Chapter 17
SEVENTEEN
I’m following up with influencers about attending the grand opening in exchange for promoting the resort two days later when my phone pings from beside me.
It’s a strange, new sound, suspiciously like an old cash register drawer opening.
I stare at the new notification on the screen and hesitantly reach for the phone.
Then my breathing hitches.
Excitement, nervousness, and hope surge through me all at once, swirling together and bubbling up in my chest, the emotions desperate for an escape. Everything comes out in a loud, unexpected shriek.
Then I stand, the happiness almost making me dizzy, and I can't help but jump and dance on my way to Graham’s office, eager to share my news.
“OH, MY GOD!” I shout. “OHMIGODOHMIGOD!” When I enter his office, he’s looking at me nervously, but I can’t help it—this is the most exciting thing that has happened to me, possibly ever. “Graham! Graham, it happened! I can’t believe it! Oh, my god, I think I’m going to pass out.”
"June, what the hell?" His brows furrow as he stands and moves toward me, that nervous look transforming into panic.
"Are you okay? Is everything okay?" I turn my phone toward him, only a few feet between us as he stares at my screen, trying to make sense of what’s displayed there. “I got a sale! My first sale!”
On the heels of my announcement comes the second reward of the day: the closest thing to a full smile I’ve seen, the ends of his lips tipping up more than ever before, his eyes lighting up with unadulterated pride.
The surprise of seeing Graham’s reaction fills me with a new rush of emotions, confirming my suspicion that if he ever fully smiled, he’d be the hottest thing on the planet.
“Congrats, June,” he says, pulling me from my reverie. His voice is low, and in the whirlwind of endorphins, I do the only thing that feels right in this moment.
I throw my arms around his neck, hugging him.
“I sold a painting!” I say, pressing my cheek to his chest as I squeeze him tight, desperate for somewhere to put all this overwhelming joy.
“I sold a painting!” His arms hover at my sides—then, after a heartbeat, finally settle around my waist, his posture softening along with the smile at the corners of his lips.
“Can you believe it? I sold a painting, Graham!” I tip my head back so I can see his face change, too, both of us swept up in this surprise.
“Of course I can believe it, June. You’re incredibly talented.”
I stare at him for a moment, my pulse still pounding.
“It was because of you, you know,” I say.
My voice feels thick, like my heart is swelling in my throat, and an unexpected urge to cry wells up alongside gratitude. As I speak, Graham's brows knit together, and something I can’t quite name flickers across his face, but it's gone before I can read it.
“Me?”
“You helped me find the four-leaf clover. That’s why I made the shop live.
You’re lucky. And now I have an order! I’m a paid artist!
” My voice gets squeaky with the excitement.
He shakes his head. His hand lifts and pushes my hair back, the backs of his fingers grazing my cheek.
My breath stops. “It's really the luckiest thing that's ever happened to me,” I murmur, though I don’t know what I’m talking about anymore: the clover or the sale or maybe something different altogether.
“You don’t get it still, do you?” he asks, voice softer than I’ve ever heard it.
“Get what?”
“You are the lucky one, June. You’re lucky and wildly talented. A four-leaf clover had nothing to do with it.” A strange, out-of-character shyness sweeps over me at his words, my face burning as I roll my eyes to hide the sudden intensity of my feelings as well as my reaction to them.
“Sure,” I say with a laugh. His hand moves again, touching below my chin, and tipping it up until I’m forced to look at him once more.
The world stills as he looks down at me, sincerity in his warm eyes.
When he speaks, his voice is low and soft, gentle in a way I’ve never thought possible from him.
“You believe in everyone else, but not yourself. A shame, if you ask me.” My breath hitches, and he’s staring at me again, something soft and filled with wonder on his face.
For a moment, I think he might lean down.
For a moment, I think he might kiss me.
And for a moment, I hope with everything in me that he does. It would fuck up everything, but really, things are already so twisted, what would it matter? I hold my breath silently, wishing for it, and I think he might actually lower his head just a bit toward me, before—
“Well, well, well, if this doesn't look cozy,” a familiar voice says, smugness in the words, and instantly, Graham lets go of my chin, stepping away as if burned.
I think I catch the tiniest blush on his cheeks, but the scruff of his face hides it.
He looks away, avoiding my eyes. I turn to the intruder, smiling.
“Oh, my god, Sutton!” I say, excitedly. I force myself to sound happy, to feel that eagerness to tell someone else the good news I felt earlier, and to forget the strange things I’d been feeling just moments before.
Strange things I’d been feeling about my boss.
My god, could I be a bigger idiot? He doesn’t even want to be my friend, and here I am, thinking he was about to kiss me. I really am delusional.
“I sold a painting! I opened my shop two days ago, and I already got a sale today! Can you believe it!?” I ask, jumping up and down as that remembered joy floods my system.
