Page 14 of Hello Handsome
“I can’t believe you’ve been hiding this,” I accused. I’d much prefer days spent here to the crowded swimming pool.
He lifted a finger to his full lips and said, “It’s our secret now.”
I lowered myself to the ground, taking off my boots and socks. Dipping my toes in the water sounded like a luxury on par with a shiatsu massage or a deep dish of ice cream.
He stood at the edge of the water for a moment, thumbs in his pockets, breathing deep. When my socks were off, I tucked them in my boots and walked to the water’s edge. It was cool against my skin but not too cold.
I breathed a happy sigh.
After eyeing me for a moment, Gray followed suit. “Don’t look at my feet,” he warned. “They’re ugly.”
I laughed at that. “Clearly you haven’t seen mine.”
He stepped into the water, and I glanced at his feet. Hairy and white. But at least he didn’t have fungus on his toenails.
“Hey! I told you not to look!” He gently splashed some water my way, and it fell short.
“Sue me,” I teased with a smile.
We quieted again, looking at the stream. I felt safe with him. Safe enough to say, “What happened earlier? You got all quiet. Did I do something wrong?”
Gray sent me a pained look and slowly shook his head. “It’s not you, Aggie.”
That made me feel a little better. But the tightness in my chest was still there because I could tell something was off. “What is it, then?”
His lips pressed together for a moment like he had to piece his words together as building blocks into a tower. One wrong word would send it tumbling down.
Finally, he said, “This is the first time I’ve been alone with a woman who wasn’t family since my wife died.”
My lips parted as I processed the words. I almost couldn’t understand them. “The first time in…”
“Seventeen years? Yeah.” He rubbed the back of his neck, embarrassment clear in the deflection of his gaze.
But instead of making things feel weird, I was relieved. “It’s been that long for me, too.”
Shock replaced embarrassment on his face as he stared at me. I gazed down at the water rippling around my unpainted toes before saying, “I promised myself that I wouldn’t bring a man around my kids while they were growing up. Too many horror stories.” Some worse than my own verbally abusive stepdad.
Gray nodded. He wasn’t smiling, not quite, but there was a lift to his lips. “I respect the hell out of you, Aggie.”
My chest lifted with pride I rarely felt. I wasn’t quite sure how to take the compliment, so I dipped my head in anacknowledging nod. I toed a rock free and watched it tumble down the slope underwater.
And then Gray said, “So it’s okay with you if we take things slow?”
“Slow as those turtles on the road,” I said with a tentative smile.
He managed a small one in return before looking back to the water.
8
GRAY
After Aggie went backinto town, I picked up the phone and called Jack. He was the only one I could talk to about my date with Aggie—other than my boys. And I wasn’t quite ready to cross that bridge yet.
He said he’d come over to chat once he was done putting a temp fence around his cornfield. And since I didn’t want to wait, I met him where he was pounding T-posts into the ground around waist-high corn stalks.
We took turns, alternating posts, while I told him about my morning with Aggie.
He pulled a leather glove from his hand and wiped sweat from his forehead, leaving a small smear of dirt. “Sounds like it went well.”
