Page 113 of An Introvert's Guide to Life and Love
“Wow.” He stops in the living room. “You’ve done a lot. So you’re really…?”
“Living here? Yep.” He doesn’t immediately squeal for joy—I’mreallywishing we had discussed our intentions before now—so I beckon for him to follow me.
“I found this at the antiques mall today.”
He gazes around the kitchen, taking in the new dishes, the dish towel on the hook, the soap bottle beside the kitchen sink—all signs of someone living here. And then he looks at the kitchen table, where I’m pointing.
“Is that tabletop shuffleboard?”
“It is!” I’m a little too proud of myself. I didn’t even know tabletop shuffleboard existed, so when I saw it, I had to have it.
“I kind of thought there’d be a home-cooked meal when you brought me in here.” Daniel picks up one of the little blue pucks.
“My cooking is still a work in progress. I wouldn’t subject you to that. Not yet.”
“Yet?” Daniel looks around, his hand closing around the puck.
“Yeah.” I lean against the kitchen table, the memory of what happened on this very bench suddenly flooding my mind. “Not when I’m—”
“Not when you’re what, Rosen?” He does that unwavering-eye-contact thing again, like he might be able to read the words in my mind before I say them out loud.
“Not when I’m trying to make you like me.” I let out a slightly hysterical laugh.
He sets the puck down on the board and sighs, like he’s disappointed. But I’ve said it, and I can’t take it back now. All my cards are on the table—or my pucks are. Or something.
“I’m sorry to say,” Daniel says slowly.Oh God—I would like to disappear now.“I think that ship has sailed.”
“It… has?”
He looks at me, and there’s a disbelieving twinkle in his expression as he points to the breakfast nook bench. “I believe I showed you, just a few weeks ago, right here on this very bench, exactly how I feel about you.”
“Oh.”Right.All the blood has rushed to the lower half of mybody. But I don’t move. Because I want to be very sure that we’re on the same page about what my being here means—what it means about us.
“You’re here for good?” he asks.
I nod.
“Guess you won’t need a property manager anymore.”
I shake my head. He closes the distance between us. I put both hands in his hair, sticking up at all angles, and I wonder if this sensation, and the salty smell of him, will become something I get to experience day in and day out.
“Ma’am.” His hands find my waist. I can feel the warmth of his palms through my tank top. “You’ve just put me out of a job.”
“I’m sorry. And I’m sorry about the other thing, too.”
He tilts his head. “What other thing?”
I lean in and whisper, my lips grazing his ear, “How badly I’m about to beat you at shuffleboard.”
He hoots with laughter and proceeds to roundly kick my butt in the first match. I demand that we play best two out of three, but we get distracted.
And that’s how I discover that my new blue couch is good for more than just sleeping on.
Epilogue
Two weeks later
My head pops out of the water and I push my soaking hair out of my face.
