Page 19 of Kiss the Girl
Grace
I woke up with a crick in my neck, cringing as Brooke threw open her living room curtains to let the sun in.
“Good morning,” she practically sang.
“It shouldn’t surprise me that you’re a morning person,” I grumbled.
“Are you hungover?”
“No. Just allergic to cheerfulness before I’ve had coffee.”
“Coming up.”
I swung my legs down to the ground. “Don’t make any on my account. I’ll stop by the café and get some on the way home. You need to get to school, right?”
“Yep. Big official faculty meeting today, and I get my class rosters too.”
“I’ll get out of your hair.” I stood and stretched.
“You’re never in my hair. It was fun to have you and Noah over last night.”
I froze mid-stretch and eyed her. “Stop trying to fix us up, by the way, or we’ll stop coming over.”
She held up her hands in surrender. “I will, I promise.”
I dropped my arms too. “That was too easy. Why are you giving up?”
“Probably because my work here is already done.” She shot me with finger guns and headed for the kitchen.
“No, it’s not!” I called after her. “We’re not fixed up, and we’re not going to be!”
“Okay,” she called back. I didn’t know how she could make that single word sound like she didn’t believe me even a little, but she did.
“I’m leaving!”
“Bye!”
I stopped by the café and got a coffee, then popped in at the house to change into my work uniform, a pair of jeans and polo shirt with my name stitched on the chest. My mom had handed me a stack of five of them with a big smile when I moved back, like I should be so thrilled I got to wear a uniform like my dad.
I was not thrilled.
My parents weren’t home, and I wondered where they were, but they would let me know if there was a problem, so I showered, changed, and headed out to Handy’s.
The nice thing about the hardware store was that it didn’t open until 10:00. Gary came in to get things ready at 9:30, then stayed until 1:00 so I could get a lunch break in. Then I closed the place down at 6:00. I made it in with ten minutes to spare and set to work doing the ordering while Gary organized the paint chip display, complaining as usual about people who didn’t put the danged things back where they got ‘em.
The morning was fairly slow for a Friday. Usually people came in all day to get their supplies for weekend projects, but we’d definitely be busy this afternoon while I ran the place by myself, and I meanran. That was what I’d be doing until closing, zipping all over the place between answering customer questions, ringing up purchases, and listening to a bunch of dudes who hadn’t grown up working in their dad’s hardware store tell me why my recommendations were wrong.
A half-hour after opening, the front door chimed as I finished ringing up a customer, and my dad walked in.
He wore a big grin on his face, one I hadn’t seen in far too long. He was young as dads go, in his early fifties, his blonde hair starting to fade to silver at the temples, but still handsome, even if his face had lost its color over the last year. It squeezed my heart to remember how ruddy his cheeks used to get after spending early mornings working in the yard before he’d leave to open the store.
“Hey, kiddo.”
“What are you doing here? I didn’t see you this morning, and I assumed you had a doctor’s appointment.”
“I did,” he said. “We drove over to Charlottesville, and I wanted to tell you the good news myself.” Going the forty-five minutes into Charlottesville meant they’d been to the oncologist. I tried not to let my hopes get too high.
He leaned on the counter and took my hands in his. “All my bloodwork looks normal. I know my next scan isn’t until November, but Dr. Pearson was optimistic today, and I should be back to full strength pretty soon.”
