Page 40 of Your Place or Mine

I blinked. “Hope? For what?”

She raised her eyebrows. “For this weekend to turn into something besides nail polish, cheese sticks, and me listening to you dreamily mutter about Callum’s biceps in your sleep.”

I narrowed my eyes. “I don’t do that.”

“You definitely do that. But no, I wasn’t talking aboutyou. I meantme.”

It took a beat for her words to click.

Then I laughed.

Loudly.

“Oh my God. You have acrush.”

“Ido not,” she said, grabbing a can of whipped cream and dramatically tossing it into the cart. “I’m just saying, if a handsome man wants to flirt with me while I pick out produce, I’m not going to stop him.”

“You don’t even like spinach.”

“I likepossibility.”

I kept laughing as we rounded the next aisle, nearly crashing into a display of canned soup.

Melanie just smiled, smug and satisfied.

“Seriously,” she said, nudging me with her elbow. “Let’s enjoy this weekend, okay? You’re starting a new chapter. I’m crashing on your couch and living vicariously through you. Who are we to argue if the universe wants to throw a little fun our way?”

I looked around at the sleepy, charming grocery store, the list of projects in my head, the uncertain pieces of my life finally starting to shift into something hopeful, and thought, maybe she was right.

Maybe the world wasn’t ending just because a certain flannel-wearing bar owner was giving me heartburn.

“Okay,” I said, bumping her cart with mine. “Let’s have fun.”

Melanie grinned. “I knew you had it in you.”

And just like that, the weekend didn’t seem quite so daunting after all.

Chapter Eleven

Callum

Drew showed up at my place around sunset with a six-pack and the kind of grin that said I was about to regret answering the door.

“You’re not working,” he said, holding up the beer like it was a peace offering or a bribe. “You have no excuse.”

“I have laundry.”

“You don’t do laundry. You glare at it until it retreats.”

He walked in without waiting for an invite, standard, and made himself at home on my couch like it was his name on the deed.

“You ever knock?” I muttered, following him in.

“Not when I know you’re sulking,” he said, pulling the tab off a can and tossing it onto my coffee table with a clink. “Which, let’s be honest, has been your full-time hobby ever since the new landlady showed up.”

“I’m not sulking,” I said, grabbing a beer for myself. “I’m avoiding.”

“Same difference.”

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