistake.”
Ignoring her comment, I charged on. “You didn’t say how you met him.”
“On a dating app,” she replied.
My hands flexed around my steering wheel. “Is that safe?”
“As safe as any date.” She leaned down and wrapped the strap of her bag around her hand. “I’ll be fine.”
“I wouldn’t want my sisters using those apps. You never know who you’re gonna meet.”
“Well, your sisters are married, so you don’t have to worry about it.” She pulled her bag onto her lap. “You don’t have to worry about me either.”
I pulled up to the curb in front of her house and put the truck in park so I could twist around to look at her. “Because you’re not going to be using the app anymore?”
She shook her head, her mouth curving into a smile that didn’t look anywhere near happy. “No, I’ll still be using it. You don’t have to worry because I’m none of your concern.”
She wasn’t harsh, but her words were a punch to the gut anyway. I didn’t understand it. She was right. Alice was just a waitress at Joy’s. She wasn’t my concern in the least.
But I didn’t like the idea of her meeting strange men on an app—men who’d see a small, quiet woman like her and take advantage. I’d be concerned about any woman in that situation.
When the silence stretched too long, she unbuckled herself and pushed open her door. “Thanks for the ride, Caleb.”
“Yeah,” I rasped, my throat tight. “Anytime.”
She paused, like she was going to say something else, but she only nodded and climbed out, shutting the door gently behind her. I watched her walk up the cracked path to her porch, the light above her front door flicking on as she approached. She didn’t look back as she entered.
I sat there for another minute, staring at her closed door, my chest feeling too small for my lungs. Then I put the truck in drive and pulled away into the quiet night.