Chapter 7
Sophie
Gloriously, totally alone. My most pure state. Just as I wanted.
At least Grandma had been right about it being a quiet night.
In the two hours since she left, not a single person had come in.
It was now pitch-black outside the shop, and the street was quiet.
A few passersby on their way to the bonfire would stop and laugh at the window display, but nobody was interested in coming in.
And I might have accidentally turned off the open sign.
I didn’t lock the door. I wasn’t totally the worst. After rotating some of the older stock to the front and dusting the nooks and crannies of the shelves—heh—I found myself ready to settle into a craft for the rest of the evening.
It seemed silly to stay open on the off chance that a late-night Friday delivery came by.
I suspect Grandma still held out hope that just the right customer would come along and cure me of my antisocial predilections.
Magical thinking, really.
She didn’t understand that it was easier for me to be alone.
Interacting with anybody, even her, who I loved dearly, was like standing on tiptoes while I held my breath and tried to carry on a conversation.
Only when I was totally alone, could I let everything down, release the tension.
Maybe if I met someone, I’d be able to be myself completely and one hundred percent of the time, but I didn’t have a chance.
And not in a town this size. I would have met them already.
And that was okay; I was settled into this solitary life.
So, yeah, magical thinking indeed.
I made my way to the corner of the shop at one of the worktables used for the shop’s regular craft nights.
I was very into diamond art at the moment and was in the middle of a large floral piece that was eleven by fourteen inches.
The tiny, sparkling gems were a strain on my already-not-stellar vision, and so I donned my high-magnitude crafting glasses.
They had to be strapped to my head like some sort of nightmarish headgear from the orthodontist, but they came with an adjustable light at the top, and I could flip the lenses up easily as I switched back and forth between close-up and regular view.
Besides looking laughably dorky, they had the unpleasant side effect of making my eyes look cartoonishly large (so I’d been told by Grandma).
They were amazing for seeing intricate detailing and small crafts, but I only wore them when completely alone to negate the opportunity for jokes.
Wrapped in my favorite cozy crocheted blanket from Grandma El, armed with a mug of chamomile and chilling with the lo-fi beats on the speakers, I decided it might not be such a bad night after all.
Chances were, the list was now safely buried in the landfill.
And, if I followed the catastrophic thinking to the end of the road (another coping technique learned from Dr. Spinner), even if somebody did find the note—here my stomach did a very unpleasant swoop, and a wave of nausea crashed over me—they would have no way of knowing it was mine if they even gave it more than a cursory glance.
At least I had been smart enough not to put my name on it.
Most likely, they would probably toss it in the nearest trash can without thinking twice about it.
Everything was fine.
I was safe.
“You are alive,” I said out loud to put the final nail in that coffin of circular thinking.
As I settled into my craft, the rest of the world melted away.
The spinning thoughts that forever toiled in my mind calmed temporarily.
There were only the jewels and the art to which they belonged.
With all-consuming concentration, I used the tool to gently pick up one singular line of crystals and move it to the picture, not even halfway completed.
Mind fully engaged in the task at hand, it was no surprise that the dinging of the shop’s bell was entirely missed.
That was why, by the time I registered the sound of a polite cough—and hopefully not a suppressed chuckle—I jumped in surprise, spilling my little tray of jewels. I yelped. Then, pointlessly, damage done, my whole body froze.
“Sorry. I said hello. A couple of times, actually. I didn’t mean to scare you.” The smooth, deep voice reached my ears as my mouth fell open and I lifted my face toward the speaker slowly, hoping it was a figment of my imagination.
Through my high-powered magnifying glasses, I couldn’t see anything more than a massive, blurry shape hesitantly moving toward me, one arm raised in a friendly gesture.
But my vision was clear enough to see the fuzzy outline of the Cozy Creek Fire Brigade uniform and the unmistakable red-blond hair, which immediately eliminated any doubt as to who my visitor was.