“Ahh!” Suton yells, grabbing my hands and jumping with me before pulling me into a tight hug, exactly as I tried to do with Graham.
See?
Completely normal.
Or at least, that’s what I tell myself to settle the embarrassment still lingering after attacking Graham like that.
“We have to celebrate,” Sutton demands once we stop.
“Yes,” I agree, because even if I didn’t want to celebrate, I know once Claire finds out, she’s going to insist. “The Seabreeze! I think Lainey’s working tonight, we’ll get the crew all together.”
“Yes, perfect,” Sutton agrees, sliding her phone out of her pocket, probably to text Claire to have her invite everyone. I turn to Graham.
“Graham, you have to come!” I say. “It’s a local’s bar. Kind of a dive, but a good time. Come celebrate with us!”
He shakes his head as soon as I say bar. "No, thank you."
I let out a sigh.
“Come on, it would be good to meet everyone! You’ve been here for how long and haven’t done anything?”
He lifts an eyebrow, and for a moment, I think he’s going to tell me he very much has done something, but the look is gone quickly, melting back into neutrality.
“I don’t need to meet anyone. I’m here for work.”
I roll my eyes.
“Ah, yes, hold on, let me translate it into corporate asshole for you.” I put a hand to my mouth and clear my throat dramatically. “It would be a fabulous networking opportunity, and a chance to do some integration with the local habitat.”
“Local habitat?” he asks. Sutton watches the back-and-forth like a ping-pong match.
“Yeah, maybe that was more Steve Irwin than Don Draper.” It happens again, the subtle tip of his lips, and it makes me smile wider.
I am so getting through to him. I decide to use the last tool in my arsenal, the one that has never let me down.
My eyes go wide, and my lips pout. “Pleaseeee?” I whine.
“Please, please, please? It would make me the happiest girl in the whole wide world, and I’ll leave you alone about being boring and lonely and grumpy for, like, at least a week.
” I think we both know I can’t promise forever.
He looks at me, assessing. My heart lifts with hope, nearly bursting, when he closes his eyes and sighs.
“Will you stop making that face if I say yes?”
The face gets them every time.
“YES!” I shout, and again, I get that tiny, infinitesimal smile. My heart soars when I see it.
“Fine. Just let me know when and where. But only for a bit,” he says in warning, but I’m barely listening, jumping and clapping.
”Of course! Oh my god, you’re the best! You’re going to have so much fun and meet everyone! You already know Deck and Grant, but Claire and Lainey, and Benny and Miles and—”
“You’re not actually selling this,” he says, and I grin wider.
“Too late, you already said yes.”
“That actually worked,” Sutton says in awe, and when I turn to her, her eyes are wide. “If I didn’t watch it happen, I wouldn’t have believed it.”
“It works every time. It’s my secret weapon,” I say with a shrug of my shoulder.
“Yeah, I can see it worked great on Graham,” she says, her smile turning knowing. “Maybe that’s because–”
“Why are you here, anyway?” Graham asks, cutting off whatever she was going to say with a glare. Whatever thread of entertainment that was on his face moment ago is wiped clean, but for some reason, that makes Sutton smile wider.
“I came to see if June wanted to grab lunch and make sure you weren’t making her too miserable. I’ve confirmed the latter,” she says, giving a look to Graham that has some kind of meaning I don’t understand, before turning to me. “Is your lunch coming up?” I check my watch and nod.
“I was planning to take it in about thirty minutes.”
“Perfect, I’ll wait. We can celebrate and yap about how to get you even more sales. Now that you’re up and running, you can’t fend me off.”
I roll my eyes, but it’s half-hearted. Sutton is great with social media and has offered to help me build a brand more times than I can count.
Excitement bubbles in my chest where the thought of running social media used to fill me with dread.
If I got a sale without even talking about it, maybe promoting it would go even better?
I don’t actually know what I’m doing or how this works, but maybe, just maybe, Claire and Lainey and even Graham were right: maybe I could make something real of this?
My mind moves to the mural bid, getting the idea before deciding I’ve been plenty brave enough for now.
That’s something Next Week June can contemplate.
“Go,” he says, ushering us out of his office. “Go on your lunch now. Get Sutton out of here.”
“Want to come?” I ask, a bit hopeful.
“Not this time. Thanks, though,” Graham says.
“You sure?”
“Yeah. You’re already forcing me to go out tonight, so I have to do some things to leave the office on time. Go on. Don’t worry about your lunch running over: you’ve more than earned it.”
And then Sutton and I go to a deli where she asks me a dozen questions about my art and my business. Still, the entire time, I can only think about the fact that, tonight, Graham is coming to the Seabreeze, and he almost smiled, and most importantly, of the way he looked at me when I hugged him.