She turned away swiftly and pretended to critically inspect the perfectly healthy hanging plant, which she’d sold to Avalon at a family discount.
She reached up and fingered a leaf, which was basically the equivalent of tucking a strand of hair behind her ear or flicking it.
She didn’t know where a conversation could possibly go now. She needed a cigarette after a smile like that, and she didn’t even smoke. She had no idea what to say next, and it was both unnerving and delicious. She wasn’t atallaccustomed to feeling uncertain of herself; surprises really had their work cut out for them if they wanted to sneak through her airtight schedule.
“You know how they have those free buffets on cruise ships?” he said suddenly. “Just heaps and heaps of food, chocolate fountains and prawns and things on sticks?”
“If you’re still hungry, I think there’s some broccoli left.”
“Ha. I’m good. What I’m trying to say is that after a while you don’t want any of it because it all looks the same and there’s just too much of it and... that’s kind of how Tinder—well, all sites like that—feel like to me.”
“Mmm. So do you think ‘hard to get’ inherently adds value to something?”
His eyebrow shot up. He heard the faint challenge in the question.
“I know the difference between ‘hard to get’ and ‘worth the effort to get.’ I’m hardly a kid anymore—I’m pushing forty. I guess I see things through an experience filter, too. Life is short and time is scarce, and all the guessing surrounding dating feels like... I dunno, been there, done that. I don’t need to graze at the buffet. I’m all right with waiting until I see something that feels right. And when I see what I want, it’s hard not to just cut to the chase. Like you said.”
Damn, but he’d just accomplished a lot with a few sentences.
He was telling her he wasn’t a pushover.
That he’d probably known some loss.
And, if she was not mistaken... that he’d seen something he wanted.
And she was standing right in front of him.
She turned her face away from him a little too swiftly again. Her heart was doing a sort of fox-trot.
“Yeah, I don’t really have time for... Tinder and dating and stuff like... like that, anyway.”
She’d said that like a falling person scrambling for a handhold.
And regretted it instantly.
It was a reflex born of nerves and newness, and it just seemed easier not to do... whatever this was.
This time instead of fondling the plant she looked up pensively, as if captivated by the stars, the same ones that winked on every night in Hellcat Canyon.What use are you, stars, she thought,if you can’t perform as a sort of celestial teleprompter and tell me what I should say or think.
Gabe didn’t say a word.
She imagined, however, she couldfeelhim silently x-raying her words for evidence he’d been blown off.
“It’s just...” she began. And stopped.
“Just?” he prompted. Voice quiet, soft as a pillow.
“It’s just that between Annelise and my business, someone needs to know where I am and what I’m doing and how to reach me pretty much every single hour of the day, and nearly every minute of my day is filled. It’s actually kind of exhilarating—likeAmerican Ninja Warriorand Tetris and Whack-a-Mole all in one.”
He gave a soft laugh.
She rushed on.
“But whole weeks go by in a heartbeat, and I don’t want to miss a single second of Annelise’s childhood and it’s just... easy to forget I’m a person apart from my kid. And the awareness that I might be missing out on something is kind of this... background noise, I guess. Like the whir of a fan, or something. You can kind of tune it out, until...”
She left that word hanging there, which lent it a melodrama she hadn’t quite intended.
She didn’t know how to finish that sentence.