Page 52 of Anatomy of a Meet Cute
“Except for the part where Travis is a vegan who hates spicy food,” Sam said under her breath.
“Enjoy just eating white bread then.” Grant smiled over at her before attaching a set of wheels to his cabinet. “And what about your mom? Has she seen the light and agreed with us that the Lost Key is amazing? Or did she want to go with that restaurant with the mosaic and the fancy bathrooms?”
Sam rolled her eyes. “If byagreedyou mean,Did you finally wear her down after an hour and a half of questions about the Lost Key?then yes. She agreed.”
“Well, I think my idea is excellent, so I am just going to believe that she’ll be excited once she sees the place,” Grant said, looking pleased with himself as he set his finished filing cabinet upright.
“I wouldn’t hold your breath,” Sam said, fighting to get her own final wheel attached. “With my mom, it is better if you just set your own metric for happiness.”
“And what would that be?” Grant said, pulling another cabinet box toward himself.
“I’m gonna vote for ‘I ate delicious ice cream while looking for that venue, so even if she has a meltdown about it, I still discovered a place that serves green-chili ice cream,’” Sam said, tilting her filing cabinet upright and rocking it back and forth to be sure she had installed the wheels properly, which of course she hadn’t.
“In that case, I’m calling it a success because I got to hang out with you.”
Sam stopped fussing with the crooked wheel and found Grant looking directly at her. His gaze scanned her face for any indication that she was picking up what he had laid before her. Sam felt herself soften like room temperature butter, and she smiled. Not fifteen seconds ago she had been irritated by him changing the theoretical subject of their chemistry, and now here he was, bringing it back up in a gentler way.
Something about the softness brought Sam back to the Lost Key. Maybe she was wrong to expect bold declarations from Grant. Just because he seemed to take up a room with his confidence in their day-to-day work lives didn’t mean that he shouted his most private thoughts. In fact, at the Lost Key, he hadn’t said a word about his experience in the venue until she’d shown an interest in it. Even then, talking about his father and sister was a quiet affair. He didn’t run all over the venue. It had been a slow, more intimate sharing.
For so long she had put off thinking about her chemistry with Grant, because it seemed improbable that he was sincere. If she looked at this moment knowing Grant’s quiet side, then the decision was hers to make. It might have been for a while, and that scared her. Sam opened her mouth, not entirely sure what words were going to come out. “We did—”
“I need more rags to wipe things down with,” Duke announced over Sam’s struggling sentence and the sound of the Vandellas.
Both Grant’s and Sam’s eyes darted toward Duke’s lanky frame as he left the room, carrying an armful of dirty rags. The giant room was nearly empty since the basketball team had finished carrying the old furniture out of the space. The only people that remained were Jehan and one of her friends and Kaiya, who was furiously scribbling notes against a wall. Otherwise, she and Grant were alone.
Sam tried to memorize the tender expression on his face, down to the touch of trepidation hanging around the corners of his dark eyes.
“We did have fun, didn’t we?” she said, lightly tempting fate. Sam wasn’t sure what she wanted from Grant, but she couldn’t ignore all the signs the universe seemed to be sending her just now. “I’d do that again.”
“Kaiya, we are getting coffee. Do you want to come?” Jehan said, more loudly than her regular speaking voice. Sam suspected that if she took her eyes off Grant, she would see her roommate telegraphingmeaningful glances between those remaining in the room, the pair of them, and the door.
“Look for venues again?” Grant sounded unconvinced as he arched an eyebrow. Apparently, he was going to make her spell it out for him.
“I mean hang out with you again.” Sam watched him just long enough to see the tension around his eyes ease.
For a moment, Grant was silent, smiling down at the box he was only halfheartedly trying to open. Looking back at her, he said, “You know, you were right about all of this.”
“About what? The furniture?” Sam asked.
“About the center. It’s a great idea.” Grant was quiet as he looked at her. “I doubted you, but I was wrong, and you were right.”
“Oh,” Sam said, suddenly feeling flustered. After taking a beat to look around the empty room and regain herself, she said, “Well, I wouldn’t mind if you said that again.”
Grant snorted. “What? That you were right?”
“If you really want to do it for me, you could always throw in the ‘I was wrong’ part too,” Sam laughed, then gently wheeled her fixed filing cabinet next to Grant’s finished one.
“I was wrong, and you were right.” Grant’s smile was indulgent as he watched her.
“Music to my ears. I could listen to it all day,” Sam said, scooting a little closer to Grant as she reached across him to pull another box toward herself. She had just gotten her hand around the edge when his voice came again.
“I was wrong.” This time, he sounded different. The joke in his voice had been replaced with something hotter. This was dirty talk without any double entendre required.
She was suddenly extremely aware of how close they were, her head just a few inches from his chest, her arms nearly across his lap as she pulled on the filing cabinet box. When he exhaled, she could feel his breath whispering against the back of her neck.
Sam let go of the box and straightened up, just enough to see his face without leaning away from him. All her blood seemed to be rushing away from her brain to other, lower parts of her body, essentially starving her brain of the oxygen she needed to think of anything other than how Grant smelled. If she could have thought, she would have encouraged her brain to look anywhere other than his lips. Instead, she would have the memory of him licking them right along with the sound of his voice, quiet and low, saying, “You were right.”
The last thread of common sense snapped, and Sam leaned toward him. She was going to kiss those lips. Hell, if he played his cards right, she would rip that shirt off here and now. As she angled herself closer to him, Grant placed his hand on her hip. God, did she want to be touched like that more. She was so close to him that she could almost taste the very thing she had been trying not to fantasize about for weeks.
