Because he could now see how his future would unfurl, and like he’d told her in an alpha moment outside a soccer game: when he set out to get something he knew was right, he always got it.
He glanced down at his arm. How about that? Goose bumps.
And yep, suspicions confirmed on how she’d got that baseball.Thatwas pretty funny.
He basked in the moment, but for only a second. Duty, as usual, called.
He reached for his phone and texted his team.
Can’t make it to the game tonight. Got one more Chamber of Commerce mixer to go to.
He braced himself for the barrage of outraged emojis. Middle fingers, grumpy faces, maybe even a butt crack or two (he wouldn’t put it past Louis to go there).
But all he got back was a lot of little hearts and “go get ’ers.”
What a bunch of reprobates.
That night, at the Chamber of Commerce mixer...
It wasn’t like Eden wasrivetedby the door of the Misty Cat, or anything.
Occasionally her eyes moved an inch or two to the left or right of it, for variety’s sake. The restaurant was her home away from home; she knew every inch of the place.
She’d taken up a viewing spot near the food table—tonight, Rice Krispies treats were heaped on a plate. Whoever was on snack duty this week must be double-tasking a third-grade class party.
Then again, Rice Krispies treats weredelicious.
She gripped one with a white napkin to keep the marshmallow from gluing her fingers together and bit the corner of it. Then decided she couldn’t eat it. It was against her nature to waste food. She folded it up and put it in her purse for later.
Above the table she fancied she could still see the ghost of Scotch tape marks from the old Black & Blue flyer that was up there. Would things have been different if she’d had a clue about that?
She was learning to quite like how things had turned out.
Annelise had been almost incoherently ebullient about the Jasper Townes mini assembly. Eden knew without being told that this improbable event was somehow related to Gabe’s mysterious absence from the raffle, and that he had engineered it.
Whereupon Eden had eloquently essentially torn Jasper a new one over that sacrificed baseball, via text.
She’d spackled on the guilt so heavily—and he was surprisingly susceptible to guilt, at least when she was wielding it, which was useful to know—that she was able to broker a trade deal.
Eden kind of wished she could be in Jan Pennington’s living room when she made him sing “Lily Anne” five times in a row.
The door opened and Eden’s heart lunged (“Hearts can’tlunge, Eden. Get a grip.”—Dr. Jude Harwood) like a half-starved junkyard dog smelling steak.
It snapped back again when it proved to be just Truck Donegal.
Although some would argue Truck was prime beef (Casey Carson, for instance), she wasn’t among them.
The place wasn’t quite as teeming as the last few events, since the raffle had provided a quotient of excitement and it was as usual low-lit. The comforting pop and hiss of her dad flicking the lids off beers for everyone who didn’t want the cheap wine and a soundtrack of strummy, moody Nick Drake tunes, which meant you could actually hear yourself think and you could shout to each other in a slightly lower volume.
But she was wearing her black dress. He was a guy, after all—maybe he wouldn’t notice it was the same dress. He’d just be mesmerized by her skin.
At the mere thought of his skin, her own skin seemed to buzz with yearning.
And then the door of the Misty Cat opened again.
The entire world went soft focus and slo-mo.
For this time it was him.