Page 87 of Every Chance After

Then, she gazes across the store dreamily. She wanders through the aisles with her lily pad green notebook, pink measuring tape, ruler, and a handful of markers and pens sticking out of her dress pocket. She’s abandoned her jean jacket and pulled her long hair into a ponytail that sways softly when she walks.

I repeat my new mantra that she’s too young, too beautiful, too goddamned nice, but bittersweet imaginings erupt anyway. Combing my fingers through her sunset hair. My lips skirting across her moonlight skin. Breathing her in like oxygen. Just the thought of her makes my body hum. Hell, being this close to her feels like an honor.

What is it about this woman that makes me feel things again—things I sure as fuck don’t want to feel?

“Oh, somebody’s got it bad,” Roy coos, snatching my attention away from her. “I’ve seen that look before.”

Wade huffs. “Shit, Grady. Hope this isn’t more about your dick than helping her out.”

“Shut up,” I yell-whisper across the counter. “I don’t have a look.”

Wade’s lips sputter as he rolls his eyes. “Yeah, you keep telling?—”

“I’m here, Marnie!” Christie bursts into the store, sending the door chimes into a discordant tangent. His shoulder-length gray hair hangs around his face, but he quickly sweeps it into an awkward ponytail. “I’m here, ready to help!”

“Jesus Christ,” Wade mumbles while his cohort laughs, shaking his head. “Least someone’s excited about the extra work.”

Marina beams. “You put down your bookfor me?”

Christie nods and pulls a mass market paperback from the pocket of his housedress. “It’s a good one, too. Amalie Howard is one of our favorite authors. The Duke and the ballerina finally kissed. Wren and I are buddy reading it.”

“That looks saucy,” Marina says. “Wren mentioned your father-daughter book club.”

“We set reading goals every year. We’re on track for thirty buddy reads by Halloween. Gives me something to do on a lazy Sunday or while waiting for the fish to bite,” he grins before smoothing out his housedress. “Wore this for the dust.”

“Smart. Would you help me with some measurements?” Marina hands him the pink tape measure. “And tell me all about this duke and ballerina? Ilovea first kiss.”

“Me, too! It’d be my pleasure,” Christie returns, bowing.

They embark on a detailed store tour and enthusiastic book talk for over an hour while I research cars for Marina and field family texts. This morning, I helped Dad move hay bales, which first meant changing the battery on his tractor. I barely had time to go home, shower, and change before meeting Marina. Even now, Mom asks me to pick up supplies for tonight’s dinner—a dinner I haven’t agreed to attend—and I feel weighted and exhausted over their demands. I’m pulled in a thousand places, but none are truly where I want to be.

Glancing up from my phone, I find Marina and Christie laughing over a page he’s sharing from his worn book. She whispers something, and he grabs onto the shelf to steady himself as he laughs. They look like old friends sharing a hilarious secret.

All this change topped off with a rough encounter with her former fiancé, yet she remains unequivocally Marina. I can’t help but admire how present and upbeat she is.

She catches my eye as she gushes over their private joke. Her smile widens, making my heartbeat thud harder, and my feet almost move in her direction. That smile was for me.

I don’t just enjoy her. Ilongfor her attention. With her, I don’t need my grouchy, reclusive shields. They drop so I can be whatever she needs me to be. Protector. Helper. Fucking lapdog, if she wants. Weirder still, that’s whatI want—to be Marina’s go-to guy, for her to pull me in a thousand places as long as it brings me closer to her.

My guilt has turned into a guilty pleasure. That’s disturbing territory for a self-proclaimed loner hellbent on his solitude. And foolish considering she’s too young, too beautiful, and too goddamned chipper for me.

Smoke fills the air, drawing my attention to Wade and Roy. They snicker, leering at me from behind the counter like idiot schoolboys about to share my crush with the rest of the class.

“Fuck off,” I mouth, only making them laugh harder. Huffing, I return to my phone.

CHAPTERTWENTY-FOUR

Marnie

Grady’s textpings just as I slug through my front door after quitting the funeral home.

Did you do it? How’d it go?

I collapse on the red couch, eyeing his words like they might give me profound insight into him. He keeps going above and beyond for me. Does he see me as another sibling he’s obligated to care for, only instead of being born into the role, he crashed into it?

This makes me feel horrible.

More befuddling—the sparks I keep imagining between us. He sets off warming firecrackers through my core whenever he looks my way. He’s so delightfully intense.Whew.Undressing me with his eyes feels like a gross understatement. It’s more like undressing my soul, rendering me naked but safe, nested to him.

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