Chapter 23 #2
“Of course you are,” he said. “You’re the most capable woman I know. But I’m on a date with you, Vivian, and I’d like an excuse to be close—if that’s all right with you.”
It shouldn’t have been all right with me, but I didn’t stop him. “Is this you carrying out your threat?”
“My threat?” he asked with a slight furrow to his brow.
“I won’t be going easy on you,” I mimicked in an exaggeratedly low voice.
The corner of his mouth quirked. “Oh, Vivian. I’ve definitely been going easy so far.”
I forced a laugh, but it flickered like a candle when he came up behind me. “What’re you doing?” I tried to resurrect the mocking laugh with only marginal success.
“Haven’t you ever watched a movie?” He reached his arms around me. “You can’t stand next to someone and show them how to do something. You have to stand behind them and guide them.”
My hands were on one open bottle of resin and one of hardener, but Grant’s hands covered them.
I was stiff as a board, and I hoped Grant would interpret that as me not liking the contact.
In reality, I was holding onto my composure with white knuckles and diminishing strength.
Where was the man who’d brought me rotting vegetation when I needed him?
“Oh me, oh my,” I said in bland monotone.
“Whatever would I do without your guidance?”
He chuckled softly, his breath ruffling my unwanted side bangs from their place behind my ears. He smelled like wintergreen gum.
I was a peppermint girl. Or used to be.
“Thankfully,” he said with a smile in his voice, “we’ll never have to know the answer to that.” He guided my hands in measuring and mixing the resin and hardener while I envisioned a stop sign in my mind.
A couple of canned lights flicked on like spotlights on our worktable.
The light outside had shifted from afternoon glow to twilight blue, leaving the workshop dim except for the string lights around the window.
It was arguably romantic lighting, and when the song ended and gave way to a slower ballad, I’d have laid odds that Misha had done it on purpose.
Grant released my hands, stepped back, and rolled his shoulders, wincing slightly. “They don’t show that shoulder fatigue in the movies, do they? Can you manage mixing the color in without me, do you think?”
“It’ll be tough,” I replied dryly, “but I’ll find a way. Just be ready in case I faint from feminine weakness.”
He turned away, and I took a deep breath, noting the way the nerve endings wherever Grant had been touching me pulsed. I really really really needed to recalibrate.
“I forgot a mix-in,” I said.
He nodded absently, focused on mixing resin, and I walked over to the mix-in table. With a quick glance to make sure he was still occupied, I turned around so my back faced him, then pulled out my phone.
I considered texting Katie for moral support, then decided to go with my tried-and-true method of grounding.
Chase’s text worked like a charm. It was a time machine, taking me back to the crushing feelings, helping me remember why I’d made Matchify and what was at stake with this date.
I stared at the words of the text for a few seconds, then turned off my phone and went back to the worktable.
It wasn’t until Grant peeked at me that I realized I hadn’t brought a mix-in.
For a second, I thought he might make a comment, but he just gave me a quick wink and returned to mixing resin.
We worked in silence for a time, getting the colors right before the pouring began.
Grant hummed distractedly to the music, his upper body moving to the slow beat so subtly, I was certain he had no idea he was doing it. The song wasn’t even a dance song. It was a slow song, but he was feeling it.
It made me smile in spite of myself.
He looked up at me but didn’t stop dancing. “What?”
He’d caught me admiring him.
No, not just admiring him. What I felt watching him in his element went deeper than simple attraction or admiration. It was more like want.
It meant Chase’s text hadn’t worked.
“Nothing,” I said.
He narrowed his eyes. “I really wish I knew what was going on in that head of yours sometimes. You know that?”
I forced my focus back to the coasters and picked up my blue resin mixture, but my heart was pattering. “Why?” I asked like it was the most ridiculous thing in the world for him to want to know my thoughts. I was just glad he didn’t.
He turned around and leaned his back against the table, staring at me, like he was waiting to be entertained, his art project forgotten. “Why?”
“You can’t possibly be that interested.”
“Really?” He crossed his arms. “Do enlighten me.”
I refused to meet his gaze, pouring gold-flecked navy resin into the first coaster mold. “If you were that curious, you wouldn’t have stopped our daily question-for-a-question sessions, would you?”
There was a pause, then he turned back to the table. “I had reasons for that.”
