Page 7 of Anything for You
“Yes. It’s great. Maybe a touch far from town, but in some ways, that’s helpful.”
It forced me to stay home and rest instead of running out to the store or to pick up a coffee or pop over and see Nan an extra time or two. We’d lived ten minutes from downtown and the clinic where I’d worked most of the last ten years, and now I lived closer to twenty. Nothing tragic, but it was a change.
“I’m glad.”
“I’m happy to see him here,” Jess said, clearly following the path of my attention.
Nikki, Winnie, and Jo all agreed.
“He keeps to himself, right? I thought I might see him around here and there, but so far, nothing. I haven’t even seen him walk his dog or… anything.”
It’d been wildly lonely. Granted, that statement could apply to my entire life, but I hadn’t realized how muchsmiling at my old neighbors on the way to the mailbox had meant to me. This probably signaled just how pathetic my life was, but to say I’d noticed the absence of any contact with neighbors since he was my only one would be putting it mildly.
“You should go say hi. Be neighborly,” Jo urged.
My heart rate ticked up. “Um, yeah. You know what?” Having recently broken into the man’s house, I needed to show him I was not, in fact, a nightmare.
I knocked back the rest of my champagne, sputtered a bit because it was a touch more than I’d realized, and handed it off to someone, probably Elise, who took the empty glass.
A small chorus of “go get him” and “go girl” sounded as I headed toward my new landlord. Why? Why would I approach a man who clearly did not want to interact with me since I hadn’t even spied his dog since I’d moved in, let alone him?
Too late—here he was, already ahead of me.
“Hey there, neighbor,” I said, slowing up as I approached.
His eyes snapped to mine, and he dipped his chin. “Hi.”
“I just thought I should stop by and say hey. You know. Since I live in your cabin now.”
Smooth, Dove. Super smooth.
He nodded again. “Going okay?”
I perked up. “Yeah. It’s great, actually. I mean, there’s this weird thing happening with the shower? When I turn on the water? But otherwise?—”
“I’ll come by. Let me know when.”
“Oh, yeah. Okay. Thanks. Cool. Yeah.”Stop the madness!“Thank you. I have the day off tomorrowso I’m around in the afternoon after I run some errands, if that works?”
The dip of his chin was the only answer I got. He then glanced down at his watch. “I need to go. I’ll be there at noon.”
He notched his chin at someone behind me and then he just… left.
Turned and walked out.
It was only after he’d walked away that I registered a few things. He’d worn subtle earplugs. He’d had his arms crossed tight over his chest—not because he was grumpy or mean, but because, if I was remembering right, he was creating pressure against himself.
It dawned on me, finally, like a cardioversion shock straight to the chest.
Stone wasn’t a grumpy recluse who showed up and segregated himself just to be rude. Not that I’d everreallythought this, but he’d always seemed a bit off to me. The only way I’d agreed to stay living at his house was how kind he was to me after I’d screamed at him, and after I’d screamed at my friends who hadn’t made it clear he was the landlord. But they’d reassured me, and their partners had all sworn on their lives he was safe.
And now, I knew he wasn’t grumpy so much as he was anxious. He’d been working some serious social anxiety coping mechanisms, and yet, he’d showed up. He’d been brave in the face of a challenge that left him vulnerable. He was doing the work.
Oh, no.
No, no, no, no, no.
I didn’t need this tiny little leaf unfurling like a bud opening in the spring sunshine, but there it was. The first tinyinkling of a crush.
