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The streetlights along the river had started to flicker on one after the other by the time Margot headed out with the remaining wine and Gracen’s leftover poutine. It was one of the few things she wouldn’t eat as leftovers because it wasn’t the same experience in her opinion. Margot clearly disagreed.
Gracen waved to Margot as she strode along the front walk that passed the kitchen’s windows. She rented the one-bedroom unit over Patsy’s Flower Shop behind the bank. Out of the three women that worked full-time at the Haus, Margot was the only one who refused to get a vehicle because she proclaimed there wasn’t a need for one. There was always a friend doing something out of town if she really had a need to go—or so she explained it when Gracen tried to sell her the Civic a while back.
Delaney’s name lit up the screen of Gracen’s phone on the counter next to the sink as she finished rinsing the wine glasses from earlier. She considered not answering the call but figured she didn’t have a reason to do so that wasn’t petty.
That left her with one option.
“Hey, Delaney,” Gracen said when she picked up the call.
The slight woosh of air in the background of the call told Gracen the news Delaney was about to deliver before her friend could.
“I just hit the highway out of Aroostook—I’ll be home in fifteen. Don’t bother locking the door, I’ll get it, but I want to run by the Haus first and make sure nobody spray painted any windows or some other stupid shit that we’ll find tomorrow when we open.”
“Yeah, okay.”
The only time Delaney’s calls sounded like she was inside a wind farm was when she took the highway with her driver’s window cracked to hide the tendrils of smoke from the handful of cigarettes she allowed herself to smoke everyday.
If anyone asked about the smoking, Delaney lied.
It was hard to call her on it, too, but Gracen knew. What were best friends for if not to run to the gas store at the end of the street five minutes before it closed to get you a pack of cigarettes because it was the only thing to bring you out of a panic attack, right?
Everybody had secrets.
Not everybody would keep them, though.
“Hey, are you okay?” Gracen asked.
With the window noise in the background confirming Delaney’s vice that counteracted her anxiety, Gracen felt like she had to ask. Even if she still believed letting her friend help her family in any way was only asking for heartache, Gracen also wouldn’t stop caring about Delaney. Especially when she was hurting.
It took Delaney more than a few seconds to answer. When she finally did, it was on the long exhale of what Gracen knew to be full of cigarette smoke.
“I didn’t think just having dinner was going to be that bad, to be honest,” she muttered.
Gracen frowned. “What happened?”
“Nothing new. Maybe they share their hurtful thoughts and beliefs in a polite way now that I’m older and not scared to tell them where to shove it, but it’s all the same trash, Gracen. Whatever, I’m used to it.”
That also meant Delaney didn’t want Gracen to push.
Still, she felt obligated to ask, “Do you want to talk about—”
“Not really. I will say you were right, though. There’s no way I can pretend like these people didn’t hurt me for the sake of someone else. Bexley told me tonight I don’t have to come to the engagement party, which made me think they felt like they had to give me an invite because I agreed to do the girls’ hair for the wedding, but not because anybody wants me there.”
Ouch. That probably stung.
“Was the food good at least?” Gracen asked.
A weak laugh answered that.
“Mostly, but then my mother walked into the house, and I lost my appetite,” Delaney said.
Yikes.
Gracen didn’t want to be nosy regarding the dinner meant to serve as an informal way to bring the bride and groom’s family and close friends together before their official announcement, but she couldn’t help it. At least the pit of anxiety digging deep in her stomach proved her reason for being curious wasn’t jealousy.
Right?
“Was the happy couple—”
“Happy,” Delaney interjected. “I talked to Sonny ... he said hey.”
“Hey,” Gracen echoed.
If she heard how irritated it sounded to her own ears, Gracen could only imagine the way it came off to Delaney.
“Yeah, hey. Hello, you know? I guess he asked how you were, too, but frankly, at that point I zoned out because why should he even ask? If he gave a fuck, he could call and ask you himself. It’s not like your number’s changed or anything. He felt obligated to ask me because it was me, that’s all. And it kind of pissed me off that he did when he could have just not bothered in the first place. Don’t pretend to care. Lots of people actually do.”
Gracen blinked, not expecting Delaney’s tirade.
“Was that before or after you saw your mom?”
Delaney only sighed.
Noisily.
“I just ... Listen, I don’t have the Bluetooth connected so the phone is on speaker, and I can’t hear you that well.”
Lies, Gracen knew. They’d been talking just fine until that very moment.
“Roll the window up,” she said.
