Page 18 of The Fix-Up

“I got it,” I said when Iris turned away from the group of grumpy old men she was cracking (dirty) jokes with. That girl knew how to get her tips.

Carefully, I picked up the bowl and reminded myself to stay calm and friendly. As I lay in bed last night, I’d thought of a plan. If he moved in next Saturday, his time would be up at the beginning of August. I had to change his mind about selling by then. Which meant he needed to fall in love with Two Harts and see the roots he had here. His family had lived in Two Harts for over a hundred years. Two Harts was a great town. Number two hundred and eighty-seven of the three hundred best small towns in America…even if that had been in nineteen eighty-seven.

I slid the bowl of oatmeal in front of Gilbert. “Thought you’d have left after the meeting yesterday.”

Setting his phone aside, he leaned back in his seat. “I was too excited to watchKangaroo’ed Threeto make the drive back.”

My face heated. “You didn’t.”

“My favorite line of yours: ‘You’ve hopped right into my heart.’ Really loved the play on words. Hopped…kangaroo. Powerful stuff.” His eyes sparkled with amusement.

Maybe calm and friendly were going to be harder than I thought.

I pointed at the bowl of mush. “Can I get you some sugar for that?”

He shook his head. This morning, he wasn’t so formally dressed, still neat, still with perfectly parted hair. I think his dark-orange henley had been ironed.

“Syrup?”

“No, thank you.” He crossed his arms, his eyes steady on my face. They weren’t brown like I’d thought, but a dark navy-blue. And judge-y. Very judge-y.

I resisted the urge to fuss with my apron or straighten my hair. “Fruit, then. I have some nice blueberries.”

“I’m good.” He was openly inspecting me now, from the top of my head to as far down as he could go before the counter got in the way.

I mimicked his position, crossing my arms and staring right back. I tried not to look at his hands. But now that Iris had brought it up, I wanted to see what the fuss was. They were big, with long fingers. Not elegant, like a piano player, but strong, useful. They were clean, too, tipped with trimmed nails. His left pointer finger had a black spot on the nailbed, a bruise from hitting it with something heavy, like a hammer.

As the daughter of a contractor, I’d seen that injury more than once.

Expression unreadable, his head cocked to the side. I squirmed. It reminded me of dress code checks in school when I was a kid. He did give off strong principal energy. The hint of gray in his hair, the stern expression. Except younger and kind of…hot?

Did I think he was hot? No, of course not. This was Ollie’s grandson, and he held my future in his admittedly very nice hands.

I straightened, refusing to wilt under his inspection. “How about some walnuts?”

“Can I just get a spoon?”

“Sure thing.” I hustled over to the silverware tray to grab him one.

He wasnothot; he ate plain oatmeal. There was clearly something wrong with him. Tragic disease that took away all his taste buds?

“Very smooth there, boss,” Iris said.

I snagged a spoon. “Do you know who that is?”

“I’m kinda hoping he’s the new male model for my art and the human form class. I would ace that assignment, for sure.”

“First, gross. Second, that’s Ollie’s grandson.”

“No way,” she breathed, turning to face him. He was back to messing around with his phone.

I elbowed her. “Don’t stare.”

“I’m not staring. I’m reevaluating everything I know about genetics.”

“Go away.” I pointed the spoon at her. “Far, far away.”

Iris grinned and headed to the other side of the café. I hurried back and set the spoon on a napkin beside Gilbert’s bowl.

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