Page 41 of Waiting for Tuesday

I cleared my throat, then waved my finger between the two of us and shook my head. “We can do this later… I mean, if you have to help your friend.”

He grabbed my hands and pulled me to my feet. “I want you to go.” His voice was soft but didn’t waver in the slightest.

I chewed on my inner cheek and nodded. “Okay.”

The corner of his mouth lifted, and he began to walk backward, pulling me in the direction of the passenger side of his truck. “Good,” he said. His thumbs brushed softly over my knuckles before he opened the door. He took my arm and helped me get settled in my seat, then pulled down the seat belt and leaned over my lap to fasten it.

He looked at me. “I was afraid that if I let you leave tonight, I’d never get you out here again.” His voice was low, almost a whisper, and sent goose bumps down my legs.

He finally closed the door, and I took a long, calming breath before placing my keys in the side pocket of my bag. He climbed in beside me then threw his arm over the back of my seat and looked over his shoulder to back out of his space.

“So,” he asked, finally pulling out to the street, “what do you do for fun, Tuesday Patil?”

I grinned at his use of my last name and turned to face him. “Let's see.” I pressed one finger to my lips. “I make soap, lotions, body butters, and when I’m feeling especially daring, I go to the post office at closing time with my truck full of packages.” I met his eyes in the rearview mirror. “Really… work is my life.” I shrugged. “What about you?”

His brows furrowed, and he glanced over at me. “You don’t do anything for fun?”

I shrugged. “Not really. Not what normal people think is fun anyway.” I looked out the window. “But I love what I do.”

“Why’s that?”

I shifted in my seat, feeling slightly uncomfortable. “Are we playing twenty questions?”

“I just want to get to know you, that’s all.”

His eyes met mine, and the honesty I saw there made my breath hitch. He genuinely looked interested, which surprised me. He admitted to wanting me for sex, which was pretty clear, so why would he bother with this? It was something you’d ask of someone you cared about, not someone you planned to leave behind in a couple of weeks.

He lifted one brow, and I realized I hadn’t answered.

I looked out the window again. “I’ve loved the smell of things since I was a little girl. That's how it all started. The smell of concrete after a storm, laundry drying in the summer sun, fresh cut grass, and children covered in dirt.”

He laughed, and I grinned a little at how ridiculous it all sounded.

“And I’ve always had a more sensitive nose than everyone else. I can tell the variety of an apple without cutting its skin. I can tell you who walks in the door without opening my eyes… In wine tasting, I would be called a sommelier. In life… I’m pretty much a freak.” I grinned. “But just like wine, everything has its own unique scent.”Like you, for instance.

I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate on my story. “When I was five, I used to sit in my mother’s bathroom in our RV and mix up all the different oils and lotions I could find. First, it was out of curiosity, but then I realized that by blending two scents together I could make something altogether new. For a while, my mother got angry and told me not to do it anymore. But eventually, when she realized I wasn’t going to stop, she began teaching me how to use them.

“I started blending my own formulas by ten, mixing things my mom said wouldn’t work—but I did it anyway—because it made sense to me. Sometimes, whentwo polar opposites meet, it creates magic …” I looked over at him, wondering if it could be the same for us. He was all wrong for me… but under the right circumstances, circumstances like these… I turned back to look out the window again.

“Eventually, my formulas started selling more than my mother’s.” I shrugged. “Customers began asking for me at markets, and my business took off from there. Five years ago, I began selling on Etsy. Mom didn’t approve, so we went our different ways. She’s always hated technology. She doesn’t even have a cell phone, no TV, no Internet.

“But one thing she warned me against was true. Selling online took the person out of the product… the face away from my customers. In a way, the absence of a face is the reason I’m opening my shop. It got kind of lonely working from home after a while.”

I cringed, realizing I’d spilled my guts again, and I looked down to my hands. “So now that you know about my whole childhood, want to tell me about yours?”

He glanced over, one brow arching. “Absolutely not.”

I took the strand of my feathers in my hair and started fiddling. “Why not?”

His eyes shifted back to the road and he grinned slightly. “I was nothing but trouble, Tuesday, I can tell you that much.” He sighed then glanced over at me. “Okay, what do you want to know?”

I chewed my lip, charmed by his easy way. “You said you had sisters?”

“Three.” He looked over. “And when did I tell you that?”

I laughed. “When you warned me to run away from you.”

The corner of his mouth lifted, and he turned back to the road. “You didn’t listen.”

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