Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 112249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Margot snorted. “You sure you were supposed to be a hair stylist? That sounds like something a person with PhD alongside their name might talk about over wine, but not you and me. Maybe that’s where we agree to say people way smarter than us need to unpack that kind of mess, you know what I mean?”
Well ...
“You’re not wrong,” Gracen admitted, and happily, too.
“Did they put cups in the bag?” Margot asked, gently moving the two back to the most important thing at hand.
Their cooling food.
“Didn’t see any.”
The redhead squinted with an embarrassed smile. “They’re catching on to me. I’ll ask for cups, but don’t order any drinks.”
Gracen giggled as she stabbed her fork into her first bite of cheesy, fried potato goodness. Nothing beat a maritime poutine. She’d been as far as Alberta to visit her mother’s side of the family throughout the years, but she hadn’t found a poutine in Canada that competed with her hometown’s.
“There’s lots in the kitchen,” Gracen said, pointing her fork full of food toward Margot. “You know we need the wine for this.”
Margot stood from the chair with a roll of her eyes. “For all of this, actually.”
Well ...
“That’s probably true, too,” Gracen agreed, setting her friend’s food aside before digging back into her own for a proper first bite.
As Margot slipped down the stairs and ducked for the roof to fit through the small door, Gracen’s phone on the table buzzed with a text. Gravy-coated, warm gooeyness filled Gracen’s mouth as she picked up the phone for a better look at the unknown number who’d sent her a text.
Guess I can’t ask if this was really your number when it was on a business card, huh, Blue Eyes?
Gracen’s slightly amused gaze narrowed on the words, and the pet name that said the man from the parking lot on Friday had noticed something about her, and remembered the color of her eyes. She used one hand to unlock the phone and carefully type out a response. Who’s Blue Eyes, Bike Boy?
Fair was fair.
His response came in just as quick, too. It even made Gracen laugh, lucky for him. Guys who could laugh at themselves were a rare breed.
“Walked myself right into that,” Malachi Anders wrote.
Yep, Gracen sent back with a winky face emoji attached at the end. Before she could overthink her next move, she added another text: I was starting to think you hadn’t used my number because you didn’t really want it.
Not really.
She was curious about why it took him an entire day to pop off a simple hello so she could get his contact, too, however. Then, the handsome man she’d not been able to get off the back of her mind had to go and up the ante.
All’s the same, Blue Eyes. I’m texting now. Are you busy tonight?
Gracen frowned down at her phone.
Crap.
Yeah, she kind of was busy.
Familiar footsteps pounding up the stairs kept Gracen from answering Malachi’s last text as she blacked out the screen, and replaced the phone on the glass-topped accent table between the two chairs before Margot returned. She didn’t think now was a great time to tell anyone about the gorgeous stranger she’d barely spoken to for more than a handful of minutes when she hadn’t quite figured out what to make of him herself. Unfortunately, her silence would also likely answer his question.
Chapter 5
The streetlights along the river had started to flicker on one after the other by the time Margot headed out with the remaining wine and Gracen’s leftover poutine. It was one of the few things she wouldn’t eat as leftovers because it wasn’t the same experience in her opinion. Margot clearly disagreed.
Gracen waved to Margot as she strode along the front walk that passed the kitchen’s windows. She rented the one-bedroom unit over Patsy’s Flower Shop behind the bank. Out of the three women that worked full-time at the Haus, Margot was the only one who refused to get a vehicle because she proclaimed there wasn’t a need for one. There was always a friend doing something out of town if she really had a need to go—or so she explained it when Gracen tried to sell her the Civic a while back.
Delaney’s name lit up the screen of Gracen’s phone on the counter next to the sink as she finished rinsing the wine glasses from earlier. She considered not answering the call but figured she didn’t have a reason to do so that wasn’t petty.
That left her with one option.
“Hey, Delaney,” Gracen said when she picked up the call.
The slight woosh of air in the background of the call told Gracen the news Delaney was about to deliver before her friend could.
“I just hit the highway out of Aroostook—I’ll be home in fifteen. Don’t bother locking the door, I’ll get it, but I want to run by the Haus first and make sure nobody spray painted any windows or some other stupid shit that we’ll find tomorrow when we open.”