Page 100 of Not Exactly a Small-Town Romance

The silence stretches as we work. I guess he isn’t going to ask about me, which I probably prefer right now. I won’t have to tap-dance around my history.

Jack comes in, pronounces our work “good enough,” and takes the finished ones to hang. By the time he returns, we’ve completed the last one.

“Lunch, then?” Randy asks.

“Sure.”

We take the same green truck back into town, Blue between us, her tongue hanging out. It should be charming with the beautiful town, the dog, and the already-familiar drive.

But Randy and I seem to have run out of things to talk about.

When we sit down at a sandwich shop on the square, Blue lying under the table, I aim to come up with a safe topic. “What’s high school like here? Is there a football team? Is another sport bigger?”

It turns out Randy played football, and for the next thirty minutes, through ordering, eating, and paying the check, he finds an endless number of stunning plays, close calls, and big wins to tell me about.

I hold my smile for so long that it feels plastered on.

I’m out of practice talking about small-town things.

But Randy catches himself. “Listen to me,” he says. “Bending your ear the whole time about my glory days. What about you? What was high school like for you?”

Okay, then. This is an improvement over the last two.

“I did theater. One-act play.”

“You’re an actress?” He frowns. “From Hollywood?”

“No, no, I’m not an actress. Not in the least.” I have to fix that misperception fast.

And leave out my degree in theater arts, I guess, the one where I started in acting but switched to tech and design skills when I decided I could never handle the reality of being judged for something so personal as my looks and the way I acted a part.

I never auditioned for anything, only did small performances required for my classes.

“I was more behind the scenes,” I say quickly. “I can paint a mean garden wall.”

I reach for details that skirt the acting stereotype. “I learned how to run a light board. I was too afraid of heights to climb the catwalk to change the bulbs, though.”

Randy laughs lightly at that. “I might have been, too.”

Then it happens!

INT. SMALL-TOWN SANDWICH SHOP—DAY

KELSEY, 25, in denim shorts and a white shirt, sits across from RANDY, 28, in work jeans and boots.

He reaches for a chip at the same moment she moves toward her glass, and their fingers brush each other.

They look at each other in surprise, as if neither one of them guessed you could tell that someone was “the one” from an accidental touch.

The zip of electricity I feel is bright and sharp.

Hallmark first base! Exactly like it’s supposed to happen!

After the accidental brush of our hands, Randy takes my fingers and clasps them in his. “This all right?”

“Yeah,” I say, breathless.

I’m breathless! From holding hands!

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