Page 28 of Fixing Up My Love Life

“Hello to you too,” she says, raising an eyebrow over the rim of her glass.

I let out a sigh and tuck my feet underneath me. “I canceled dinner plans with the girls, snapped at a tourist at the boutique, and I’ve been dodging Jack like it’s my full-time job. So. That’s how I’m doing.”

Grandma hums. “That explains the little storm cloud you brought with you.”

“I just—I feel stupid.” I wave a hand, trying to make it all sound less pathetic than it feels. “He kept this whole life from me. He owns rental property in Charleston, Wilmington, and Jacksonville. A whole business built in secret. And I didn’t even see it coming.”

“He didn’t build it in secret, honey. He just didn’t lead with it.”

“Same thing,” I mutter.

She sets her tea down and turns toward me, giving me that no-nonsense look she’s perfected since I was four. “Hazel Lynn, you are a smart woman with a good heart, but you’ve got a bad habit of assuming the worst anytime your heart’s involved.”

I blink at her. “Thanks?”

She leans back against the swing. “I’m not saying he was right. He should’ve told you. But you’ve made your own mistakes, too. Don’t let fear be the reason you keep making them.”

“He didn’t even tell me he might be leaving in August.”

“Did you ask him if he wanted to stay?”

I open my mouth, and then close it. “It’s not my job to ask. If he wanted to stay, he’d say so.”

“Maybe,” Grandma says. “Or maybe he’s still trying to figure out where he fits. Men can be proud that way, especially the good ones.”

The porch creaks as we swing slowly, the breeze brushing against my bare arms. A neighbor zips by in a golf cart decorated with red-white-and-blue streamers, and Grandma gives a wave like she’s on a parade float. Her tea clinks against the glass as she picks it back up.

“I don’t want to get hurt.”

“Well, that’s your first mistake,” she says gently. “Loving someone always hurts a little. But it’s the goodkind of hurt. The kind that reminds you you’re still alive.”

“I thought I was over him, but when Jack looks at me like I’m the only thing keeping him in this town—” My voice catches. “It does something to me. And that just makes me feel weak.”

“It makes you human,” Grandma says. “You don’t have to decide anything today. But don’t let fear make the decision for you.”

I stare down at my hands. My nails are chipped, paint still clinging from the latest house project. “I’ll think about it.”

She smiles, soft and warm. “That’s all I’m asking.”

By the time I swing open the glass door to the Seaside Spoon, I’m half starved, emotionally wrung out, and just tired enough to consider eating a chili dog without asking if it’s from this century.

Amber, the general manager, is behind the counter, smacking the side of the ancient milkshake machine like it personally insulted her. She’s wearing a faded blue Seaside Spoon tee, and her dark hair’s up in a pineapple bun that defies gravity. Somehow, she stilllooks cooler than me.

“Look what the sea breeze dragged in,” she says with a grin, eyes lighting up when she sees me.

I slide onto the barstool with a dramatic sigh. “Do not speak to me until I’ve consumed something fried.”

She grabs a laminated menu and tosses it at me. “You want the usual, or are we pretending to eat healthy today?”

“I just spent an hour with my grandmother, crying about a man who may or may not be packing up his emotional baggage and heading back to Charleston, so I think I’ve earned the right to inhale a plate of loaded fries and pretend it’s therapy.”

Amber whistles low. “Oof. That bad?”

“Worse. I’m not even mad that he’s rich. I’m mad that he hid it. Like I can’t handle his success or something.”

She nods sympathetically while pouring me a Coke from the soda fountain. It sputters halfway through and lets out a sound like a dying walrus. “You know,” she says as she bangs on the machine, “if I had a dollar for every man who thought he was ‘protecting’ me by not telling the truth, I could actually afford to quit this job and open my dream restaurant.”

“I thought thiswasyour dream,” I tease.

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