Page 45 of The Sweet Spot

He scrunched up his face. “Not exactly. If I recall correctly, when I got home from practice, you were gone. And you didn’t come back, so when you say ‘nothing,’ that’s not exactly fair.”

I could see a hint of a smirk on his face and realized he was enjoying this torture. Yes, my self-inflicted torture.

“Are you suggesting that I kept my distance?”

“Did you?”

“I was busy,” I said, feeling the heat rising in my face.

He rolled his eyes. I wanted to pound my fist on the island counter, but I had to get his protein pancakes off the griddle before they burned. And to think I made him real bacon as a surprise. He didn’t deserve it right now. I slapped the plate down in front of him, and he jumped a little.

“I wasn’t avoiding you, per se. I was just trying to figure things out.”

“If you wantmeto forget it ever happened, we can do that.”

His face was serious now. I bit the inside of my cheek, trying to understand this all. What was the right answer? My mom would say it was, to be honest.

“I don’t want to forget it happened. But what happens next?”

“I don’t know. Things just happen?”

I drummed my fingers on the countertop. “Here is the thing. Tangi says I always fall for people I work with. She went through a long list of all the guys I’ve fallen for, and the graveyard was filled. I don’t want that here because I love this job.”

He pushed his plate away and folded his hands. “I have two things to say. Number one, who cares what Tangi thinks or says? Number two, you’ll have a job here as long as you want it. I’m not going to be an asshole.”

His words scorched through my veins. I wanted to leap across the island and kiss him, feel his scratchy five-o’clock shadow against my skin. Have his strong arms around me.

“Um, okay,” was all I managed to squeak out. I was so bad at the dating process.

“All right. So why don’t we start off with today and some secondhand shopping?”

He was smiling now, the most gorgeous smile any man could have. Butterflies were now swimming around in my chest, and I wanted to scream out, “Hell yes,” but I had to keep myself dignified.

“Okay. Let’s do that once you’re finished breakfast.”

“Great. Then maybe I can take you for lunch?”

“I’d like that.”

“Then it’s a date.”

I hadn’t hit much of the Vancouver secondhand-shop scene because I hadn’t had much time to, but I’d marked off a few places that weren’t too far. The first one was called Frannie’s Finds. The place used to be an old, small grocery store and was packed with everything you could imagine. Brandon took a lay of the land before following me to the clothing section.

“Almost none of my clothes are new. We have enough crap in the world, and I don’t want to add to it. Don’t get me started on fast fashion,” I said.

“I’m guessing fast fashion is like fast food?”

“Precisely. Look at his cute shirt,” I said, holding up a lime-green-and-pink-striped shirt that had to be from the eighties.

“It’s colorful,” he said.

He didn’t have to like it. He wouldn’t be wearing it.

We walked through the men’s section, and I pointed out all the neat vintage shirts, and he seemed mildly interested. What really got his attention was the book section. I decided to leave him there as I checked out more clothes. I loved wearing old concert T-shirts and vintage jeans. Mom had taught me to sew a little, so it was easy to modify the jeans to fit my shorter stature. I found a pair of dark denim that were more fitted than I normally wore, but after trying them on, I couldn’t deny how good they looked.

Once I was done looking at clothes, Brandon was still in the book section. He had about ten of them piled in front of him, all old science fiction.

“These are cool,” he said. “All out of print.”

---