Page 45 of His Hot Mess

“Listen, I’m tired, and work in the shop starts tomorrow. I’m going to get some rest.”

Lucy’s face was pink—she was pissed. Or close to crying. Sometimes I couldn’t tell which.

“Okay,” she said.

I knew that was a loaded okay. But I didn’t have the energy to do anything but slam the door.

SADIE

Iwoke up wide eyed and way too early Monday morning with a combination of dread and excitement doing a jousting match in my stomach.

We were starting work on the shop today. Me and Chris. Together. The shop.

Then the fight with Lucy came back to me and my stomach clenched with anger. Last night I thought I might feel up for talking it out with her today. Clearly that wasn’t going to happen. I was still pissed.

But I couldn’t get distracted by that. I had a shop to build.

I jumped in the shower, and even though I was still mad at her, I used one of the tricks Lucy had taught me for when I was spiraling in my feelings.

Stay present. Breathe. Pay attention to your senses.

I scrubbed my body down with a loofah, concentrating on the feel of it sloughing across my skin. I took long deep breaths of the steamy air, noticing the cleansing effect of it in my lungs. By the time I toweled off, I was feeling lifted enough that I thought I should be able to deal with the nerves around seeing Chris again.

I’d decided last night that I’d have a quick and dirty—or more like quick andclean—talk with him about how Friday was a mistake, and how we needed to keep things absolutely professional.

The fight with Lucy had driven this point home. I couldn’t prove her right about me, not this time. I was going to show her just how much I’d changed by being a mature adult about the situation.

Chris was meeting me downstairs at eight, and with half an hour to go before then, I put on a physical-work-friendly outfit of worn ‘boyfriend’ jeans rolled up at the ankles, a snug white t-shirt, sneakers—and okay, fine, some bright green dangly earrings, because I couldn’t be completely style-less. There was no way Chris could argue I wasn’t dressed appropriately this time.

“Hard work is my middle name,” I said to myself in the mirror as I wrangled my hair into a messy bun. “Or names?”

While I waited for my toast, I pulled up the inspiration photo of the vintage shop in London on my phone. After one week, my shop was going to look like this.

Myshop.

I couldn’t help but make a little squealing sound to myself. It was working. Nothing could knock me out of this mood now. In fact… I brought up my music app and put on9-5by Dolly Parton. My grumpy roommate used to hate it when I bopped around to this in the living room, but I didn’t care. This song always got me jazzed, especially now thatI too, would be working 9-5. At my own place. As I danced around the living room, scarfing down my toast with exceptional coordination considering my flying limbs, I felt good. Really good.

A few seconds after the song ended, my phone dinged. I picked it up and saw it was a text from Chris.

My stomach jolted.

CHRIS:

“You’re not a bad dancer.”

I jerked my head up, my stomach now dropping straight to my toes.

I was standing next to the plate-glass window in my living room. Peering down onto the street, I saw Chris leaning against his truck, arms folded, looking right back up at me.

Smiling.

Oh my god.

Heat flared inside of me, embarrassment prickling my skin.

He couldn’t have seen everything, could he? I was too high up. Obviously, I’d come into view. The upper transom portion of the window, which I kept open to help with the stuffiness of the old apartment, meant he must have been able to hear what I was dancing to, too.

Normally I wouldn’t really care if someone on the street heard my music or even saw me dancing. So long as I wasn’t in a towel.

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