Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 87536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
Left!
Pete Drapper, who runs the small grocery store in town. Shit. Pete is single? How did I not know he and Breanna broke up? Dang, I wonder if anyone in the office would know the gritty details.
“No, Layla—we are not gossiping!” I continue swiping left.
See Tim, the mayor’s son. Grant from the maintenance department. Ethan McGuire, Faith’s brother, who just divorced his wife, Stella, because he caught her cheating, and damn does that dude come with baggage I do not have the time to explain.
Wait.
Hold up now—who’s this?
Who is this handsome face I don’t recognize?
A local man I’m not familiar with? Could it be true?
Grady G., thirty-four. He’s in a flannel, forearms front and center, looking like a brochure titled “Dependable Local Man.” His bio reads, Looking for someone who loves the outdoors and small-town life. No kids yet but would like a few.
Well crap. That’s mostly me!
I read the bio again—outdoors, small-town life, wants kids one day—and my brain does the quick math of compatible on paper while my chest mutters, Not Hayes.
Still. I don’t have to marry him. We can talk and possibly go on one date.
One! Harmless.
Besides. We might not match.
My thumb hovers over the heart. Swipe right.
The screen explodes with confetti—It’s a Match! Say hi to Grady.
And so, it begins . . .
Chapter 29
Hayes
I haven’t been able to sleep.
Do the thing where I can’t get comfortable. Flip the pillow. Roll from one side to the other. Stare at the ceiling fan and count how many reps I did in the gym.
I should be passed out—practice wore me down, watching film fried my brain, and Benny talked for twenty straight minutes during tuck-in about how cereal tastes better in a mixing bowl.
My body is tired.
My head is a stadium with the lights on.
Layla is everywhere. In the stupid way I check my phone for no reason and stare at her name. The last messages we sent before we gave up.
I am a grown man with a mortgage and a kid who trusts me. I know how to make choices. Commitments. I do not know how to do this: want someone who isn’t here and may never be again. And if I’m being honest with myself, I have no idea how to navigate this. Or if she wants me to annoy her with messages. Plus, it’s not as if I have free time to pull out of my ass.
I don’t know.
Maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow with a fucking clue.
In the meantime, I’ll just do what I do best: Put it out of my mind and move on.
Chapter 30
Layla
I’m two blocks from Loon Landing Café, and Faith picks up on the second ring—thank God.
“Talk to me,” she says. “How are we feeling?”
“Nervous. Good nervous, I think.” My windshield wipers squeak against the drizzle that started early this morning and hasn’t let up. “I feel cute?”
“You’re always cute,” she tells me. “What are you wearing?”
I’m doing it.
Meeting Grady, who moved here two weeks ago from Seattle and has barely unpacked his crap. He works for an outdoor company but remotely, and has wanted to move out of the city for years.
He will be a unicorn in this town when the single women discover him.
Fresh meat. New blood, ha ha.
“Cute boots because obviously it’s raining. And a black turtleneck tucked into jeans.” It’s definitely more chunky-sweater weather, but I did not wear one because I didn’t want this to feel like two pals having coffee. I want to be in the first-date frame of mind . . .
The sign for the café swings in the breeze, and I manage to find a spot out front, easing into it with the ease of someone who enjoys parallel parking. Flipping down the sunshade, I check my lip gloss in the mirror. “I told him I had a half hour.”
Butterflies churn in my stomach.
Hayes’s handsome face flashes in my brain.
“You can do more than thirty minutes,” Faith chastises me. “If it’s great, make it sixty. If it’s weird, fake a headache and text me immediately.”
We go over this drill every time she has a date. She, who is more outgoing and adventurous than I am.
“I’ll text you regardless,” I promise before I end the call, not sure my heart is in this date, but you know what they say: The best way to get over someone is to get under someone else.
I repeat that to myself three more times as I pull open the door and step inside Loon Landing, the smell of coffee and hot chocolate assailing my senses, my eyes scanning the place.
A man is seated at a table near the window; he stands as I approach, which earns him several points from the governing board in my head. Flannel, yes. Forearms, yes. In person he has kind eyes, a crooked front tooth—and he’s holding a small bunch of flowers.