Chapter 11 Gage
Gage
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before!
~ Dr. Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!
I don’t remember a time I’ve been this nervous around a woman. In high school, maybe. Back then I was so focused on football, my friends and my next adventure. Girls were around the fringes of my life, but none of them made me nervous.
My eyes are on the road, but my mind is all over the place, reminiscing about my past and considering my future.
I’ve always been pretty reluctant to commit to a serious romantic relationship. I don’t want to invest in someone if I’m not relatively sure we’re going to last.
Laurel was my only hometown girlfriend. Asking her to Homecoming got my nerves firing.
We hadn’t started dating yet and I sweated over making the poster, arranging the details, and actually popping the question.
I almost chuckle out loud at the memory of how tied in knots I was at the time.
Laurel moved away the spring after Homecoming when her dad got a job promotion in North Carolina.
Her move ended my high school dating life.
I glance over at Tori. She’s riding along, texting someone. The Tennessee landscape spreads out around us, grounding me.
By the time I went to MTSU for college, I was so single-mindedly focused on becoming a pilot, I only casually dated during those four years.
Between football practice and games, spending my weekends rock climbing or taking day trips to go whitewater rafting, I didn’t have much spare time to focus on romance.
Tori sets her phone in her lap and smiles over at me.
“Everything good?” I ask.
“Yeah.” She sighs contentedly. “It is.”
I turn my eyes back to the road, maybe these nerves are anticipation as much as they are fear of botching my opportunity with Tori.
Darla never made me nervous. She came out of nowhere, so different from any of the women I had known, seemingly unattainable.
I love a challenge, and she definitely made me feel like I was earning her time and attention.
I approached Darla with my trademark confidence.
Maybe my lack of nerves should have been a sign.
Either way, Darla’s my past. I’m not wrestling through what went wrong or what I should have picked up on anymore. I dodged a bullet. I see that now, and I’m moving forward.
Tori’s here and she’s starting to consume my thoughts in a way no one ever has before. I turn my head, stealing another glance at her while she rides along, unaware of my thoughts and feelings. Just the thought of pursuing her has my heart up in my throat, thrumming at an unnaturally rapid rate.
Tori matters to me—getting this right with her matters to me—and not only because of our combined friend group and shared history in the same small town.
It’s her. She’s like a hummingbird, beautiful and elusive.
You don’t capture her, you share her space.
And if she lingers in your garden, you cherish the moment like a rare gift.
I’ve never felt anything remotely close to what I feel about Tori.
No woman has made me wish for a certain future so quickly.
I can picture us together. The thought thrills me and petrifies me all at once.
We drive into my neighborhood on our way to get Toothpick. Tori smiles and waves to an elderly couple, the Littles, when we come to a stop sign. She’s happy for no apparent reason. It’s like happiness is her resting state.
“You’re awfully quiet over there,” Tori teases me from her spot in my passenger seat.
“Just thinking about my secret Santa,” I tell her.
“The one you got? Or the one bringing you gifts?” She pivots toward me in her seat.
“The one I got.”
“Oooh. I wish I knew who it was.”
“I’ll tell you on January first.” I chuckle.
She laughs. “I’ll already know by then.”
“Yes. You will.” I smile again.
Tori stares at me and I feel her studying me as if her fingers are tracing over my features.
Then she surprises me by saying, “I like seeing you smile.”
“You and Mitch,” I say wryly.
“Mitch likes seeing you smile?”
I pull up in front of my home and park. “Yeah. He said I never smile. Teased me that I’m perpetually grumpy. He likes to give me a hard time. It’s one way he entertains himself when he’s bored.”
“He’s wrong,” she says matter-of-factly. “You smile. Sometimes your smiles are really small, so a person has to know you to actually catch it. And sometimes they’re more free and open, like the one you just had.”
I shake my head lightly, a puff of air coming from my mouth in disbelief. Tori’s been paying attention to me. Either that’s because she’s amazingly attentive to people—a fact I’m already keenly aware of—or she’s focused on me more than she is on others. I hope it’s the latter.
“I was going through some things these past few months. I’m a slow processor, I guess. I needed to sort myself out.” I mumble my explanation, or apology, whatever it is.
I hate that I let Darla have that impact on me.
