Page 57 of Mountains Divide Us

I laughed. “Thank you, Cal. I will.”

“Alright, then,” she said. “Say good night to Juneau for me. It’s my turn, and I’m about to knock Elsie Cartwright down a peg or two. That awful woman’s been preening around here, acting like she’s queen of the alley because she got some fancy new bowling shoes.” She turned back toward me. “Unfortunately for her, new shoes don’t make a bit of difference when you’re going up against bowling royalty. The Willows won best in state two years in a row. We almost made it through the first round at nationals.” She walked away, waving her hand in the air. “Bye.”

* * *

Juni dropped me at home, and I checked the mail before heading in. God, Gramps’s place was quiet. It hit me square in the face every time I walked in the front door and was the reason I spent so much time at the library. It was quiet there, too, but all the stories living between its walls made it seem loud to me sometimes.

Tossing the new pile of mail onto the old pile on the kitchen table, I watered the mint and chives I’d been trying to grow in the kitchen window, then dropped my bag, too, and headed to get cleaned up before dinner. A green thumb was not something I’d been born with, but my little plants were eking their way out of the dirt slowly, crawling up toward the limited winter sunshine.

Frank had promised pancakes, so I zipped my toothbrush into a plastic baggie after I brushed my teeth and tucked it into the inside pocket of my purse in case I needed it later. Like maybe if I stayed the night at his house again. Or if he fed me some of the vegetables he seemed to love and they got stuck in my teeth, although I couldn’t imagine any vegetable pairing well with pancakes. And when I really thought about it, I was surprised Frank would even eat pancakes because, inevitably, you needed sugary syrup and butter to go with them. Or maybe you didn’t. Maybe he ate them dry.

Yuck. I was contemplating smuggling a bottle of syrup in my bag when the doorbell rang but decided against it. I would trust Frank to feed me something delicious. Actually, I could think of a few things he could feed me that would be oh so yummy.

The thought got stuck in my throat when I opened the door to see him standing on the other side, just dripping sex.

The man should arrest his damn self. This was too much. How was I supposed to concentrate on talking about all the things he’d said we needed to discuss with him looking like that? Ripped and tall and strong. It should’ve been illegal how freaking sexy he was. His jacket wasn’t a stiff traditional motorcycle jacket. It was made from soft leather that molded to his body in the nicest way. Instantly, when I saw him, I wanted to slide my hands beneath it to feel the heat coming off those muscles.

And I wanted to confess everything to him, but then he spoke, and I lost my nerve.

“Hi,” he said, and his skin creased up at the corners of his eyes when he smiled, like just seeing me made him happy. Like I lit up his world.

I breathed, “Hi.”

He cocked his head a little, eyebrows up. “You ready?”

“Yes.” I stepped forward, out the door, but he stopped me with his warm hands on my shoulders.

He turned me gently. “Get your coat, girl. It’s twenty degrees out here.”

“Right.” I grabbed my coat from the back of the couch and shrugged it on, then slipped my purse’s handles over my shoulder. “Okay. Now I’m ready.”

“You know,” he said, peeking past me at the colorful sixties and seventies mixed décor in Gramps’s living room. “I bought a copy of that decoratin’ guide I borrowed from the library the first day we met. You might wanna loan it to Jessup when he gets back.”

I snorted, and it sent me into hysterics. “Oh my God. I can’t wait to tell him you said that.”

“Girl, don’t you dare!”

“Too late. You said it out loud.”

Frank laughed, too, placing his hand on his stomach. He was beautiful when he laughed, and I knew instinctively that seeing it was a privilege many people didn’t get.

I locked up, and as we walked to his truck and he opened the passenger-side door for me, he said, “I actually know Jessup.”

“Yeah. I remember him saying he knew you too.”

“He’ll probably mention it if you, you know, tell him we’re…”

“I haven’t told him yet.” Honestly, I was a little nervous to tell my gramps that Frank and I were dating. Frank was a lot closer to Gramps’s age than I was. Would he have something to say about it?

But then, I kind of doubted he would. Gramps was a happy guy. He believed in love, even if his only daughter, my mother, didn’t.

“Anyway, always thought he was a nice guy.”

“He is,” I said. “He’s a great guy. My best friend.”

That made Frank smile again as I climbed up into the seat, and he shut my door with a nod and a cute purse of his lips.

When he was sitting beside me, he started the truck. “A while back, I was thinkin’ of puttin’ an ad in the Wisper Gazette about startin’ up a Pop Warner club. I stopped in to talk to him about it once. That was before he closed the paper though.”

---