Page 91 of Hello Handsome
I laughed as I nodded. “I think it’s in my closet. I have a tote of stuff I haven’t unpacked yet. Just being lazy, I guess.”
“Well, go look!” she urged, making a shooing motion with her hand.
“Okay, okay.” Chuckling, I scurried to the bedroom, not worried about missing the movie. I’d seen them all before, but none of them compared to the love story I was currently living.
I went to my closet, moving aside a stack of clothes destined for the thrift store. I didn’t see the tote on my side of the closet, but maybe I remembered wrong. I went to Gray’s closet just a few feet away and opened the door, looking for my tote.
I found the black bin with the yellow lid and opened it up. But it was completely empty, save for a leatherbound notebook and a loose piece of paper folded in half.
Confused, I picked up the paper, seeing Gray’s handwriting.
Dear Aggie,
I cleaned this out for you, and while I was organizing things, I found an old grief journal. I was in a support group that said it would be helpful. Turn to the first page.
Love,
Gray
My heart beat quickly as I picked up the notebook. It was clear from the cracked leather that it was old. The date atop the first page confirmed as much, showing over twenty years ago.
I ran my hand over the date pressed in blue ink, the light indentation of the page under his markings. Even though it had been two decades, the handwriting remained familiar. I flipped through the pages, noticing all of them had writing... He’d filled the entire notebook.
But he’d asked me to read the first page.
I thumbed back to the beginning and started reading.
I went to the diner earlier today because Jack made me. What a pain in the ass. But I know his heart’s in the right place, even if I didn’t act like it.
I was busy sulking about it until a curvy younger waitress, maybe nineteen or twenty, came from the back carrying a swaying stack of Styrofoam cups. I could just see her face through the parting stacks, wide brown eyes, dark-brown hair, and dark golden skin.
The cups were about to tumble, but I got up from my chair and helped her just in time.
“Thank you!” she said. Then she glanced toward the register, where a guy was leaning his head on his hand as he flipped through a magazine. She lowered her voice and added, “My boss would have killed me if we had to throw all those cups away.”
“Your secret’s safe with me,” I whispered back as I set the stack on the counter by the coffee pot.
It seemed like a perfectly normal interaction... until she gave me a grateful smile that squinted her eyes and made the apples of her cheeks rise.
It felt good to have someone smiling at me when it felt like all I’d done lately was screw things up.
Once her stack was set down, she held out her hand and said, “I’m Agatha.”
I shook her hand. “Gray.”
I decided I’d go back tomorrow because for the first time in a long time... I felt okay. And it was all thanks to her.
EPILOGUE
BRYCE
“Holy shit,”I whispered, fingers shaking as I typed out my dad’s number on my phone. All five of us were spread out in the conference room, calling our families, telling them the news.
I pushed up from the table, going to the lobby, hoping some movement might help reality sink in.
For me, it might as well have been science fiction for how impossible this moment was.
I grew up in the middle of nowhere on a ranch in a county where cattle outnumber people two to one. With four older brothers, I never wore anything but hand-me-downs, and most of my clothes had holes by the time they made it to me. I shared a bedroom until enough of my older brothers moved out to give me one of my own and always had to bunk up when they came back to visit.