Tori and I get out of my car and walk up the walkway to my front door.
“Did you?” she asks.
“Sort myself out?”
“Yes.”
“I think so.” I pause, double checking with myself. “Yes. I did. I’m through with all of the things that were holding me back and weighing me down.”
The admission feels intimate. It’s a seal on a lid, capping off that chapter of my life and burying it for good.
I don’t know why, but I feel the need to inform Tori of what she might be getting into with me. “I’m not what you’d call a ray of sunshine by nature.”
“More of a natural grinch?” she teases with a playful smile.
I smile back. I almost correct her, but the softness in her eyes stops me. Whatever I am, she’s seen it. And she still wants to take a hike in the woods with me this afternoon.
I open the door and Toothpick makes a beeline for Tori, wagging his tail and bouncing around with excitement.
“I’ll grab his leash.” I tell Tori.
She’s already bending down, scratching behind his ears and saying all sorts of sweet things to him. The two of them are in their own world. I return with the leash, lingering in the living room doorway, watching them for a moment.
Tori’s heart is the most beautiful thing about her.
One day, I hope I get to say that out loud—to her.
I don’t know if I’ve ever met someone so open-hearted and genuine in my life.
Some men would say they don’t deserve a good woman like Tori.
I understand that sentiment fully. As for me, I think I could be good for her.
We could be good for one another. I’m protective and attentive.
I’ll treat her the way she deserves to be treated.
I might not be full of sunshine, but I’m loyal and I know how to have fun.
I’ll support her dreams and give her a solid place to land when life feels overwhelming or hard.
I keep my circle small. But when I let someone in, they’re in.
Even Mitch. He might be an overgrown goofball half the time, but I’d take a bullet for him and he knows it.
Man. I shake my head and push away from the wall. I haven’t even asked Tori out and I’m already planning how I’ll care for her.
Slow down, Gage. Take the hike with her. Go to the rehearsal dinner. Find your moment.
“Ready?” I ask Tori.
“Of course. Let’s go.”
I hope her answer to me when I finally ask her out is just as easy and immediate.
I don’t frequent Moss and Maple bookshop very often.
I’ll admit, I take the easy route and order most of my books from the big online retailer.
They arrive at my doorstep. Being here in person makes me feel guilty that I don’t regularly support Daisy’s shop.
Toothpick’s in the car waiting for me and Tori.
I’m hanging back, pretending to peruse the shelves while Daisy and Tori catch up at the checkout counter.
“You and Gage?” I overhear Daisy ask Tori.
“We’re friends,” Tori answers. “And we’re going to take his new dog on a hike in the woods.”
“Ahhh. Friends. Okay then.” Daisy’s voice has that girlish tone that says she’s not buying the friend title.
Tori smiles and thanks Daisy for ordering her books for her.
Daisy hands Tori her bag of books. And then she shouts, “Have a nice hike with your friend, Gage.”
I tip my chin toward Daisy as a way of saying goodbye. Then I add, “Thanks,” just so I don’t come across as rude.
Daisy knows me. I was good friends with her brother growing up.
He left for college and settled in Colorado.
She knows I don’t waste words and I’m not the most social man in town.
She also knows I’m not mean or even unkind.
I love that about growing up around the same people you end up knowing your whole life.
Sure, they can recite your most embarrassing moments by heart.
But they also know you almost as well as they know themselves. And most days, they’ve got your back.
Tori walks toward me, a full smile on her face.
My eyes meet Daisy’s. She’s looking between me and Tori with an expression I recognize all too well.
Knowing our small town, by the time we’re sitting around the table at the rehearsal dinner tonight, almost everyone in a ten mile radius will know Tori and I took a walk in the woods together.
And by the time Alyssa’s walking down the aisle to Carson tomorrow, Tori and I will be rumored to be engaged.
I chuckle to myself.
The door to the shop clatters behind us and Tori and I step down from the porch side by side.
“What’s so funny?” she asks.
“This town. You know the next bookworm who steps foot in Moss and Maple is going to get an earful about us going on a hike together.”
Tori laughs. “You’re so right!”
She looks up at me with a full smile. Then she starts singing Bonnie Raitt’s Something to Talk About.
