Page 104 of Fall for Me

“I should have left the binder in the car, but the umbrella would have fallen over and—”

“Got it,” I said, pushing the enormous umbrella up and holding it over both of us.

Lucy let out a breath and pulled her hood over her head next, though it was kind of moot now, as water dripped from her deflated locks. Finally, she looked up at me.

“Awww, Seamus, I’m so glad to be doing this with you today!” she exclaimed, giving me a squeeze, even though I’d just seen her this morning. But this was the first time we’d had a work meeting in a couple of weeks. And Lucy was always effusive with me. She and Graydon had taken me in like a sad puppy, even insisting I stay in the little suite they’d stuck in the back of their converted barn when they found out I was living at the Lakeside motel just outside of town.

I returned her embrace with something like gratitude. I’d grown close to Lucy and Graydon in the six months since I’d been here. To their twins, too, who both called me Thaymuth. On top of making myself say ‘yes’ to more things, since I’d moved here, I’d forced myself to try to have more genuine relationships with people. To let my guard down more.

Like I had with Chelsea.

Then I cursed myself for thinking of her once more.

“Okay, so you have to see the wallpaper against the latest renderings,” Lucy said as we headed for the tent.

I loved how enthusiastic and no-nonsense Lucy was about everything, whether it was lasagna, her kids’ drawings, or the shade of couch cushions in the hotel lobby. I also appreciated how she’d pinpointed right away that there was something personal going on with me, and that I clearly didn’t want to talk about it.

Of course it had been her I’d ended up talking to the most, and she’d been an excellent ear the few times I’d had a beer too many and mentioned Chelsea’s name. Lucy, besides being a designer, happened to be a life coach, though she promised me early on she wouldn’t coach me without permission.

“Hang on,” I said, remembering my papers under my jacket, and while I tried to juggle those out so I could properly carry them over to the tent with Lucy, my eyes went back to the other side of the site where I’d just come from.

“Oh, let me take those,” Lucy said, pulling the stack from my hand and sticking them on top of her binder.

But I hardly noticed.

I don’t know why I’d looked back that way. And I don’t know why I froze when I did. Maybe because the pickup pulling into the lot looked so familiar. It was white, with a red stripe down the side. It looked a helluva lot like Eli’s truck. But that was ridiculous, because Eli was in Quince Valley. But when the truck pulled in—next to mine—no one got out. That wasn’t unusual; people often sat in their trucks in this weather, calling whoever it was they needed to see so they didn’t spend undue time getting soaked.

“Seamus?”

Shit. Lucy had asked me something.

“Sorry,” I said, my eyes still on the truck. I could vaguely see movement behind the still moving wipers, the shadow of a single person. “Say again?”

They looked too small to be Eli.

“I said I chose a shade for the lobby. It’s called Pickled Pickle.”

I reared back, my eyes finally back on my friend and colleague. “Excuse me?”

Lucy leaned toward me and hollered, “Pickled Pickle!” So loud I winced.

Then we both burst out laughing.

“We can’t paint the walls pickle pickle,” I said.

“Pickled pickle,” Lucy corrected. “And of course we can.”

“What’s wrong with regular green?”

She gaped. “Seamus, this is the greens. There are 500 shades of green in this sampler alone.” She pointed her chin at the binder in her arms next to my papers.

I shook my head, slightly bewildered by her side of the business. And still distracted by the truck I swear to God looked just like my best friend’s. I’d just talked to Eli last week. He didn’t say anything about coming here, even though it was through him I’d gotten this job, and he swore he planned on coming at some point in the two years I was here.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to carry those?” I asked as we started moving again.

“No, you keep that umbrella steady.”

Something still felt off. There was a person running toward the office, now. I couldn’t tell who it was from this distance, just that it looked to be a woman. Maybe. But then she was gone, into the trailer.

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