Page 63 of The Fix-Up

Eleanor—

That’s because you don’t put them on the key rack I hung on the wall FOR THE KEYS YOU KEEP LOSING.

—Gilbert

P.S. What kind of question is that?

Gil—

I did hang them up on the rack. Or at least I’m pretty sure I did…

—Ellie

P.S. Apparently one I have to ask my dates now.

Eleanor—

Not to sound like your mother but…if you had hung them there, they’d be there.

—Gilbert

P.S. What kind of men are you dating?

It was nice having Gil around the café. We weren’t braiding each other’s hair or anything, but it felt like we’d reached an unspoken agreement to get along. I thought I might be starting to figure him out, at least a little. He wasn’t so much stern as he was reserved, maybe even a little shy. He thought before he spoke. He was deliberate before he acted. He was not impulsive.

Basically, he was the opposite of me in most every way.

One Tuesday about a week after my date, the café was bustling along with a steady stream of customers. My coffee cake muffins had sold out. The old men were gossiping, Ali and Theowere sharing a plate of pancakes and making each other laugh at the counter. Iris was in rare Iris form. I’d given Gil the necessary (if totally boring) job of wiping down the laminate menus.

The doorbell chimed and Peter Stone waltzed in. Iris groaned. Loudly. Peter shot her a dirty look. He spotted me behind the counter and strolled over, hands tucked in his pockets. He smiled. With a lot of teeth.

“Ellie Sterns,” he said. “How are you this fine Tuesday?”

I bit back my own groan. I didn’t want to see Peter for all the normal reasons. To name a few: he was annoying, arrogant, and awful. But also, for one big, abnormal reason: Gil. Because Peter was desperate to get his hands on Ollie’s land and Gil was eager to sell it. While the two of us had avoided the topic of selling the property, it still loomed large in the background. But I thought, maybe, my plan to win him over was working. Kind of.

The people of Two Harts, perhaps nudged into action by a certain mayor, seemed to be warming to Gil. Mrs. Katz, one of the town’s most vocal citizens, always made a point to chat with him when she came in. The old men got him to play chess with them. Gil and Malcolm Lightfoot seemed to have become friends. They chatted often over coffee and Malcolm’s daughter, Annie, already had her heart set on Gil as her new boyfriend. Gil had even gone to some kind of game night with my brother and Theo. Heck, he had more of a town social life than I did.

I wanted to keep things just as they were. Peter Stone and his stupid real estate development could mess everything up. My eyes shot over to Gil, tucked in the back corner booth. I needed to get rid of Peter ASAP.

“What can I do for you?” I did not return Peter’s smile.

“You having a bad day?” Despite leaning closer, his voice carried. “There someone I can beat up for you?”

Iris moseyed by. “Pu-leaze. As if.”

“You need to get better help around here.” Peter glared at Iris’s back.

“That’s funny,” Iris said, her voice mild. “I was going to suggest a ‘no sleazeball’ policy.”

I sighed. “Okay, you two. Peter, are you ordering something or are you here to harass my staff?”

Someone grunted behind me. I knew it was Gil before I even looked. I’d developed a weird sort of Gil Radar…Gil-dar? Every day it seemed to get a little stronger, my pulse seemed to race a little bit more when I discovered him nearby. He didn’t even have to be wearing his toolbelt, either.

A disturbing realization, that.

I didn’t want to notice Gil any more than I already did. He was in my home, at work half the time, in all the other cracks in my life I never expected to find him—hanging out with my brother, helping a neighbor move a couch, reading dinosaur books with my kid. I didn’t know what to make of that.

He leaned in and whispered, “This guy bothering you?”

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