Tori’s voice is sweet and light and the words of that song make me laugh. Bonnie must have known good and well the ins and outs of actual small town life.
Tori opens the car door and sings straight to Toothpick. He wags his tail. She lifts him out and sets him on the ground, picking up the end of his leash and walking ahead of me, past the side of the bookshop, through the large grassy lawn out back toward the tree line at the edge of the woods.
We walk for a while, asking one another questions, Tori filling the silence with stories about Christmases with her family, her Black Friday traditions with her friends, and even her memories of our time at the cabin last winter when Alyssa and Carson fell for one another.
“Imagine,” she says, looking up at me. “If we hadn’t been locked in that cabin by the snowstorm, they might never have fallen in love.”
“I disagree.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. We’re all here in town. Our friend groups seem to be overlapping more and more. I think they would have found one another, just maybe not as easily or as quickly.”
Tori smiles a beaming smile. Her eyes crinkle up at the edges and she pauses on the path to stare up at me. “That’s awfully optimistic for a man who usually sees things through dingy grey glasses.”
“Ha!” I bark out a laugh. “You got me there.” Then I add, “I can be optimistic.”
“Can you?”
I smile at the way our banter feels like an inside joke. “Sure. Just the other day I found myself wondering …” I can’t finish the sentence.
I laugh at myself. “Nah. I can’t. I’m just not an optimist by nature.”
She laughs too. “That’s okay. You are who you are. Not all of us can wear rose-colored glasses. The world needs variety.”
“Hmmm.”
The sun peeks through the treetops, casting light and shadow on Tori’s features. I want to lean in and kiss her. Even a light brush of our lips. She’s so beautiful inside and out. I’m drawn to her in such an unexpected and overwhelming way.
Toothpick tugs on the leash and Tori turns, flitting away down the path with him. I follow behind, watching the two of them and feeling more certain than I’ve felt in months.
Love doesn’t need to be complicated. What it should be is easy and right.
We come to a creek and Toothpick takes a drink.
“We’d better head back,” I suggest. “We’ve got the rehearsal dinner in a few hours.”
Tori agrees. “I know a different trail to get us back to the bookshop. It’s got more of an incline at spots but I think it might be a shortcut.”
“Lead the way.” I extend my hand and Tori gives Toothpick’s leash to me.
We walk in silence. She occasionally fills our time with more stories or random thoughts. I listen, responding occasionally.
“What made you want to be a pilot?” she asks at one point.
“I don’t know. I’ve always wanted to fly. I love adventure. Bungee jumping, rock climbing, whitewater rafting. I love it all. Flying gives perspective. It’s a job I can do that keeps me out of an office.”
“I like that,” she says.
“Oh.” Tori stops dead in her tracks and I nearly slam into her back. She looks back at me and says, “I forgot about this part.”
I glance over her head at the situation we’re facing. Erosion has taken a toll on the landscape. Where there obviously used to be a hill, there’s now a steep drop-off about shoulder height and then the rest of the trail continues on from up there.
“I can scale that easily,” I assure Tori. “I’m just going to use those exposed tree roots for footholds. Then you can hand Toothpick up to me and then I’ll help you up after that.”
Tori nods once, decisively, and then she stands back while I grasp at the root of a tree up on the ledge.
The dirt is soft, but not as muddy as it will be in springtime.
The chill winter air has solidified the area.
I make quick work of hopping from one root to a divot in the wall of dirt and then a final clump of roots.
I land on my feet and pivot to look down at Tori and Toothpick.
“That was impressive,” she says.
“Thanks.” My chest buzzes with her praise.
Impressing Tori? I hadn’t planned on it, but now I’m considering what other ways I can blow her away. I’m not a show-off by nature, but maybe a little demonstration of my abilities could sway her. She told Daisy we’re just friends. And we are. What would it take for her to want more with me?
Tori gently lifts Toothpick and hands him up to me. I set him on the path behind me and turn to extend a hand to Tori.
She slips her hand into mine and I slide my palm down the soft skin on the underside of her arm to grip her wrist for a more secure hold.
“Safer this way,” I explain.
Tori nods, focusing on where to put her foot.
“You’ve got two choices,” I tell her. “Scale it with one hand and both feet while I secure and pull you, or hold on to me with both hands and I’ll do all the work.”