Page 57 of Love Redesigned
“Wow. That was a lot of clichés in one sentence.”
He grinned. “Things only become clichés because people say them all the time. And if people say things all the time, it must be because they work. Take it from me. As a guy who ended up doing the exact opposite of what he’d always planned for himself, sometimes you have to embrace the unexpected.”
I was pretty sure Steven was only referencing my relationship, or lack of relationship, with Alex, but I wondered if his sage advice couldn’t also be applied to my work life. I’d clung to the idea of working for LeFranc for so long. Even since I’d left, I’d had a hard time imagining a future in fashion without the LeFranc name giving me confidence. But maybe it was time I let go of my LeFranc dreams. I’d walked away from my LeFranc job, yes. But as I watched a pelican swoop down and scoop a fish out of the bay, I realized with startling clarity that I still hadn’t let go of my dreams. And I’d never move forward if I couldn’t well and truly cut myself free.
“You okay?” Steven asked with a warm smile.
I liked Steven. He was completely unexpected. And funny. And he had an adorable dimple in his left cheek that showed up when he smiled big. In a different life, a life where I wasn’t completely hung up on the fact that Steven said Alex stared at me all the time, I would have said yes to dinner. “Yeah. Just thinking.”
“Want to think and run?” he asked. He stood from the bench and offered me a hand, giving me a reassuring squeeze when I slipped my fingers into his.
After my run, I climbed the stairs to my studio and flipped on the light switch at the top of the stairs. I froze. My room was totally different. The red couch was gone; in its place, there was a bed. An actual bed with sheets and pillows and a fluffy duvet. There was an end table with a lamp, and a dresser against the wall, and a chair by the window.
I stood in the middle of the room and turned around in amazement. I’d only been gone an hour. I sank down onto the bed—a bed!—my heart tight in my chest. It had to have been Alex. He was the only one who would have thought to do something this nice. Curse the man. He was making it really hard for me to stay mad at him.
I paused at the top of the stairs. Was that his point? Was he trying to fix things between us?
If he was, did I want the same thing?
I found Alex in the kitchen. Without a word, I crossed to where he stood at the counter and wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him into a hug. The closeness nearly did me in, kicking my senses into a hyperaware state. His scent was familiar, amazing, bone-melting. And his touch. It was like every nerve ending in my body was suddenly on high alert, so that I could instantly identify every single part of me that was in contact with any part of him. The stretch of my arm across his neck and shoulder. My cheek against his chest. It was heady, intoxicating, in the best possible way. He hesitated at first, then slowly raised one arm, wrapping it loosely around my back.
“Thank you,” I said softly, as I pulled away.
Alex furrowed his brow in confusion. “For what?”
“For my room,” I said. “It’s really nice.”
Alex’s face didn’t change. “Dani, it wasn’t me.”
My shoulders fell, heat rising in my cheeks. If it wasn’t him, then that hug was way out of line. I took a step backward, putting some much-needed distance between us, but clung to my conviction a moment longer. “The bed. The table. Everything. It wasn’t you?”
He quickly shook his head. “I didn’t have anything to do with it.”
I took a giant step back. “Then who did?”
He shrugged, almost dismissively. “Maybe you should look around a little more.”
I ran back to the studio and climbed the stairs two at a time, looking again at the furniture. It was all new, stuff I’d never seen. But there, on the top of the dresser, was a stack of books I’d somehow missed before. I crossed the room and ran my hand across the spines. They were mine. Books from my old bedroom, probably boxed up and stored in the garage before Mom and Dad had left for Europe.
“Do you like it?”
I spun around.
Isaac stood sheepishly in the doorway.
“You did this for me?”
He ran his fingers through his hair. “I guess, when I saw how much time you were spending up here, I just figured...” His words bled into each other, tumbling out one after the other. “I realize the guys are probably hard to be around all the time and you’ve been a good sport about it and the food has been really good the past few weeks and I guess, just, I wanted to say thank you. It’s actually been nice having you around.”
Tears welled up. It was the nicest thing Isaac had ever done for me. And the nicest thing he’d eversaidto me. What had gotten into him? I crossed the room and hugged him tightly.
“Thank you,” I said, with a sniff. “I don’t even know what to say.”
“I wasn’t sure if you had furniture and stuff in New York; at first I thought I could bring it all down, but then I called Paige and she said your place up there had been furnished and so there wasn’t much to move, so I figured I’d buy new stuff.” He pressed the heel of his hand into his eye. I recognized the gesture from when we were kids. He was nervous. “I’m not much of a designer, but the lady at the furniture store said she thought this would work for a girl. Oh, and sorry about Steven,” he added at the end. “I hope he didn’t pester you too much.”
“Wait,youtold Steven to go running with me? He tried to ask me out!”
Isaac’s face fell. “He did? I told him to keep you out of the house for a while, not to hit on you! You didn’t say yes, did you? Please tell me you didn’t say yes.”
