Page 22 of The Sea-Mist Cottage Inn
Also, we’d been scrounging around in cottages that had been sitting neglected for years, so I was streaked with dust from head to toe.
I pretty much could not have dressed in a worse way to suddenly be face to face with a guy I liked.
I guy you liked a long time ago, I reminded myself.Not a guy you like now.Who cares what you look like?
We all know the answer to that.
With no hope for a Cinderella-style magic makeover in the next ten seconds, I spun on my ratty Keds and stepped onto the porch beside Wyatt.
Roman stood on the paved path, a few steps back from the porch steps. In stylishly faded jeans and an untucked white cotton button-up shirt, the top two buttons undone, he, unlike me, did not look like a homeless orphan who’d been living in a coal chute.
Strangely, he held an old-fashioned, natural straw broom. It was obviously intended as a gift—there was a length of blue ribbon tied around the handle with a bow.
I did the best I could to look unbothered by his unexpected presence, the oddness of his (I assumed) gift, and the state of my attire. “Hi, Roman! What’s up?”
“Hey there. I should have called. Sorry I caught you in the middle of something.”
“No worries.” I closed the cottage door and went down the steps to his level. Wyatt stayed on the porch. “I don’t have the landline back up yet, and I don’t think you have my cell number. What’s with the broom?”
He looked at the broom like he was surprised to see it and confused about why it was in his hand. “Oh. Um ... it’s a gift.”
When he handed it out to me, he met my eyes. He was actually blushing.
I took the broom. “Oh, well ... thanks.”
“Now that I’ve given it to you, I see it’s weird—but it’s a thing in my family. A Mexican tradition, I think? We give a broom when someone has a new home. It’s supposed to mean a ‘clean sweep,’ removing the presence of the previous owners.”
I’d heard of something like that before, and I was touched by the gift. “Thank you. That’s very sweet. But ... this isn’t a new home for me.”
The next thing Roman said and did ended the question of whether my crush on the man was a thing of the past or a thing of the present.
He did one of his deep-dive looks into my eyes and said, softly, “I think itisnew for you, Leo. I don’t think the life you make here now will be anything like the life you had here before. If you sweep away the past, this can be a good home.”
I’d lived all my life under the impression that everyone else in Bluster (with the exceptions of Jessie and Erin, who knew some but not all of my truth, and maybe Catherine, whose expressive affection for me suggested she’d intuited my need for that) believed my mother to be a difficult but basically decent person. I’d thought they all assumed she was therefore a strict but basically decent mother, and that I was therefore a cruel and ungrateful daughter to have run away and never returned in her lifetime.
Roman’s gift and his reason for it suggested a deeper understanding of my truth than a neighbor I’d occasionally babysat for should have had.
Or I was reading way too much into a traditional gift of a cheap broom. Either way: very present crush.
“Well, thank you,” I said again, this time with more sincerity. “It’s very sweet.”
Then we stood there and let everything get awkward.
Wyatt came down the porch steps. “I’m gonna go back to the house, Mom. I want a Dr. Pepper.”
“Okay, bud. I’ll be in in a minute.”
“Nice seeing you, Mr. Mendoza,” he said as he came up to Roman.
“Good to see you, too, Wyatt,” Roman said with one of those ‘everybody matters’ smiles.
As Wyatt walked away, it finally occurred to me that I should offer Roman some hospitality. “I’m sorry—would you like a drink? We’ve got Dr. Pepper and Coke Zero, and water and fresh sun tea.”
“No, thank you. I can’t stay long.”
“Okay.” This was becoming unspeakably uncomfortable, and I was growing ever more aware that I smelled like someone who’d spent the past three hours or so climbing through filthy cottages. Crush or not, I needed this encounter to end.
I hefted the broom still in my hand. “Well, thank you for the broom. It’s a very sweet gift.”
