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.Sometimes we didn’t get to choose who we were drawn to—romantically or not.“Did you need something?” I looked down to my watch.“It’s awful late for you to just stop by to track me down.”“I never left town after the meeting today.I visited with Lashell for a while, and then stopped by to see.someone.” His brow creased.“You can just say Bailey.”“Okay, yeah,” he said.“Anyway, she said you were at the diner, so I headed over, but you were concentrating pretty hard on something.I didn’t want to bother you.I grabbed a cup of coffee and waited for you to take a break, but you just kept at it.”“You could’ve come over.It was just RI stuff,” I said, thinking of my notebook full of scribbles.I was ready to mention it.I was as prepared as I was ever going to be.Maybe I should just tell him now and get it out of the way.“So.” Gabe blew a long breath of air through his lips.We kept standing there, halted firmly in the place where he’d stopped me outside the diner.“Will you walk with me?”“Will I walk with you?”“Yeah,” he nodded.“Is that your go-to seduction move or something?” I asked, glancing up at him.If I counted correctly, this was the third time he’d asked me to go for a walk in a matter of weeks, and no one else I knew had ever asked me once.I couldn’t help poking fun at that.Besides, after the anger I’d seen in his eyes earlier at school, all I really wanted was to make him smile.“Seduction?” The faintest grin pulled at the edge of his lip.“How did you come up with that?”“Oh, you know?” I shrugged.“You see a girl in distress, and you think ah, here’s an opportunity.So you take her for a walk, talk her through her problems, make her feel comfortable, get her guard down.And then you strike.Bam!”“Geesh, Mandy,” he rubbed the back of his neck.Even in the dark, I could see his cheeks flush the faintest shade of pink.“I just wanted to take a walk.No hidden agenda.”“Ah, well, a girl can still dream.” His blue eyes widened, and his mouth hung open.I let him stare at me that way for a moment, deliberately taking my time before I said, “Oh, I’m kidding.Come on, let’s go.”And so we started walking, stirring up the memories of the night we’d first walked the streets of Sugar Creek.It had been a wonderful and terrifying night, all wrapped into one.He’d shown up at the bakery to check on me after a huge fight with Dad, and I somehow ended up dumping a lifetime of heartache and pain onto his shoulders.I hoped tonight wouldn’t be the same.So far we were off to a good start, but I hoped that whatever it was that had brought him to track me down, whatever it was that he had to say, wouldn’t lead to something awful and horrible.I didn’t want to argue with him.Not again.Not after Friday night.“You know what?” he asked, and the way he said it, he might as well have said to hell with it! “It has nothing to do with seduction.”“Oh, Gabe, lighten up.It was just a joke.”“I know,” he said.“But still.I like taking walks.I’m fortunate enough to have two working legs, aren’t I? So why not use them as often as I can?”“Well, well…Gabriel Raddick,” I said, throwing him a sideways glance.“You might’ve just told me more about yourself in those few sentences than you have in the past four weeks.” When he didn’t say anything, I turned to him and asked, “What else do you like? Outside of RI, what makes you happiest?”The question seemed harmless enough, and I assumed he wouldn’t answer if he didn’t want to.At some point, he’d get to the reason he’d hunted me down.But for now, and until then, I was going to milk this time for all it was worth.I could at least hope he’d share something, but I didn’t count on it, not after—“I like waking up before sunrise and eating cold pizza for breakfast,” he said, and then I stumbled over my feet and nearly lost my balance.While I would normally cringe at the thought of doing either of the things, I was still too shocked to respond.I was trying to find my center and put one foot in front of the other.In a matter of seconds, I learned two things—two tiny, minuscule things about him, and I already felt like I knew him better.I couldn’t believe how easily he’d given that up, and I didn’t even have to badger him.“I love the smell of popcorn, but I hate the taste.”“I’m the same with coffee.”“Oh! All day, every day, coffee’s a must.”“Yeah, that one’s no secret.”“And I like books,” he said proudly.“Old, dusty, first editions of just about anything.”“Wait.Do you like reading them or collecting them?”“Both,” he said.“You know that musty, vanilla smell old books have?”“Yeah?”“I love that.”“Alrighty then,” I said, trying to hide my smirk.“You’re laughing at me now?”“Only a little,” I promised.“I’ve just…I’ve never met a man who was comfortable admitting that he loves the smell of books.”“Old books.” He eyed me for a second, and even though I couldn’t see his expression, I sensed he was gearing up to ask, “What about you? Outside of school and work, writing, and RI, what makes you happiest?”“My friends,” I said without pause.“Georgia, Jones, Fletcher…they’re my only shred of sanity right now.All thanks to you.”“Thanks to me?”“I would’ve never opened up to them,” I said.“Not before I met you.That’s one thing I’ll always be thankful for.I hope you know that.”And after a faint smile, he asked, “Anything else?”“Let’s see,” I said, doing my best not to say the most obvious thing: you, Gabe, you make me happiest.“I thoroughly enjoy waking up after sunrise, only eating hot pizza at dinnertime, and movies are only good if you’re stuffing your face with popcorn while you watch them.”“Are you trying to scare me off?”“No,” I shook my head.“No, I’ve found that I have a natural talent for doing that even when I don’t try.”He half-laughed.We knew it was true.I had this incredible ability to say the wrong things at the wrong times, either pushing him back or scaring him away.“So let me ask, are you in distress?”“Meaning.”“You wanted to know if that was some kind of move back there— seeing a girl in distress and asking her to take a walk,” he said.“Naturally I assume that means you’re— ”“No,” I said.“No, I’m okay [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]