Pace Leigh.
Everything spun around me and resettled upside down and inside out. I had landed in an alternate universe where Pace Leigh was here, and I blinked back at him like a hard-of-hearing turtle.
“Oh nooo,” I said by way of greeting and response. The drawn-out no that followed was whispered so quietly there was no way he could have heard it.
Things I knew about Pace Leigh (other than the recently memorized intimate knowledge of his upper body): He was a local heartthrob beloved by all who knew him, best friend to local artist Levi Carmichael, and probably most significant, forever hung up on his high school sweetheart Kaylee Woods, who left Cozy Creek our senior year and never came back, smashing his heart into so many pieces that he hasn’t been in a serious relationship since.
Had I somehow gotten to the point of my seclusion where I hallucinated people? I had spent an inordinate amount of time studying his musculature earlier in the week. Maybe I’d fallen asleep at the desk, and this was all some sort of weird waking dream thing.
But alas. No. Because even my subconscious would not imagine something so far-fetched.
I flicked up the magnifying lens and discovered it was, in fact, a real, tangible human standing just a few feet away.
He wore those same damn hot pants from the picture, complete with suspenders and a tight tee, despite the crisp fall evening.
(I was aware that fireman uniform pants were not what the term hot pants referred to, but they were, in fact, pants that he wore to fight fires, and they made him look exceptionally hot.
So, it worked on several levels, and I would not be editing it in my mind.)
I must have spent longer than the appropriate amount of time debating his corporeal state because his smile grew, and he spoke first into the soft, quiet atmosphere that surrounded us.
“Hi,” he said, and one of his dimples popped up to punctuate the greeting.
“Hi,” I said. And then cleared my throat and tried again because disuse made my voice sound all phlegmy and strange. “Hi. I’m sorry I didn’t hear you.”
“It’s okay, I can see you’re really into that.” He gestured to where my sticking tool remained, death-gripped in my other hand, like the world’s least effective defensive weapon.
Stay back, intruder, lest you get bedazzled!
I unfurled my fingers with some difficulty and set it down.
“Oh, that’s—I just—wasn’t really expecting—I probably shouldn’t even—” I sputtered incoherently and wasn’t even listening to myself at this point, so I shut my mouth and stopped.
I had to get myself under control or risk looking like an absolute idiot.
More of an idiot.
He came forward and tried to pick up the spilled gems.
“You don’t have to—” Our hands brushed as I reached for the mess. I pulled them back into my lap and twisted them together as he insisted on helping.
I watched, outside of my body, as his thick, strong fingers deftly scooted the tiny pieces back into the tray. I looked at him, so close, his clean, manly scent in the air, and just stared.
“There you go, all cleaned up,” he said with an intensely charming smile as he straightened and stood back.
Sounds came out of my mouth that I hoped portrayed gratitude.
This wasn’t ideal. I should have minded the door better, but nobody could have anticipated Pace Leigh having hobby needs this late on a weekend evening. Shouldn’t he be at the bonfire charming up the tourists and, like, cuddling puppies or whatever he did when not being a literal hero?
At least he was notoriously kind. As far as unexpected customers went, it could be worse. It could have been Vicky Lambert, the resident gossip’s daughter, notorious mean girl, here to give backhanded complisults about my body.
It’s not like I sat here in my oversized blanket and ridiculous glasses, blinking up at him like some bog creature from a high fantasy.
Boy, wouldn’t that be embarrassing. He was a normal human customer—in theory, yet to be proven—and he must have a need.
I just needed to figure out my approach with him.
“Can I help you?” I asked, settling on professionally aloof while incapable of making direct eye contact.
“I hope you can.” He brandished a piece of paper from behind his back, and I felt the floor disappear from under my feet. “I think I found your list.”
The world tilted to the side, and I gripped the edge of the workbench to keep from falling off the planet and into the abyss of shame.
I was so, so very wrong. It could definitely get so much worse.