Page 38 of Cinnamon Roll Set Up

“Somebody needs to.”

“Grandpa!”

He, of course, stares back at me with no shame. “You and Sam didn’t have the best examples, Georgie. You might have learned some lessons your parents didn’t mean to teach you.”

I don’t have anything to say to that. I tighten the next screw and hope he moves on to some other deficiency of mine. Time management. Organization. Planning for the future. He’s got a wide selection to choose from.

As usual, he doesn’t need me to engage him to keep talking when he’s got a bee in his bonnet.

“But don’t let their bad examples stop you from ever trying for yourself. You wouldn’t make the same mistakes they did.”

Mistakefeels like such a small word for what they did. Dad cheated on Mom and had a whole baby on the way by the time he told her about it. Then Mom convinced him to keep it quiet for five more months so Sam and I could finish out the school year as a happy family. A big, deluded, happy family.

Who does any of that to people they’re supposed to love?

“I’m notnottrying. It’s just not my top priority.” It’s not evenapriority, but I doubt Grandpa would be happy to hear that little addition.

“I see. So if the right man came along, you’d give it a try with him?”

I snort. “I spend all my time in the bookstore, but sure. If the right man comes along, I’ll give it a try.”

Kind of a hypocritical thing to say, since I’ve had severalguys ask for my number while I’m on the clock. I think it’s the customer service sphere of attraction—if you have a job where you have to smile and talk politely to men, some percentage of them will assume you’re interested even if all you’ve done is hand them a book and a cup of coffee.

But obviously, none of those guys were“the right man.” So it doesn’t matter.

“Promise?”

I look up at him, ready to make a joke about my favorite imaginary special ops guy coming to life, but he’s totally serious. I don’t often see a lot of similarities between him and my dad, but right now, their intensity sure runs a bold line through the family tree.

“I promise.”

He nods. “Good. Then let’s get all this put away, and you can take me back over to the Village.”

I survey the tiny amount of progress we made today. “But I didn’t even get a whole door on.”

“Now that you know how to use the drill, you’ll go a lot quicker.”

“Yeah, but I thought…” We’ve kind of turned our workdays into Grandpa-Georgia time, with takeout and hours of conversation. He’s never opted out early like this. “You really want to go back already? Are you feeling okay?”

He smiles down at me, running a hand over his thin, gray hair. “There’s something special going on over there, and I plumb forgot about it. You can come with me. How about that?”

Sure. Hanging out with my grandpa at his retirement complex is a great way to spend my evening. But at least I’m unlikely to meet a man who’ll tempt me to live up to the ill-advised promise I made him. So there’s that.

It doesn’t take me long to lock the bike and tools away in mystorage unit. Nothing’s very far away in Magnolia Ridge, and we’re in Fiesta Village’s parking lot in no time.

“Come on,” he says, waving me inside the big building. “It’s in the activities room.”

I follow him in, sure we’re about to walk in on a Big Band music listening session or something similarly focused on life in the fifties, but the room is bustling. It’s an odd mix of elderly men and women bundled up in scarves and sweaters talking and laughing with a group of surprisingly young men. They’re spreading out at tables in twos and fours with an assortment of board games sprinkled among them.

I knew the Village had a regular game night, but I’ve never seen theyoung menpart of the equation.

Then I spot Miles across the room. He’s leaning on one hand over a table where two gray-haired women are listening intently to whatever he’s saying. He gives them one of his small smiles as he talks, and from the way they’re gazing at him, I can tell from here they’re charmed.

He looks up and his gaze locks with mine as if he knew exactly where to find me. His small smile goes supernova, lighting up the whole room. My stomach turns gooey, and all I can think about is when I was with him in Dogeared’s back room a few days ago.

I touched him. A lot. But that’s normal, right? I’m sure plenty of friends touch each other’s hair.

And lips. Probably.

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