Page 5 of Amaze Me

Chapter Three

~ Mimi ~

Studying my reflection, I stood in front of the mirror mounted on the back of the front hallway’s closet door. I’d rented a studio apartment in the Happiness Square development, and the place was small, but every bit of space had been optimized, which was why this closet had a full-length mirror and held all my clothes.

None of that mattered as I ran a critical eye over myself. Going out with Judd should be old hat, and thiswasn’ta date. But I still wanted to look perfect. My hands brushed over my hair to make sure the strands of my artful braid were in place. My makeup looked good, and my summery dress was nice, not too fancy.

The goal was to look put together, but not as if I were trying to impress someone. Judd would probably just take me down the road to the diner or to the pizza place around the corner. Even so, I wanted to look good for him. I still loved the guy, for all the help that was. I never thought you could be totally in love with a person yet completely miserable at the same time. Maybe, I’d lost my mind. Maybe, I wanted too much. Or expected too much of myself. Even my mom thought I’d gone crazy, and she’d made a point of telling me so every time we’d spoken over the past few weeks.

Nerves tumbled in my belly. Crazy really. I’d been with Judd for so long that it seemed as if I knew everything about him. Like…I totally wasn’t surprised he’d shown up at Jilly B’s today. I’d left while he was out of town. Though he’d known right away, and tried to call, he’d gotten back to Sweetville the day after I’d gone to visit my parents while they were on vacation in Canada. Word must have gotten to him that I was back and working at the craft store. And boom…

There he was.

A knock sounded beside me, as if I’d conjured him just by thinking of him. The flutters in my belly cranked up as I slowly closed the closet and turned toward the front door. I didn’t rush, not wanting him to think I was standing right there, waiting. I hadn’t really been.

Okay, maybe, I had been. A little. I was excited to see him, even if I was scared. Scared my resolve would crumble and I’d go back, remaining miserable and waiting for him to figure out he was too good for me. Scared he’d get angry with me. Scared we couldn’t muddle through our mess and fix it, because the way I saw it, there wasn’t a way out. I refused to tell him to cut back on his work and school. And we couldn’t cut his mom out of our lives. She was hismom. She lived on the same huge farm, too, even if it was in a separate home. And last, all the talking in the world wouldn’t get my body to cooperate, even with all the baby making practice.

My hand hesitated on the knob, and I took a deep inhale. Was it weird that my breath stalled a little in my chest whenever I laid eyes on him? As the door opened, I saw he wore a crisp button-down shirt, open at the collar, jeans and his “nice” cowboy boots—i.e. the ones he kept polished and ready for Sundays. He’d tamed his wavy, slightly wild hair with a touch of gel. It was cropped short on the sides and left a little longer on top. No different from how he’d worn it for years. But I longed to bury my fingers in the soft strands. Just like always.

And just like always, my body came to life, low-key excitement revving into gear at just the sight of him. Butterflies took off in my middle and awareness came to attention, all the ions in me, pulling toward him.

“You look beautiful,” he blurted out before I recovered my senses. His hand thrust out, holding out a cellophane-wrapped wildflower mix. “I brought you these.”

“Thank you.” Taking them, I backed up to let him inside the apartment. “You didn’t have to.”

“I wanted to. They’re just from the grocery store.” He shrugged, appearing chagrinned at that. “If we had a flower shop in town, I would have gotten you something fancier.”

“You know I love wildflowers.” I headed into my kitchenette. I didn’t have much stuff. No vases, for sure. What would I put these in? One of the glasses would fall over. Maybe a Mason jar? Deciding on that, I pulled out one I’d gotten for storing pasta—when I actually got around tobuyingpasta.

Judd had fallen silent while I dealt with the flowers, and when I turned to look, he was staring around the space. Actually, there was less looking around and more laser focus on the cot I was using as a bed. If a glare could incinerate something, the thing would be in cinders.

“Judd,” I murmured.

“We have a four bedroom house—all of those bedrooms containing beds. Actual beds. Was it so bad you had to come here and…” He waved a hand. “Rough it?”

“I just haven’t gotten around to getting things yet.” Mostly, because a huge chunk of my personal savings had gone into the deposit and rent for this place. Wanting to get him out of here, and change from this subject, I quickly finished with the flowers.

“Ready?” I asked him, coming to his side.

He still stared at the nearly vacant area. “Just come home. If you want to work in town, that’s fine. Separate bedrooms. Fine. Well, not really, but I’ll deal with it.”

“You know if I come back we’ll just fall into the same patterns—andfall into bed together, too.” Maybe, going out tonight was a terrible idea.

His brows drew together. “And that was so bad?”

My chin angled, and I gave him a withering look.

He held up his hands. “Okay, okay. Let’s go. Talk.”

Before I even realized what was happening, he had my hand locked in his. Minutes later, I was in his truck for the second time today. He’d washed it sometime between lunch and now. It gleamed in the early evening light.

To my surprise, he drove the opposite direction from the diner, bar and the pizza place.

“I thought we’d have more privacy in Hoover City than we would in Sweetville,” he said when I glanced askance at him. He’d recaptured my hand when he’d climbed behind the wheel, and he squeezed my fingers now. “I know you like the steak house there.”

“For special occasions,” I protested. It wasn’t cheap, and while the Fowlers weren’t poor, it still seemed extravagant to me since I’d grown up with less.

“Maybe, I need to make more special occasions with my wife.”

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