“Absolutely, sir.”
Max nodded, sliding on his ball cap as he left the diner. It seemed like he was taking the potential role of uncle a little too seriously. I was torn between humiliation and a heart that melted to hear Rafe speak so respectfully to Max, who had been nothing but kindness itself to me and Aunt Sylvia ever since I’d first met him.
I moved to the farthest point of the counter away from Rafe. It was just my luck that not thirty seconds later Tommy walked in with some of his buddies. He told them he’d catch up and then came and sat right in front of me.
“Hey,” he said, leaning in. “So I was thinking.”
I could almost hear Whitney’s voice saying, “That would be a first.”
“You and I should get together sometime and have some real fun. What do you say?” I had a pretty good idea of what constituted “real fun” for him. I couldn’t remember what it felt like to think he was attractive.
“That’s really nice, but I’m going to be super busy for a while.”
“Your loss,” he said, getting up to join his friends. It probably didn’t even occur to him that I was nicely brushing him off. I would have loved to have been honest, but you couldn’t really do that when you lived in a small town. That was the sort of thing that caused Hatfield-McCoy level feuds that would last for generations. The Coopers and Davises were already going at it. I didn’t need to add in the Summers women to the mix.
Nicole kept sneaking peeks in the mirror behind the counter, watching Rafe and Shane talk. “Shane’s so cute. Isn’t he so cute?”
“He’s so cute,” I agreed. Not anywhere near as handsome as Rafe. But cute.
“They’re coming over here!” she gasped.
As Rafe and Shane approached, Nicole threw her shoulders back, taking her hair out of the ponytail. She ran her fingers through it, trying to straighten it. “How do I look?”
“Perfect,” I told her with a conspiratorial wink.
“Genesis, Nicole, may I introduce you to Shane Fitzgerald? He’s come to work for me. Nicole, I thought you might like to give Shane a tour of the town.” Nicole turned into a totally different person in front of my eyes. She was literally batting her eyelashes coyly at Shane as they shook hands. It could have set a Guinness world record for longest handshake, and he seemed just as smitten as she did.
“That won’t be a very long tour,” she said flirtatiously.
“I’ll take what I can get,” Shane responded with a grin. “Shall we?”
They walked out, with Nicole turning to mouth “OMG” at me. Then I heard her say, just before the door shut behind them, “Have you ever shucked corn?”
I hoped that wasn’t some kind of euphemism.
Chapter 16
Two men whom I’d known for a long time had given me some serious and conflicting things to think about. On my way home, I picked up a tree from the Ramirez farm. It wasn’t quite the tree fromA Charlie Brown Christmas, but I had to make do with what they had left.
All the ornaments and decorations were waiting in the living room, along with my aunt. There was no way she had carried up all those boxes from the basement by herself. I didn’t ask, and she didn’t tell.
We got everything ready before we started decorating the tree. I made the hot chocolate and started up a fire from the logs that Rafe had cut, while Sylvia turned on a Johnny Mathis Christmas album. Even the weather cooperated, sending down little tufts of snow to blanket the yard.
Opening all of the boxes was like going through a mini time capsule. We remembered the ornaments and when and why we had bought them. I grabbed my favoriteUSS EnterpriseNCC-1701 ornament, hanging it near the top. Laddie had always been a little obsessed with Christmas trees and thought everything hung on the tree should be his own personal chew toy.
Part of me felt guilty as I put up the strands of colored lights. Rafe was sitting in his little house, all alone. We probably should have invited him over. The worst part was that I wanted to.
The hardest thing about what had happened on the show wasn’t just losing a boyfriend or a possible husband. In that short time, he’d become my best friend. He’d understood me and my hobbies in a way no one else ever had. When I talked about pwning some noob in a battleground, he knew what I meant. No explanation necessary.
And he was practically perfect for me. If someone had asked me to describe my ideal man, it would have been Rafe. Ridiculously smart, witty, loving, kind and thoughtful, strong and steady. He made me laugh. He liked my weirdness. We had a similar sense of humor. I had felt comfortable with him. He was the first man I had ever been my total, actual, authentic self with. I never felt like I had to hold anything back or play any games. He accepted me for me. And best of all? He made me feel safe.
To stop thinking about him, I asked Aunt Sylvia to tell me about her date with Max. She had a sparkle in her eye and a wistful tone in her voice that I hadn’t heard in a very long time. She told me all about how Max had brought her daisies, her favorite. Then he had driven her to a theater in a town twenty minutes away. They were running a 1950s movie retrospective, and he knew how she loved old black-and-whites.
“I heard you two had a disagreement about something,” I asked, wanting to find out whether or not my suspicions were correct.
“Not everyone agrees on everything,” she said, putting me off. “Wouldn’t that make the world a boring place?”
If she’d been my age, I would have asked her how the date ended, but it sort of squicked me out to think about them kissing. Or anything else. She was like my mom. You didn’t want to think about your mom doing that kind of stuff. Although moms obviously must have, or else none of us would be here.