Delaney didn’t.
“I’ll see you when I get home—”
That wouldn’t work for Gracen. “Well, I was gonna head out—”
“We can talk about it when you get back from your run,” her friend added before Gracen could tell her she wasn’t taking her nightly jog on the boardwalk while the lights across town turned on. She wouldn’t get the chance, either, because Delaney ended the call.
Oh, well.
Delaney would figure it out.
Eventually.
That left Gracen staring at the list of last contacts, and the newest just below Delaney’s. Bike Boy. She opened the last messages from Malachi’s number. His text me later when she’d gotten a minute in between bites of poutine with Margot to tell him she was currently tied up in plans, but later was possibly open.
It was foolish, really.
Gracen understood that.
An early morning with a full day ahead plus the glass of wine earlier meant Gracen’s bed should be the only thing on her mind, but she couldn’t bring herself to head back upstairs. She’d only just realized that past weekend how nothing about the things inside the space had changed since Sonny left her despite the fact it wasn’t even the same room they’d shared. Her sheets—different ones now, yes—were still the same color. She’d simply rearranged the artwork on the walls to fit the new space she and Delaney moved into after their last salon sold. Even the furniture was the same.
White walls like the rest of the house, clean, and modern too, yes. From the upcycled bed frame, a family heirloom, to the accent wall mirrors that had come from her grandmother’s beloved childhood home still standing at the far end of town.
All things Gracen loved.
So why did it feel full of ghosts when she was alone?
Maybe the real reason Gracen couldn’t bring herself to go to bed alone instead of chasing a beautiful distraction came from a fear she wasn’t ready to admit outside of the safety of her mind. If nothing else about her life had changed since her ex left, did that mean it was just a reflection of her, too?
Was she just the same?
Unchanged.
Stuck there. Back where Sonny left her, holding her entire world together like Gracen had needed to do for her entire life. No, nothing really changed, did it?
That was terrifying.
Gracen didn’t bother to text Malachi like he’d requested. The number was a cell—if he was like everybody else, the phone wasn’t far from his reach. To get as far out of her head and away from those silently screaming questions, Gracen chased the distraction she had available to her—would it be one more thing for the universe to laugh about later?
Malachi answered on the second ring. “I wasn’t expecting a call.”
His easy tone made Gracen grin.
“At all, or just this late?” she asked back.
“Honestly? I figured tonight was a wash. I was gonna take you out to eat somewhere, talk maybe. Except nothing’s open now but this fucking pizza shop and you’ve probably already ate, so—”
“I did eat,” she interjected smoothly.
“See?”
Gracen laughed, adding, “But I don’t refuse pizza.”
Suddenly, the man on the other end of the line perked up. “Is that so?”
“Even cold.”
“Cold pizza,” he deadpanned.
“In the bath is my favorite,” Gracen tacked on.
Just for good measure.
A low whistle cut through the phone’s speakers before Malachi muttered, “Girl, I was trying to be a fucking gentleman over here, but you’re making that hard.”
“What if that’s the plan?” she asked back.
“You should be warned,” he told her, “I’m elbow deep in grease at the moment. I gotta keep my end of the bargain and earn my spot to sleep by taking an old engine apart. I really did think the night was a wash, but—”
“You said the pizza place, right?”
What were the freaking odds?
“Did I?” Malachi asked.
“Yeah, is that where you’re renting?”
“Staying for a bit,” he corrected. “It’s a friend’s place. Why?”
Gracen put the phone on speaker as she headed out of the front of the house. That would make things easier when she explained, “Are you working on the old Mustang in the alley beside—”
“Checkered & Cheese—stupid name,” Malachi interrupted, his tinkering noise in the background quieting quickly. “Why?”
“Just a lucky guess. I’ll be over in thirty.”
“Minutes?” he asked as she stepped outside of the house on Mainstreet next door to the pizzeria with an alley that connected to a rear apartment with a garage. Gracen stopped more than once to admire the vintage car that was far from its former glory—the body was poorly but the open hood displayed an engine inside the Mustang on blocks beyond the mouth of the garage, but she’d never been nosy enough to ask anyone about it. “I can work with that.”
“Seconds, actually.” It was funny how some things just made more sense after the fact. “Apparently, it’s been your bike waking me up at six every morning. You’re five minutes earlier than my alarm clock every day. Let me guess—you’ve been in town a week, huh?”
“Let me be clear. I am not interested in crazy, Gracen.”
Did he think she was stalking him?
Cute.
