Chapter 9
Ispin around in disbelief and look through the open window of a green pickup truck right at Jake Carpenter.
He’s wearing an olive-colored corduroy baseball cap, black rimmed glasses, and a lopsided smile. I can’t help but smile back.
“You know, a smarter girl might think you were following her,” I reply, taking a step forward.
Jake climbs out of his truck and meets me around the front of it. He chuckles, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Or maybe it’s just the universe conspiring.”
I glance down at my messy appearance, paint still caked to my hands and all, then over to his NYU crew neck sweater and collared shirt peeking out from beneath it. He looks adorable, especially with those glasses, while I certainly do not. If the universe is conspiring, it’s against me.
“That’s right, you believe in fate.”
“Do you?”
I avert my gaze. “I’m starting to,” I murmur. “But how did you find out about this place so quickly? It’s a local dive.”
“Caught my attention when I was exploring the other day,” he answers with a shrug.
Walking ahead, he pulls open the front door and holds it for me to pass through first. “After you.”
I hesitate, wondering how I’ve again been thrown together with someone I should decidedly avoid. But the smell of freshly baked bread is wafting out the open door, and I follow it into the tiny shop as I inhale greedily.
“Welcome to Dagwood’s,” the deli clerk behind the glass greets us. “What can I get for you?”
Jake sits back on the window’s ledge behind us and asks, “Lucy, what do you recommend?”
“Well, you really can’t go wrong with any of the classics. Everything here is super fresh and delicious. But if it’s your first time, I think you need to try the house hoagie.”
He raises his eyebrows. “What’s the house hoagie?”
I point a finger back over my shoulder, directly at the menu above the counter. I don’t need to look, I have it memorized. “Third line. The Dagwood. With literally all the things, just like its namesake.”
“Okay, sold.” He accepts my suggestion without hesitation. A part of me thinks I could have suggested peanut butter and pickles, and he would have tried it.
Decided, we both move to the glass barrier to order, and I’m acutely aware of the faint way his woodsy, cinnamon scent reaches my nose and settles something in the corner of my brain. I don’t want to examine that too closely anytime soon.
“What have you been up to today?” he asks, his eyes dropping to my paint splattered hands as we turn in unison and head back to the window ledge together.
I sit back on the painted wood sill and wait for him to join me. “I’ve been in my studio. I started a new piece.”
“What kind of painting do you do?”
“Actually”—I look down and pick at the umber splotch on my thumb—“I don’t really have a set style at the moment.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“If I say Jackson Pollock, you think of paint splatter. Jean Michel Basquiat—a revolutionary take on graffiti. Artists should have a style,” I point out.
My words are surprisingly transparent, teetering right at the heart of the matter. Who am I if I can’t even find my artistic voice?
“Order up,” the clerk calls, holding out two paper sleeves with hoagies.
We were mistaken as together. With a single order rung up to a single total due. I open my mouth to correct this, but Jake simply shakes his head with a soft smile and exchanges cash for the bags. Then he turns back to me, motioning towards the door.
As we step outside, he says, “I bet they didn’t just start with those styles though. I mean how else do you find the right one if you don’t test them all out?”
It takes me a second to realize he’s talking about Pollock and Basquiat. He listened and came back to it.
“I thought I’d already done that though,” I admit quietly.
He follows me over between our cars, leaning against the passenger door of his truck and holding my sandwich hostage. “Did you enjoy this new style today?”
“Yes. Very much so,” I say, blinking back at him in surprise. “But I’m sure you’re not interested in me going on about this.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Well—”
“You don’t usually talk about this with people, do you?” The corner of his mouth tips up.
Instead of answering, I reach out and swipe my bag from his hand, then I turn to unlock my door before he can see the embarrassment on my face.
I don’t get my keys out in time, not before I feel his grip gently settling over my elbow.
“Wait, Lucy. Please.”
I look back over my shoulder, and he adds, “Stay and eat with me?”
“I should get back to painting,” I mumble, concentrating on the way his hand hovers over my arm, like he’s afraid I’ll bolt again. “Besides, where would we eat?”
He nods back towards his truck. “I’ve got a tailgate. And you need to eat before getting to work again anyway, right?”
Torn between my instinct to escape a social situation and the strange pull I feel towards him, I glance over to the bed of his truck. “I’m a fast eater,” I reason. “I won’t stay long.”
“That’s okay.”
“Then… sure.”
Jake doesn’t wait for me to change my mind. He moves around to drop the tailgate and helps me up before sitting beside me. Our feet dangle off the edge, swinging perilously close to tangling with one another.
As promised, I unwrap my sandwich quickly and start eating with oversized bites. It wasn’t a lie; I eat extremely fast when I spend all day forgetting to take food breaks. He doesn’t try to slow me down with conversation either, apparently content with just eating side by side.
And when I finish before him, wrapping up the now empty deli paper, he still doesn’t try to stop me. I hop down to the ground and collect my tote, throwing it over my shoulder. “Thank you, for the sandwich,” I say, holding up the balled paper.
“Thanks for the company,” he replies without a hint of sarcasm.
“I was hardly any company,” I snort, making my way over to my Subaru. I stop with my hand on the door and turn back in time to see him shrug.
“I beg to differ.”
When I climb in behind the wheel, I feel a traitorous smile curl my lips. I tuck it away quickly as I back up and find him walking over towards my driver’s side window though.
He waits patiently while I crank it down, then leans forward and rests his elbows on the opening. “You know, one of these days, Lucy Hart, we’re going to spend time together and it won’t be by accident at all,” he tells me confidently.
Then he steps back, allowing me room to drive away. And as I look in the review mirror, I catch him smiling in my dust.