Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
It was fun, Lara could admit. She’d been a little…jumpy at the start. Ty had called her beautiful so earnestly it had done something to her. Rewired something. And that was silly.
Silly.
They’d walked to the restaurant and he’d and put his big, warm hand on the small of her back to guide her into the restaurant. It had felt too…date like. Too much like something was different. Changed.
Still silly, but a little more concerning.
But then they’d sat and ordered and talked about their respective days and it had settled back into them. Friends. Best friends. Just like always. Just like it would always be.
“I told you they’d be excited to have you,” Lara said, sipping the wine Ty had insisted on with dessert. She wasn’t at all surprised he’d already gotten the job offer. Even if there were hoops to jump through, he’d do it easily. “And I think you’d be great working in a school.”
“Yeah, I like the idea of it. And if it doesn’t work out, I can always try something else. No harm no foul.”
“Exactly.”
“Now, you’ve been avoiding it, but dessert is done. There’s no more putting it off.” He leaned forward in the low light of the restaurant. His blue gaze was direct, intense. Just like the feeling his concentration on her whipped up inside her.
Luckily, his words managed to dull a lot of that buzz. “Spill on the paintings.”
She had been avoiding telling him about the paintings. Working the conversation to focus on him and baseball and not…what had happened at the gallery today.
“Well…” She didn’t want to say it out loud. She didn’t want to admit she was wrong, but it was bigger than that. It wasn’t just about being wrong it was about…well, change again.
Believing in her paintings required a shift in perspective. It required a kind of hope. It meant trusting something to not go sideways.
And she didn’t want any of that, but she’d walked into that gallery and…
“She wants every single one at the gallery,” Ty said. So sure. So confident in her abilities.
It made her want to cry. The way he was just so certain she was good with absolutely no factual evidence. Except, now there was some. “No,” Lara replied, because it had been even more than that, somehow.
And she didn’t want it, but she’d been forced. Forced to take this step and now there was no un-taking it.
“She’s taking four out of the five for the gallery,” Lara had to tell him, because it was going to happen. Even if she’d gone back to the cottage, locked herself in her room, and had a panic attack.
No one ever had to know that part. And she could hardly tell the lovely woman at the gallery that she’d changed her mind about displaying her paintings for sale. It was happening, so people had to know.
“Four! That’s amazing, Lara.” He reached over, grabbed her hand and squeezed. “See, I told you. Four out of five is hitting it out of the park.”
His grin was infectious. His excitement didn’t make her panic. It made her feel like she’d really accomplished something amazing. So she ended up telling him what she’d told herself earlier she wouldn’t tell anyone.
“And she bought the fifth for herself.” The picture of poor, weeping Lissy had moved the gallery manager so much, she’d bought it. Lara still couldn’t quite believe it.
Ty leaned over and engulfed her in a tight hug. Right here in the middle of the restaurant. Leaning his chair toward her, all enthusiasm and support.
“I knew it,” he said in her ear. “And now you know it.”
It was all so…
His excitement made her happy. It made her feel proud. Worst of all, it actually made her excited about the prospect. None of that panic from this afternoon. Like he steadied something inside of her, even in the face of change.
He released her, still grinning. She had to blink a few times to keep the tears in her eyes.
“I’m stuffed. Let’s take a walk on the beach. Unless you don’t think you can get down there in those shoes.”
“I’ll be fine.” She needed something to do with all this…weird, restless, uncomfortable energy pumping through her. A walk in the cold would be good. The beach would settle her.
He held her hand out of the restaurant, and down the street toward the pedestrian walkway to the beach.
She knew she should do something about that, but at first the cold air was so incongruous to the warm restaurant she figured she needed the warmth his hand offered.
Besides, she was wearing heels even if they weren’t super high.
Just about when she was finally getting up the determination to pull her hand away, the museum came into view.
Lara stopped mid-stride, confused by the way the building was lit up against the encroaching night. Like every light inside was on when it should just be a few security lights. “All the lights are on.”
“Maybe Mary Lou went in sometime today and forgot to turn them off,” Ty suggested.
