Chapter Six #4
I was about to ask him to drive me back to my car when a group of Cory’s coworkers entered the cidery.
My blood chilled. I blinked and checked again.
Cory wasn’t with them, thank goodness, but before I could angle myself away from them, they spotted me, and their chatter stopped.
Then it started up again, whispered and fervent.
My gaze drifted casually back to Justin, as if it wasn’t a big deal that they’d seen me. As if I hadn’t started to sweat.
Justin glanced over his shoulder to see what I’d been staring at, but Cory’s friends had turned and were heading toward the bar. “Everything okay?” he asked.
Something came over me. My energy dialed up, and I became flirtatious again, laughed harder at his jokes. He seemed confused but not displeased. I wasn’t proud of my behavior, but I also couldn’t bear to let word get back to Cory that I was unhappy.
As we left, I linked my arm through Justin’s and pulled him close against my body. My eyes shone until I was back inside his car and the doors closed.
The mood dropped.
“Do you want to come back to my place?” he asked uneasily. It had become a question again, not an assumption.
I couldn’t look at him because I couldn’t look at myself. “I’m kind of tired.”
He took that in, and then nodded. As he dropped me off, he seemed disappointed but not hurt. “Call me if you change your mind.”
“Thanks,” I said, and I meant it. But I knew it would never happen.
The situation with Justin left me antsy and unfulfilled and ruminating about dating.
Not dating like it had been with the app, but dating like it had been with Cory.
Conversation and laughter and connection.
I decided to ask out Gareth on the final Thursday of the month.
The worst he could do was say no, and he was a nice guy, so at least he would say it politely.
And sure, if he turned me down, I’d have to hide in the annex every Thursday night for the rest of my librarian life, but the miserable situation with Macon would probably force me to quit soon anyway.
My plan had been to ask him out to the movies—a safe, obvious bet—but then Amelia Louisa Hatmaker, one of our favorite regulars, a funny and slightly batty middle-aged woman, regifted us a generous present.
“I’d say I’m too busy, which I am,” she said, “but really I’m too chicken.
” None of us had wanted it either, but we promised to find a good home for it.
Hours later, nobody had bitten, and the novelty and freeness of the gift had wormed its way into my psyche.
By the time Gareth arrived, I was so nervous that I fleetingly lost touch with reality and could barely verbalize when he checked out his five discs, which was how I found myself bursting outside and chasing him into the parking lot before I missed my chance forever.
“Hey!” I blurted.
He startled and turned around.
I hurried up to him, rushing the question, too. “I was just wondering if you wanted to go on a”—oh my God, these were the most ludicrous words ever to come out of my mouth—“hot-air balloon ride with me this Sunday.”
His expression circled from confusion, to surprise, to the pleasure of being asked out—he was going to say yes!—and then back to confusion. “A what now?”
I understood why he thought he’d heard incorrectly. “It’s ridiculous, I know. It’s a gift from another patron. We all laughed it off, but then I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and I wondered if… maybe… you wanted to go.”
Nope. He was not going to say yes.
“Uh, yea—yeah.” It came out in an adorable stammer. “Sure.” His voice grew confident and jokey again. “I mean, I love ballooning.”
“You do?”
“No. I haven’t thought about hot-air balloons since I was a kid. I mean it. Not once.” He laughed and scratched his scruffy beard. “But yeah, I think I’d like to ride in one… with you.”
The pause before with you made me flutter. We exchanged numbers, he gave me a dizzy smile of disbelief, and my heart soared as I sailed back inside through the double doors.
“Did you just ask him out?” Macon demanded.
I hesitated. Then I said it like a challenge. “I did.”
I thought you said you weren’t going to ask out any patrons. He didn’t say it out loud, but it hung between us all the same. I moved behind my station and avoided his gaze. A minute later, he removed the pen from behind his ear and pointed it at me. “What about that other guy?”
“I’m not seeing them both, if that’s what you’re asking.”
He tapped the pen rapidly against the desk, about to say something more, but then shoved the pen back into place. “Sorry. It’s none of my business.”
It wasn’t. But I also couldn’t help but feel like I’d dragged him into it. “It’s okay,” I muttered, retrieving the gift voucher from the desk drawer and slipping it into my pocket.
“ Ballooning ?” Macon said. “You’re actually going ballooning with him. With Gareth Murphy.”
“No,” I seethed. “I’m going with Mr. Brember.”
Our rhythm was so off that it took him a few seconds to realize I wasn’t serious. His confusion clicked into understanding.
“Yes, with Gareth Murphy,” I said.
His expression darkened with fury. “Yeah, I know.”
“Then why did you ask?”
“Forget I said anything.”
“That won’t be hard since you never talk to me anymore,” I snapped.
He winced, and immediately I felt like a tremendous piece of shit.
“I’m sorry.” My voice dropped into a quiet plea. “I understand why you don’t, and I know you want me to quit, but I can’t. Not yet.”
He looked flabbergasted. “I don’t want you to quit.”
“Oh.”
His expression collapsed and then screwed into wretchedness. I sensed him wanting to explain himself and then, after a struggle, closing back up. The smell of smoke from the fireplace seemed to intensify, but it was only because the spark between us, tentative but volatile, had been extinguished.