Page 66 of First Love, Second Draft

“Is falling in love with me not a good thing?” Matt asked, needing some clarification about the tormented look. “Because I happen to think falling in love with you has been one of the greatest experiences of my life.”

“Falling in love with—” She sucked in a breath, and if possible, her face grew even more anguished. “Matt, no. This is terrible. Don’t you get it? You’re my best friend. My favorite friend.”

“You’re mine too.”

“I hated not having you in my life for five years.”

“Same here.”

“I never want to go through that again.”

“Me neither.”

“So don’t you see?”

See what? He was waiting for her to get to the terrible part. So far it sounded great. Like they were both ready to move on to the kissing part. “What am I supposed to see?”

“Why we can’t ever be more than just friends. We’ll turn into crabgrass!”

And with those words, she jumped into the car and sped away, the open trunk door flopping up and down until it slammed shut just as her car disappeared around the corner.

Matt met the gaze of the man walking his dog across the street. The man offered a little shrug. Matt returned it right back. Then he picked up Rachel’s bag from the pavement and tried to recall the last time he’d ever felt this happy—Rachel had fallen in love with him!—and confused.

Crabgrass?

38

“Oh, would you calm down? It was one drop of peppermint oil. More like a half, really.” Noah never imagined borrowing some of Mona’s essential oils would cause such a big deal. The way Gracie ranted—when she wasn’t hiccuping—you’d think the Poison Control Center needed to get involved. “It was supposed to help your muscles relax, not make you blow a brain aneurysm.”

“What made you think serving me the equivalent of peppermint schnapps would help me relax?”

“What makes you think a drop of peppermint oil is the equivalent to peppermint schnapps?”

“Three days I’ll be stuck in the belly of this whale,” she moaned. “Three days!”

“Am I to assume the whale in this metaphor is the hiccups?”

Gracie lifted her head from her desk. “You’re to assume I’m going to file a police report and you’ll be spending the rest of your sorry life locked up in Sing Sing.”

“For what? Serving you tea?”

“Spiking my drink!” Gracie dropped her head back to her arms and hiccuped. “Oh, I think the room might be spinning.”

“One drop of essential oil, babe.”

“Which is what? A fifth of a handle in drinker talk?”

“You’re impossible.” Noah rubbed his forehead. Maybe it wasn’t too late to take up drinking himself.

Gracie angled her head on her arms to look at him. “You’re the one making it impossible to get any work done on your memoir.”

“Hey, I tried answering your silly questions, didn’t I?”

Gracie held up the paper full of his scribblings. “Charcuterie metaphors? Is that what you call trying?”

She crumpled the paper and threw it at the trash can. “Come on, Noah. You haven’t provided me with a single answer about your life since the day you stepped foot back in this house. Come to think of it, you never coughed up a lot of answers before you walked out of my life five years ago either.”

“I walked out of your life? I’m sorry,Iwalked out ofyourlife?”

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