“You okay?”
“Totally fine,” I said with my best casual nod. “It’s a great party.” I nodded some more. “Really … great.”
“Good,” he said. “I mean, good that you think it’s great.” He smiled that friendly warm smile of his that seemed to say everything was going to be okay. “I’m glad you came.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You are?”
“Well, I’ve got something you might be interested in.”
Wow. That remark could be taken in all sorts of ways.
“The Arthurs,” he said. “They’re here already. I told them you wanted to talk to them.”
Oh! Okay, well, that was good too.
Matthew had heard that the Arthurs were looking to sell their cottage. It had everything I could ever want in a place. It was on the water, right in the nook of a private inlet. It wasn’t too big, and rumor had it that the Arthurs had done a whole bunch of upgrades. Even better, according to Matthew, there was a good chance they’d sell to me. They were off-the-gridders. Very anticorporation. And I probably wouldn’t have a lot of other competition because the place was so small. Not great for a family, but perfect for me. “Thank you so much for doing that. I really appreciate it.”
“It’s no problem,” he said, adjusting his shirt sleeves. “Really. I know how badly you want to find your own place.”
And, not for the first time, I couldn’t help but think how awesome it would be to date a guy like Matthew. Easy. Drama-free. So unlike what I had with Grady. But … no, that wasn’t fair. Things hadn’t always been difficult between Grady and me. In fact, a year ago I had been the happiest I have ever been. Even if it had only been for a little while. In fact, I’d had that feeling everyone dreams about—that overwhelming sense of rightness in my soul. That what we had was it. We were it. That was a pretty hard feeling to get over.
Of course, there was still that bit about Grady thinking we weren’t meant to be.
Yup, even when I was thinking about other things, his words were still right there … strangling my heart in their icy grip.
“Shall we?” Matthew asked, slipping on his jacket and gesturing toward the door. “Let me get you a coat.”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s a short distance.”
“Yeah,” he said with a bit of a twinkle in his eye. “But I kind of wanted to show you something on the way.”