I shot a sidelong glance at him. Grant and his cryptic responses were enough to drive a person insane.
He picked up a popsicle stick and started swirling the resin in the tray mold. He’d gone with a clear resin for most of it and a cloudy one with a sheen for the rest. He sprinkled in gold flakes unevenly, then swirled them with the stick.
There was no rhyme or reason to the motions, but it was mesmerizing and, frankly, beautiful. It made me want to get back to his coasters.
I swirled and placed mix-ins to the gentle beat of the music, forcing myself to ignore the overwhelming desire for order and centeredness. I tried to let my hands disconnect from that side of my brain and do whatever felt right. It was strange. It was scary.
And it was kind of amazing.
I got so in the zone that it wasn’t until I’d finished that I realized Grant was watching me.
I blinked. “Are you done?”
He nodded. “Five minutes ago.”
“Oh.” Had he been watching me that long? I wiped my hands on my apron. “I’m done too.”
“Can I see?” He nodded at the coasters.
I shot him a funny look. “Like you haven’t been watching the whole process.”
He stepped up to the table. “If the end result is anywhere as good as the process, I’m gonna love them.
” He tilted his head as he looked at them, a sudden glimmer of amusement lighting his eyes.
He pointed at the small gold compass I’d placed inside one of the coasters.
“Is that your subtle way of pointing me home?”
“No, but now that you say that…”
“What made you choose it, then?” He watched me with interest.
I shrugged. “It was that or the googly eyes.”
“Come on,” he prodded. “There had to be some reason.”
“You’ve got a powerful internal compass.” It was an unquestionable compliment, and I felt the need to temper it. “But instead of pointing north, it points toward aggressive questioning.”
His lip lifted at the edge, but the way he looked at me was one part amusement, three parts something that made my heart race and buck like a wild mustang.
“My turn,” I said, moving toward the tray.
Grant shoved his hands in his pockets in a relaxed posture, regarding his work with satisfaction.
My breath hitched softly. What I’d seen before had already been beautiful, but he’d added some touches since then. Two slim, brushed gold handles were fixed onto the short ends of the tray—sleek, clean lines that reminded me of the handles on my desk drawers at Matchify.
But it was the tray itself that held my attention. Amid the gold-flecked resin and shimmery swirls were a few streaks of amber, vibrant and random. I couldn’t stop looking at them.
“I surrendered the googly eyes for something a bit more you.”
I looked up at him beside me, and his eyes swung to mine.
His gaze shifted to my hair. “The color reminded me of you.”
I instinctively tucked my bangs behind my ears.
Grant smiled slightly at the gesture—almost like he’d expected it. His focus returned to the tray. “I tried to keep it simple but elegant. Like you.”
I gave a short laugh. “Simple, huh?”
He nodded, unfazed by my feigned offense. “You like order. Systems. Structure. And you’re amazing at those things. They suit you. But every now and then, I get a glimpse of a little streak of something else. Something unexpected. I’ve started to live for those moments with you.”
My pulse flipped and my vision wobbled, like a sudden power surge had tripped the breakers on all my vital systems. Grant had warned me he’d be coming at me strong on this date, and I thought I’d prepared myself for it.
I was so wrong.
The tumbleweed and the art workshop had lulled me into a false sense of security, and Grant knew that. Not just knew it; he’d planned for it.
I turned away. “So, what now?”
“Now, we leave them with Misha. They have to cure, so I’ll pick them up later.”
I nodded and carefully looped the apron over my head so that we wouldn’t have a repeat of earlier. Just the thought of Grant’s warm chest behind my back, his minty breath brushing my cheek was enough to send a flush of heat through me.
Grant rang the bell, and Misha emerged shortly, all smiles and kind words about our creations.
I hardly heard her. My mind was full of one repeating thought: I need to go home.
Grant opened the shop door for me, and I gave a polite thanks without meeting his eye. The eyes are the windows to the soul, they said. Maybe if I didn’t meet his gaze, I could keep my soul contained.
“Oh,” he said as I went to the passenger door of his rental car. “I figured we could walk to dinner. It’s just around the corner.”
I hesitated. Dinner with Grant. I wanted it so badly.
But it was out of the question. He was eroding my willpower like a steady river through a canyon.
“I’m kind of tired,” I said. “And not very hungry. I think I might just go home.”