Lara shook her head. “No, Grandma would have mentioned if she’d gone in on our off day. I better go in and turn them off. Our electric bill will be through the roof.” She started rummaging in her purse for her keys and walking up the front walk. Ty followed her.
“If it wasn’t your grandma, you don’t think someone’s in there, do you?” Ty asked, clearly concerned. “Maybe we should call the police or something?”
She paused with her key in the lock, gave him a look over her shoulder. “No one broke in, but you don’t want to know why I think they’re on.”
His frown deepened. “The ghosts want you to pay double on your electric bill?” he muttered.
She shook her head, his refusal to believe amused her. Maybe because she knew it stemmed more from fear or discomfort, and he never tried to make her feel bad for believing. Even if he didn’t believe in them, he accepted that she did with minimal commentary.
They stepped inside and the lights immediately dimmed to the usual security lights. She sent Ty a glance. “Not going to faint, are you?”
He slid her a disapproving look. “I think you need an electrician to come in and check your wiring.”
She made a non-committal sound. Even the best electrician wouldn’t find anything, she knew. But there was no point arguing with someone who didn’t believe, and Ty wouldn’t argue with her anyway. He’d just start saying noncommittal things and let it go.
“Let’s go downstairs to turn off those lights, then we can get on the beach from the back.”
“Sure.”
She locked the front door from inside as he started to head toward the stairs, but when she moved to follow him, it was like something…pushed her, and then her foot caught on something that wasn’t there, and she was stumbling forward.
Right into Ty’s arms.
He caught her, easy and right up against him, with a chuckle. “That the ghosts too?” he asked.
Before she could answer, radio static echoed through the empty room before a song came on. An old forties-sounding slow song. For a moment, they both stood in this semi-awkward embrace, staring in the direction of the music.
Okay, she was used to a little ghost interference, but this was getting…downright spooky.
“I guess the ghosts want us to dance,” Ty said, his voice low and far too close to her ear. Especially when his arms were still around her.
Her pulse was beginning to pound, and she didn’t like whatever game her ghosts were playing. At all. “You don’t believe in ghosts and you’re a shitty dancer.” She tried to pull away from him, but he held firm.
“Well, what is it you said the other night? It’s not really dancing. It’s just kind of pressing up against each other.” He slid the purse off her shoulder, gently set it on the ground, and didn’t once let her go.
They should most assuredly not be pressing their bodies together, but that’s exactly what they were doing. And now they were swaying to the music. Her hands on his shoulders, his arms around her waist, pulling her closer.
She sighed, couldn’t quite help relaxing into him. Into this. It was just a dance. He was the perfect height to lean into, and he smelled nice. And Bing Crosby was crooning along about all the old familiar places.
This wasn’t exactly familiar. They’d never really danced together, except once at senior prom. But only half a song before his date had gotten mad, and hers hadn’t been much happier.
It had never bothered her, that her boyfriends or dates couldn’t understand or be okay with her having a male best friend.
Maybe because she’d never really been all that interested in a future with someone.
Connection guaranteed loss and she’d had her fair share, so everything had been kind of shallow.
Except Ty. Always Ty. She’d allowed him to become some foundation in her life because he’d been there before the accident. Because she’d always known he wouldn’t be a permanent fixture in Wild Rose Point.
But now he was planning on being just that.
The song ended and Lara pulled away. She tried to plaster a smile on her face, but there was a riot of something going on inside of her that she had to…avoid or sidestep somehow, but her gaze snagged on his—all blue and intense.
When she tried to step away, his hands came around her elbows and kept her there. Another song started to play, but Lara didn’t really hear it. Not over the pounding in her heart.
She opened her mouth to say something, anything. To get out of this somehow, but she couldn’t quite manage. Not when he looked at her like that, not when his grip was tight and fierce and the air around them seemed to press their bodies closer together.
“I have failed everything I’ve ever done,” he told her, so seriously, with such vulnerability she wanted to cry for him. And she couldn’t help but defend him, even to himself.
“No, no you haven’t.” She put her hands on his chest, like she could press her rebuttal into his heart. “You’re too hard on yourself. You—”
His grip on her elbows firmed. “But I won’t fail you.”
Her words caught in her throat. The only thing she could manage to squeak out was his name. “Ty…”