Page 29 of Stuck with the Grump

“You’re so easy and carefree with people. Each one of the neighbors looked at you as if you were a member of their family.” I shrugged and continued walking. “It’s interesting to watch. You look like you’re at home with all of them.”

She blushed and tucked her hair behind her ear. “I don’t know. I’ve made a point of getting to know them all. I usually come up here for a couple months every spring to be alone. Of course, then I get lonely and start looking for someone to keep me company.”

“Why do you come up here alone?”

Leigh shrugged. “Sometimes you just need some time away from everything. Put life back into perspective, you know? After my last boyfriend, I thought some time up here would be just what I needed but then I ran into you.”

“What happened with him?”

“He told me that if we got married, I would need to give up my career and stay home with the children. I told him that it wasn’t happening and if he wanted a parent to stay at home, it should be him.”

“I can only imagine that went over so well.”

“He proposed in the same conversation. Telling me what a perfect housewife I would make while he built his empire. When I told him about my dream of opening a gallery, he told me that it was nice but I would never be able to do it.”

I laughed and shook my head. “He sounds like a keeper. He’s also wrong about you, you know.”

“Wouldn’t know,” she said with a wry smile. “I told him no and ended the relationship. And as you can tell, the starting a business thing and following my dream isn’t going that great.”

“How’d he take that? Telling him no?” I wasn’t going to entertain the idea of her not achieving her dreams. She was the most determined woman that I had ever met. If anyone could start their own business, it was her.

“Dumped his glass of red wine on me and walked out of the restaurant. You should have seen the looks the other people in there were giving me. It was mortifying.”

I stood there for a moment and pictured that. “What did you do to him?”

“I wanted to chase after him and kick his ass but not giving him a reaction seemed to be worse, you know? He kept turning back on his way out to see if I was following him.”

“Well, if it’s any consolation, he was an idiot to let you go.”

“A small one. I already knew that he wasn’t the one but I wanted to try.”

“Would you ever be willing to try again?” I asked, without knowing what I was really asking her.

“If the right person came along.”

Those words had me thinking dangerous thoughts. I could be the one for her if she let me. I knew it with a confidence that was foreign to me. Even if she was out of my league, I would work every day until I was in that league.

I reached for her hand, lacing our fingers together as we walked back to the house. She didn’t say anything, her fingers squeezing mine briefly.

It was in that moment, that small little gesture, that I knew without a doubt that I was falling in love with her.

13

LEIGH

Whenwegothomeafter our walk, I went to the bedroom and gathered my notebooks and pens. While Clarke had claimed the dining room as his own, I had claimed the kitchen island. For once, I was glad that our families had decided on a giant island. I laid on my stomach on top of the marble, the notebooks spread in front of me.

“This place looks amazing,” Tyson said through the screen, clicking in the background as he went through the file I sent him. “Are you sure that opening an art gallery in the warehouse district is a good idea, though? Yeah, you might get some of those hipsters out there but the normal person won’t just come wandering in. You want that foot traffic.”

“Yeah,” I said with a sigh, flipping to another picture that I had taped into my notebook. “What about this little place in a cute suburb?”

“That presents its own sort of problems. You likely won’t have a younger crowd coming in very often and with the kind of art you want to feature, middle-class mothers likely won’t like.”

“Just shit all over everything,” I said, teasing him as I flipped to another page.

“Can I ask why you aren’t asking Clarke all of this? You know he would be willing to help you. Not that I’m not but a video call seems like more of a pain in the ass than just sitting down with him.”

“The last time we talked business, we both wanted to throttle each other. I’m not kidding. I considered putting his frozen body through the woodchipper and using him as fish food.”

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