Chapter 41
FORTY-ONE
Love is like you can love a person. Love is a heart.
From the group text messages of Ellie, Mae, and Ali:
MAE : Anyone up?
ALI : You know it’s after midnight. Some of us are trying to sleep.
MAE : Whoops.
ALI : Whoops?
MAE : Iris came over tonight with a little gossip. But I’ll let you get back to sleep.
ALI : Do not even think about it. Spill it.
MAE : I was hoping Ellie would spill it.
ALI : Ooo. TELL ME.
MAE : It involves Gil, Ellie, and a mouse.
ELLIE : Can you two STOP TEXTING RIGHT NOW? I have to get up at 4.
ELLIE : Also, Iris has a big mouth.
ALI : Well, you’re up now. You might as well tell us.
ALI : Ellie?
ALI : You don’t think she blocked us, do you?
April slid into May and Gil didn’t bring up Teddy again. In fact, we never talked much about the things we should talk about—the tension between us or selling the property. Both of us, it seemed, were very good at pretending everything was just fine.
As Gil spent more time in the café, I made him try every job in the place, hoping something would pique his interest. Jorge taught him to make decent waffles.
Iris trained him on serving. Which didn’t mean much since Iris’s version of serving was a little suspect.
He rotated through bathroom duty, mopping the floors, clearing tables.
His strongest showing was running the cash register until Mr. Grueber complained Gil shortchanged him.
What Gil didn’t know was that Mr. Grueber always complained about being shortchanged.
Mr. Grueber was eighty-seven, hard of hearing, and mean as an angry goat.
Plus, I think he was a little lonely since his wife had passed on and he enjoyed the whole ritual of the arguing.
I always gave him back the fifty-seven cents (or whatever minute amount he was grumbling about) so he would leave, but Gil was not me and he and Mr. Grueber got into a loud “discussion” about it before I could intervene.
After that, we all thought it wise Gil should not have a customer-facing position.
So, it seemed I’d found something Gilbert Dalton wasn’t good at. I was probably an awful person for feeling almost gleeful about this piece of information. Finally, something Mr. Competent couldn’t do.
It was when I’d mentioned I needed to pay bills one day that he volunteered to take over the accounting, a job I gladly handed off. I had been managing it, but all that time at a computer double-checking numbers and accounts was mind-numbing.
“Here are all the receipts.” I placed a banker’s box on the desk in the office.
Gil looked at it with horror. “That is a box.”
“Of receipts.” After pulling the lid off, I reached in and held up a handful of receipts and invoices. “It’s every single one, I swear.”
“Eleanor,” he said in his principal voice. A shiver raced up my back. I really liked that voice. “This is not how you keep books.”
“I know this looks bad.” I crossed my arms. “But I swear it’s because I’ve just gotten a tiny bit behind. I’ll show you.”
I stomped around the desk and nudged him to move over so I could log onto the dinosaur of a computer.
It took forever to boot up, enough time for me to realize how close I was to Gil.
Very close. So close that when he took a deep breath and exhaled, the bits of frizzy hair on the back of my neck moved.
So close that if I moved two inches to the side, I’d be touching him.
Here was the wild thing: I sort of wanted to see what would happen if I did it. I laughed under my breath at the thought. We’d been through this already. Nothing was happening between us.
“What’s so funny?” Gil asked, his voice so close I almost jumped.
I ignored the question. Using the wireless mouse, I clicked around on the computer until I pulled up the accounting program. “See, I’m only four months behind for the year.”
His fingers brushed my hand as he shooed it aside to get to the mouse. “It’s the beginning of May.”
“Yes, I know that.”
“Before April is March and February and January,” he said.
I glared at him over my shoulder. “Are we going to learn all the months of the year today, Teacher?”
“None of the accounting has been done for the entire year?” He sounded incredulous, scandalized even.
“Okay, you know what? Never mind.” I moved the mouse to close the program. “I can do this myself, thank you very much.”
“No.” He plucked the mouse from me.
“Yes.” I smacked his hand to get him to release it.
He held on tighter, his knuckles turning white. “No.”
“Yes.” I gave his hand a good, strong yank; it didn’t move. “Give me the mouse.”
“Make me.”
“Are you serious? How old are you?” I didn’t give him time to answer. I was one of five kids. Make me was basically a war cry.
I lunged.
I used both hands to move his one. He used his shoulder to nudge me away. I planted my feet and grabbed onto his forearm for better leverage. He locked himself in place like a freaking statue.
As the younger sister of a very big dude—Chris was six five and solid muscle and he’d been that way for a long time—I’d learned a thing or two about getting one over on him.
In my younger years, if I had reached an impasse such as this, I would have licked his face.
Worked every time. And while the thought had some merit, I didn’t think it was the best course of action with Gil.
The office chair was on wheels, so my next brilliant idea was to pull him away from the desk. Which almost worked except…
“Holy fork, how much do you weigh?” I blew at the hair that had fallen out of my ponytail and into my face and gave the chair another yank. “Just give me the mouse.”
“No.” To punctate his point, he picked the mouse up and shoved it down his t-shirt.
“You cheat,” I yelled, letting go of the chair and almost falling from the momentum.
With a smirk, he crossed his arms. “I didn’t think there were rules.”
I don’t know if it was the smirk or the tension that had been building for days, weeks, months, but I launched myself at him. With an oomph , he unfurled his arms and latched onto my waist. I landed on his lap, my legs to one side. Without hesitation (or thought), I shoved my hand up his shirt.
Both of us froze.
My hand skimmed over his skin; the spray of hair tickled my palm.
I made a small sound in the back of my throat.
His skin rippled under my fingers in response.
I moved my hand higher, resting it on his chest. It was warm there, soft and hard all at once.
I could feel the rapid tattoo of his heart. My own heartbeat matched it.
“What are you doing?” he whispered, his mouth so close to my ear. I shivered.
I swallowed. What was I doing? There was a reason for this, right? I definitely wasn’t feeling the guy up. That could not be it.
“I…don’t remember.” I met his eyes. They were darker than usual, the pupils blown wide and his breathing was a little funny. So was mine. “I should definitely get my hand out of your shirt.”
“Probably.”
Neither of us moved. Our faces were close, maybe two inches apart. I could feel his breath on my lips.
“I’ll do that right now,” I murmured.
He nodded. But still, I didn’t move my hand, and he didn’t move it for me. In fact, both of us drifted closer to each other. Closer and closer. The pull was so strong, and I wanted so badly to see how far we would go.
“Oh, no. Am I interrupting?” said a voice from the doorway. A very amused voice. “Do you want me to close the door? Give you both a little privacy?”
With a gasp, I snatched my hand from his shirt and scrambled to my feet, Gil’s hands on my waist to steady me. I brushed them off and crossed my arms, hoping to appear calm and collected. Judging by Iris’s grin, I looked anything but.
“Nope,” I said. “We were discussing some accounting stuff. Gil is taking it over for now.”
“Exactly, right.” Gil stood. A loud clank filled the room when the mouse fell from under his shirt. We ignored it but Iris rolled her lips together, clearly holding in laughter. “Thank you for your help, Eleanor.”
“No problem, Gil.” I gave my t-shirt a yank. “I’ll get back to work then. Let me know if you have any questions.”
Then I got the heck out of that room.