Page 90 of Lucy Loves Him Not
He returned to the leak inspection with his new tools in tow.
I could hear the rain start to fall against the roof and watched as the leak started to flood all over the three boys, plus my boy who had joined in on the inspection process, standing under the gap. They all jumped back, shouting in surprise, but the damage was done.
“Ah, man,” Gabriel said as he ran his fingers through his wet curls.
Adam’s wet shirt clung to his body and I felt my face flush when he caught me noticing. He tried to shake it out, splashing me with his shirt and making me giggle.
Victor moved a few feet to the side, where suddenly another leak started to drip over him. “What in the?” He jumped out of the way, but was still drenched after getting hit twice.
“Guys, the product!” Katie screeched, running over to cover the boxes with her body as a shield, her back getting covered.
Terrence scooped her up, along with the boxes, and carried them to the dry hallway. “Katie, I got ya,” Gabriel said, taking the other boxes out of the splash zone.
Victor was trying to ring his shirt. “This is bad, guys, obviously,” he said. “You’ll need roofers. I’ll patch what I can for now.”
“Do you want some paper towels?” I offered the wet crew. I ran to grab some from Emma at the front. She was slammed with people wanting iced coffee for their festival day. We exchangedwhat is todaylaughter before I returned with a few rolls.
Gabriel and Adam patted themselves dry as much as they could, both thanking me. Terrence and Katie talked through their options in the hallway, with Gabriel loudly offering ideas from his spot in the backroom. Olivia tried to help Victor pat his shirt dry.
“You look like a little wet puppy,” she teased him, rustling his dark, wet hair. He rolled his eyes.
He said, “This is pointless,” as he threw his paper towel to the side. He tugged his shirt over his head.
“Victor Hernandez,” Katie said in a tone of reprimand as a very sculpted, shirtless Victor climbed back up the ladder. Water splashed over him as he got to work. Olivia’s face was cherry red. She swallowed loudly.
“Tell me what you need,” Terrence said as he walked into the room. Katie was off on a call with a roofing company.
Victor started ordering the guys around. Adam started to help, but I tugged on his shirt. We’d both been ignoring our little walkie-talkies and schedules for as long as we could.
“Duty calls, guys.”
“Let us know if you need anything,” Adam added.
We were rushing by the coffee counter when Emma called out, “Lucy and Adam, order up!” There sat two iced lattes waiting for us, our names written on the paper cups in Sharpie with little hearts.
And, as small as it was, I felt giddy at the sight of our names written side by side. Our names were called out together. The two of us, a pair, a couple. We walked out the doors, chattering and laughing about our morning, and I felt this mix of joy and peace at the two of us being…a two of us.
I wanted more of it. More coffee cups side by side. More rushing out the door together. I wanted to talk aboutourmornings. I wanted Adorable Adam so badly I felt sad when he had to run off to put out some festival emergency and I had to go oversee a petting zoo exhibit.
I wanted to keep Adam for myself, no sharing.
Thirty-Three
20,000 steps. That was how many steps I’d taken by the evening of the summer festival. Rainstorms and overcast skies didn’t deter the Texas heat or any of the festival goers. I had never seen so many people filling the streets of downtown. Some laughed up at the rain. Others popped open umbrellas with one hand, holding a big, icy lemonade in the other.
I worked straight through lunchtime. Gracie said hi while I monitored the mayor in the dunking booth. I finished her bag of buttery popcorn and sipped some of her sweet tea.
We had a concert with a popular, local country artist scheduled to perform for the last couple of hours of the festival as our grand finale. I was helping make sure everything was set up, brushing the sticky, sweaty hair out of my eyes while I instructed the crew when I spotted Olivia, Gracie, and my mom heading backstage toward me.
They waited in the back for me as I finished my meeting. After I dismissed the crew, they ran over to me.
“Guys,” I said, ready to explain I was too busy for a break, but Olivia put a tall, swirly, cone of peach ice cream in my hands before I could finish.
“Grandma made sure we had peach ice cream every year. You’ve kept the tradition going the past couple of years and I’m not going to let you miss it this year,” Mom said tenderly.Do not get misty-eyed over ice cream.
I took a few minutes from my work schedule and gave them to my family backstage, giggling with Gracie and my mom about shirtless Victor and the leaky roof.
“But…” Mom said between bites of ice cream, “how’d he look?”
