Chapter 5
Leif
“Leif, my boy!” Grandpa says when I get home a few hours later.
Floof yaps at my ankles.
“Hi Grandpa,” I say, dropping my bags on the table.
I pick up the yipping dog, stroking her behind the ears. She nuzzles into my neck.
“You’re just in time to test the latest batch,” he says, looking proudly over his cookies.
I glance at my watch. I texted my cousin Enzo from the market. He confirmed Book Club doesn’t start until five, so I’ve got just enough time to change and head out again before anyone gets here.
“Great,” I set Floof down and wash my hands.
“Your father said he had to go out shopping or I’d rope him in too. Did you see him downtown at all?”
He says it in such a way that I wonder if Dad specifically went down there to look for me.
“Nope. Can I take my pick?”
Grandpa looks concerned, and I know it’s not about me eyeing up the Santa-shaped sugar cookie done up in colorful sprinkles.
But when I reach for it he says, “Not that one.”
“Book club?”
“You know about that?”
“Unfortunately.”
Grandpa guffaws. “Connie’s very excited.”
Guilt twists my stomach as I reach for the broken candy cane cookie that looks to be from the same batch. “I’m sorry to miss it.”
I wish I had a better plan than just hiding until book club is over.
Enzo invited me to hang out with him and his friends when I called, but the last thing I want to do is go out with a bunch of dudes who are probably mostly looking to hook up with women.
Dad offered to go to dinner, but I’m not ready for a heart-to-heart right now.
I’ll just get out of here and then call some of my other cousins to see if they’re around.
Grandpa raises a brow, waiting for my assessment.
The cookie melts in my mouth. “I think these are your best yet.”
He lowers his voice. “It was your grandmother’s recipe.”
I don’t understand why this is a secret until he gets that wistful look on his face. He’s talking about his first wife; my dad’s mom, who died before I was born.
I don’t know why Grandpa feels the need to whisper—Connie doesn’t mind when anyone talks about Shannon Kelly. In fact, she encourages it. She’s a widow too—she and Grandpa met when Grandpa was in his sixties, she in her fifties.
“Leif, honey!”
I spin around to see Connie in the doorway, as if summoned.
“Hey Connie,” I say, instantly cheered by Connie’s warm smile. Her short white hair is perfectly styled, her thick glasses on a Christmas-light chain.
“Perfect timing.” She bustles over to the island, pausing only to give me a kiss on the cheek, then loads a plate with cookies and thrusts it into my hand. “Our first member’s just pulling up!”
My stomach plunges. “What?”
I grimace. Enzo. Either he pulled the later start time out of his ass, or he tricked me so I’d be here when it started.
Out in the living room, Floof barks wildly as the doorbell rings.
Panic claws at me as I think of the hundred different conversations Connie’s friends are going to corner me with. “Connie, I’ve got plans—”
“Don’t fib, sweetheart. You’re too sweet for that.” Connie hooks an arm through mine. “Besides, we read a spaceman book for you!”
I gape at her. “You planned this? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Would you have stuck around if I did?”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Enzo was in on it, wasn’t he?”
“Isn’t he sweet?”
Grandpa laughs behind me. “God speed, son!”
I throw him a glare over my shoulder.
“Okay, Connie, slow down,” I say. “Listen, you have to stop them if they start talking about their granddaughters.”
“Oh don’t worry. They won’t be talking about anyone. It wouldn’t be polite.”
I frown as we round the corner toward the foyer, a little confused about that statement, but grateful all the same.
“Helloooo!” A woman’s voice says as the door opens. “Connie?”
The woman at the door is in her fifties, wearing head to toe reindeer. Antler hat. Red nose. Under her open coat, a Rudolf sweater, and Rudolf patterned tights.
“Ho ho ho!” She says, then squeals when she sees me. “Well, look who it is?! Do you remember me?”
That’s when my heart jumps. Because yes, I do remember this pretty woman in her fifties with chestnut hair streaked with gray. And I’m too stunned to say anything. Because the last time I saw her, I was walking red-faced out of her daughter’s bedroom.
“Hello,” I manage. “Connie,” I turn to Connie. “You didn’t tell me—”
But Connie’s not listening to me. She’s beaming as she points her chin out the door.
If my heart jumped before, now it fully halts. Because jogging up the steps is Noelle, wearing a Rudolf sweater identical to her mom’s.
My heart kicks back into gear, thudding in double-time.
She’s even more perfect than I remember. That smile—that little crooked tooth.
“Hi, Connie!” she says as she reaches the door.
Then she sees me.
