Page 96 of Make Me Swoon

I’m sick of dancing around how I feel for this girl. I need to ask her out. I need to make her mine.

“Yeah, I take Monday and Tuesday nights off.”

“Maybe I can take you out for dinner then? You can let someone else cook for you for a change,” I ask and she gives me a smile that looks slightly brittle around the edges.

“I’d love to Harvey, but I can’t. I’m just too busy here and I need to make the food truck a success before I worry about anything else.”

I try not to let my disappointment show as I nod and shuffle my feet.

“No worries.”

“I really am sorry,” she says and I nod again. “I’ll, uh, I’ll see you later,” she says, unlocking her car and I nod again, feeling lame and more awkward than I ever have before.

“See you later,” I echo as I hold her car door open for her.

She slides inside and I close the door, waving one last time before I head across the parking lot and climb into my own car. I wait until after Coraline has driven out of the lot and turned onto Main Street before I rest my head on the steering wheel and let out the groan that I was holding in.

SIX

Coraline

Harvey hasn’t beenby for the last two nights and I wonder if I scared him off or upset him when I turned down his date. I know it has only been a few days since I met him, but he’s already become a part of my daily routine.

Most of my days are just filled with work, but seeing Harvey was a bright spot in them. He could always make me laugh, make me feel better. Now that I haven’t seen him for a few days, I can see just how boring my days are.

I miss him.

I can’t help but glance over to the Eye Candy Ink tattoo shop. I’ve been stealing looks in that direction all night, hoping to catch a glimpse of Harvey’s lanky frame.

Sayler clears her throat and I jerk my eyes away from the tattoo shop to meet her laughing eyes.

“Looking for something? Or should I say someone?” she asks with a sly smile and I can tell that she’s onto me.

“Nope,” I say, turning my back on the shop and wiping down the counter for the tenth time in the last half hour.

The weather is a little overcast tonight so foot traffic and customers have been slow. Normally I would be grateful for the break in the hot weather but the downtime has only given me more time to think and wonder if I made a mistake the other night in turning Harvey down.

“Do you want to talk about that person that you’re not looking for?” Sayler asks and I snort out a laugh at the way she worded that question.

“There’s not much to talk about. He asked me out. I don’t have time to date right now, so I turned him down,” I say but the words sound sour to my ears and I have to swallow hard around the lie.

“Maybe you’ll get one of those chef positions that you applied for.”

“Then I’ll have even more to do to get an entire kitchen used to me and the way I run things.”

“So, basically you’re just never going to date anyone,” Sayler says dryly and I sigh.

“Guess so.”

She gives me a hard look and I turn away. I know that it won’t stop her from saying whatever is on her mind.

“What are you so afraid of? That you’ll get hurt? Or that you will find out that you were wrong this whole time. I know that you like to think that everyone is just better off alone because of your parents. But you're alone right now and are you really happy. The only time that I’ve seen you smile lately is when Harvey is around. I think that means something.”

I know that she’s right, that I’m making excuses, but I can’t help it. I don’t have the best example of a healthy relationship. My parents fought constantly. They made each other miserable and I never understood why they stayed together just to be angry all of the time.

Sayler’s parents are still together and they argue nonstop. They say that it’s just because they’re both lawyers but Sayler and I stopped buying that excuse years ago.

Her parents just aren’t great people and part of me wonders if they corrupted each other, or if they only wound up together because they both were corrupt. Either way though, isn’t that proof that you’ll just end up being happier alone?

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