Well ...
“What are you doing that early in the morning, anyway?” she asked.
“I like black coffee. My friend doesn’t keep anything that his mother hasn’t cooked or bought in his kitchen. Are you going to explain—”
“Yep, I’m almost there.”
“What?”
Gracen lied. Only a little white one.
It took maybe sixty seconds to get from her front doorstep to the pizzeria’s. She walked past the glowing windows, waving at the familiar waitress bussing a table close to the doors, and then rounded the corner into the private alley on the other side of the building. She hadn’t even stopped to check both ways on the street that ran down the west side of their rental house before crossing over to the pizzeria’s small parking lot.
She found Malachi at the end of the alley, inside the garage, still leaning over the hood of the car while he squinted at his phone sitting on a mechanic’s table he’d rolled within his reach. He hadn’t been exaggerating about the grease, but he could have mentioned the fact he was shirtless so Gracen could at least prepare.
She was such a sucker for a good back on a man. Strong, muscled, with shoulders wide enough to wrap her up and swallow her whole—the very sight of his fit, toned form was enough to make her shiver. The attraction took Gracen off guard. She hadn’t felt that for somebody else in a long time.
Malachi’s denim jeans hung low enough that she could see the black waistband of his underwear, and the sheen of sweat up his back glistened under the alley’s lights.
She didn’t get enough time to admire him before he noticed that he wasn’t alone. Gracen hung up her call first, but his amused laughter rolled down the alley as he stepped off the stool he’d been using to reach inside the engine of the old car. He wasn’t mad at her trick.
“I always hated how small this damn town is,” he told Gracen with a shake of his head.
“Where are you, right next door?”
“Yeah, my roommate and I rent the house across the street with the fenced backyard.”
She headed down the brightly lit—thanks to the security lights installed under the roof’s eaves—alley, passing Malachi’s familiar black Suzuki before she perched herself on an old barstool just outside the small garage.
“Sometimes I think it only feels small here and then it finds a way to remind you that isn’t the case at all,” Gracen said.
Malachi, turning to face her fully while wiping his fingers and hands with a rag he’d pulled off the mechanic’s table, eyed her with an arched eyebrow. She almost considered asking him how long he’d been working on the car, but the sweat-dampened hair hanging down in his eyes answered that question. “How so?”
“I’ve never met you before.”
That made his smile widen. “And?”
“Did you grow up here?”
“Just below Aroostook,” he replied, mentioning the small county just outside of town limits on the other side of the river.
“Me, too. Ah, well, in town,” Gracen clarified with a shrug. “Class of—”
“I didn’t go to public school,” he said, but not unkindly. “Either way, I didn’t make it past the tenth grade. A judge shipped me off to a boarding school in Ontario that was more like a bootcamp. But it was that or juvie, so at least they gave me some semblance of a choice. Can’t say I made the wrong one, all things considered, they got me a diploma and easy admissions across the board when it was said and done. I didn’t see one day of jailtime for being such a puke—it worked out.”
Gracen blinked away her surprise at his blasé attitude about a less than savory history someone else might try to gloss over with another person they didn’t know. She appreciated that he was upfront about it, but on the opposite side of the same coin, would he want her fishing for more information?
Better safe than sorry, she opted to say nothing.
Not that his direct nature stopped the swell of silence that came after he shrugged at her non-response. Gracen fiddled with the sleeves of her gray hoodie while Malachi continued working the grease from his hands.
Or trying.
“This rag isn’t getting it done—give me five minutes?” he asked.
It was almost painful for her to agree when the sight of his arms, roped with bands of muscles that spoke of strength, were far more interesting to watch as he cleaned his hands. She forced herself to let him do what he must with a quiet, “Sure.”
Beyond the roof overhead, Gracen admired the stars dotting the sky’s black canvas. Malachi’s quiet hey brought her back down to earth for a second.
Over his shoulder where he stood next to the car, just beyond the door inside the garage that must have connected to his friend’s apartment, he asked, “Did you still want the pizza?”
Was that a real question?
Malachi was still shirtless, too.
And she liked the way he stared at her.
More than she should.
Suddenly, her schedule tomorrow didn’t really register like it had earlier. She barely even felt that one glass of wine, either.
“Do you have any beer to go with it?” Gracen asked.
“I’m sure I can find something.” His sexy grin winked her way before he disappeared beyond the white door of the apartment. “Don’t go far.”
Right.
No, Gracen was good.
Her night already looked a hell of a lot better.