The smile falls away almost as fast as the color rises in her cheeks.
I knew, maybe, that if I ever saw her again she might not be thrilled to see me. But I didn’t expect her to look like she’d rather have met her mortal enemy on the street.
“Hi, Noelle,” I manage.
My stomach ties itself in knots, waiting for her to say something. Anything.
“Fancy seeing you here,” she says finally. There’s a clip to her voice. She glares at her mother. “This was the big surprise, Mom? Really? You made it sound like someone was bringing cake!” She turns to me. “Were you in on this, too?”
“Absolutely not.” I level my own gaze on Connie.
“Well, let’s all get settled, shall we?” Connie says, grinning like the Cheshire Cat. “Why don’t you show Noelle the living room?”
Noelle looks like she wants to murder someone—probably me. But she smiles politely. “It’s fine. I know where it is.”
I’m still staring at Noelle. But she’s drawn her lips into a tight line as she steps neatly out of her boots.
Ten minutes later, everyone’s arrived. There are six women all together, all in their sixties and seventies.
Noelle and I stick out like sore thumbs, especially since all the women are looking at us with hearts in their eyes.
It’s not until everyone’s got snacks and tea and they’ve pulled out their copies of Space Man, the biography of an astronaut that came out last year that I understand this whole meeting was built around me.
When Connie asked me for a recommendation for her book club about space, I thought she’d just been expressing interest in my field of work.
I’m embarrassed now, because they’re essentially treating me like some kind of elite guest of honor.
As if that’s not bad enough, I feel like I look like a pompous ass in front of the girl I haven’t been able to stop thinking about all year.
But despite myself, I start to have fun when they start asking me deep philosophical questions, like Carla’s, “Why does the author say that there’s no time in space?
” When I answer, I get to talk about the ‘no-boundary’ proposal and quote Stephen Hawking.
Honestly? I love talking about this stuff.
I love exploring unanswerable questions about the cosmos.
But I can hardly concentrate with Noelle looking at me so intently.
They take a break halfway through, and Noelle says she has to use the bathroom. Since some of the older women have trouble with the stairs, Connie suggests she use one of the upstairs bathrooms.
At the risk of looking like a stalker, I wait a moment, then go up after her.
I nearly smash into her as she stands in the hallway, looking at a photo on the wall.
“Oh, shit, I’m sorry.”
She clears her throat, backing up. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been standing around a blind corner.”
A beat passes, before she says, “I wasn’t really using the bathroom. I just needed some space.”
“I’m sorry.” When she doesn’t say anything, I pick up the hint. “I’ll…uh… I’ll go back downstairs.”
I turn around, trying not to let the disappointment show in my posture.
But just as I reach the top of the stairs, she says, “We were supposed to read a mystery.”
I’m so surprised, I laugh. “What?”
“A mystery. By one of my favorite authors. It’s about a woman who buys an old church and discovers a body under the altar.”
“Jesus.”
“He’s not in it.”
I pinch my lips, looking down as I laugh. “I forgot how funny you are.”
She gifts me with that beautiful smile.
“Have you seen that church downtown?” There’s a boarded up church down by the water that’s been for sale for at least a decade. “It’s a little creepy looking, but it’d make a great community theater.”
When Noelle doesn’t say anything, I realize I’ve said too much. It must be weird that I remember she mentioned how fun it would be to run a theater if she wasn’t an actor.
“I didn’t know you were going to be here,” I say.
“Really? Because it seems like the Leif Kelly show down there.”
“Connie tricked me.”
Noelle laughs. “Well, clearly I didn’t know you were going to be here either. I should have guessed when Mom said they’d switched to a space book.”
A long beat passes, and she glances to the stairs behind me. She wants to go back downstairs.
But I can’t leave it like this. Not when this might be the only time I see her again.
“Noelle,” I say, hesitating. “I… wanted to say I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For taking off last year. For not being on the couch.”
A beat passes, then she says, “I propositioned you, remember?”
Despite the extreme awkwardness of this location, my dick jumps at the memory.
“You didn’t exactly have to twist my arm.”
She folds her arms. “But you should be sorry about not telling me you were Quince Valley royalty.”
“I’m not royalty!”
“Right. Your uncle Eli was the mayor. Your uncle Jude is an ex tennis pro. Another aunt’s a multi-platinum folk singer. And you guys own ‘the Jewel of Quince Valley.’
She’s talking about the Rolling Hills, the resort our family owns that presides over the town. “It really does look like a jewel at this time of the year,” I say, slightly sheepish.
“You could have stayed at any number of places that night, Leif.”
“I wanted to stay with you.”