Page 6 of The Now in Forever
Ed extends his hand to me, and I notice his knuckle tattoos spell out R-E-A-D. “Hattie. I was kicking myself for not asking your name earlier.”
I smile and take his hand in mine. It’s rough but warm. “Thanks for the fresh coffee.”
“I was running late. Otherwise I would’ve stayed to apologize.” His hand goes up to my hair and gives a strand a little tug, and my heart catches in my throat at his closeness. “I like the green.”
It absolutely wasn’t supposed to be green. My hair is a deep chestnut brown, and my eyes are blue. So, brown and blue are kind of my thing. I wanted a thick strand of turquoise in my hair to match my eyes, but it turned a weird, almost chartreuse color, and now it won’t wash out.
“Ah, thanks.” I push my hair behind my ear self-consciously.
“Come on. I'll show you how to count in.”
Ed shows me where I can put my stuff and how to count the till for the day. I want to ask him if he drew the little heart, but I don’t want to make things weird.
He asks, “So what do you write?”
I shrug. “Oh, I just mess around. One day I’d like to write a mystery novel, something dark, like Gillian Flynn.”
He nods. “Cool.”
“What about you?”
“Literary fiction, I hope. I’m finishing up my first novel now, thinking about sending it to some people.”
Wow. I haven’t even finished a whole novel yet, and here this guy is, already trying to publish one. He can’t be that much older than me. “What’s it about?”
He pulls himself up to sit on the back counter. “It’s about this guy who wakes up one morning. He’s out of coffee and still half drunk. He stubs his toe on his couch, and it really hurts, like the pain is so sharp the world stops for a nanosecond. It throbs all day, but what can you do for a busted pinky toe? Nothing, right? It starts a chain of events of minor inconveniences that leads to the apocalypse.”
I laugh, more out of shock than the premise being all that funny. “Minor inconveniences?”
He smiles. “Yep. Turns out that’s all the apocalypse is. It isn’t some great rapture. Instead, it’s just a buildup of annoyances, until everyone turns on each other. A sweater that shrank in the wash just enough to make you question if it got smaller or you got bigger. The store being out of the only cereal you like. Your favorite sock getting a hole in the toe.”
“Socks being ruined is something I know all about.” I resist the urge to cover my mouth. I can’t believe I actually said that.
“From the spilled coffee?”
My shoulders rise and fall sheepishly, still a little surprised by my boldness. He hops off the counter and squats. His face is inches from my leg, his head below my carefully chosen denim skirt. My heart is hammering in my chest so hard it must actually be visible.
“You can hardly see the spots.” He stands, his body close to mine. I catch the faint scent of oranges again.
A customer walks in, and he springs into action. “Welcome to the Neighborhood. Let me know if you need help finding anything.”
Despite the fact that he’s across the room, the heat from Ed's breath lingers on my thigh, leaving me frozen in place as my pulse starts to return to a normal pace.
CHAPTER 2
SUMMER SOLSTICE
Nathan goes straight to Robin and puts an arm around her waist and turns his attention on me. “Hey, you made it. How was the drive?”
“Long, but parts were beautiful.”
“I’ve always wanted to drive cross country,”?Ed says with a sparkle in his eye.
My lips turn up. Ed has this energy that makes everything…fun—or he did ten years ago, anyway. My drive was long and boring, but seeing it through his eyes, it was also kind of cool or could’ve been.
I sigh. “I was so focused on making it here today. If I were to do it again, I’d make more stops.”
“Yeah, got to take in the sights. Like there was probably the world’s largest tea kettle somewhere along your way.”
