“This is too rich, Shel,” Matt said. “Sorry.”
“I’m going to get ready,” she said. “Behave.”
Shelby closed herself in the bathroom. The mirror above the sink was still a little steamy around the edges from Jake’s shower. He’d left a razor on the sink. She picked it up and, without realizing she was going to do it, smelled it. A woodsy, spicy scent clung to it and she closed her eyes.
That tiny smell almost broke her.
She liked Jake. Not just because he was new and different, but she did like that about him. Hope, hot and hungry, unfurled in her belly. A hope of something she couldn’t have. But maybe… While her father joked about proposals, there hadn’t been that many. Other than Rhett, who seemed incorrigible. But there were men who were interested in her. And Shelby didn’t know if she really and truly wasn’t interested back or if she simply couldn’t let herself love anyone because she didn’t feel like she could leave her father.
She should like Matt. He was kind and faithful and loyal to a fault. Handsome. Funny when he wasn’t being so serious. She’d never seen him as anything other than a best friend, but often wondered if the situation was different or if she’d met him in a bar in some other life, how she’d feel about him.
She heard echoes of her father’s voice in her head: If ifs and buts were candy and nuts… She couldn’t remember the rest. There was no point in hoping or thinking what ifs. She had to focus on getting through her shift at the diner and the afternoon at the bank. That was real life. Like it or not, this was all she had.