“I…she was sad her grandmother was leaving.”
“You two are so busy trying to hide your own feelings because of your stupid arrangement, you’re not seeing each other.” She got up and pulled out the barstool she used to sit at the counter when her feet got tired. “I’m too old to bend over and you boys are all too tall, so come here and sit.”
He did as he was told and was surprised to find, when she stepped in between his knees, he was at the perfect height for her to wrap her arms around him. Sighing, he locked his arms around her waist and rested his head on her shoulder.
She kissed the top of his head and stroked his back. “If, a year from now, you were stuck on the tracks and a train was coming, what would you regret? Not taking a road trip to the Grand Canyon? Or not spending that year with Emma?”
He gave a short laugh. “Trust me, Emma is the train.”
“That’s love, honey.” She squeezed a little harder and he felt some of the crappiness he’d been feeling slip away. “Think about it.”
He took a few minutes to compose himself with the help of another blonde brownie, then kissed his aunt goodbye. “Tell Uncle Leo I’ll join him in the shed another time, okay?”
It was quiet at Jasper’s when he walked in and Kevin was nowhere in sight, so he sat at the bar and asked Paulie for a beer.
He stared down into the gold liquid, even swirled it in the glass, but no Magic 8-Ball answer popped up.
Shit. He knew the answer. If he was about to become a bug splattered on the windshield of a runaway freight train, his last thought would be of Emma.
So what if she couldn’t cook and couldn’t drive worth a damn? And she came with a house he didn’t help pick out and a business he didn’t help her build. He could live with that. The family they’d make together would be theirs.
If she even wanted him.
There was a pad of sticky notes in his back pocket, but he had nothing to write with. He checked all his pockets, but the Sharpie was gone. Hopefully that wasn’t some kind of omen.
“You gotta pen I could use?” he asked Paulie as she walked by.
She tossed him a ballpoint and he peeled off the first sticky note. Without letting himself think too much, he started to write.
The sight of Sean’s truck pulling up her driveway hit Emma like an emotional wrecking ball and she backed away from the window, trying to will her heart into submission.
He’d probably forgotten something, she told herself, even though he’d been pretty thorough in removing all traces of himself from her life and her home. Except for the stupid army mug she couldn’t stop herself from using, but she doubted he’d make the drive for an old, secondhand coffee cup.
He rang the doorbell and she stopped in front of the hall mirror to see if she looked as much like a train wreck as she felt. She did, but there was nothing she could do about the puffy eyes and pale cheeks. At least she’d thrown her hair into a ponytail, so there was only so bad that could look.
Emma pulled open the door with what was probably a sorry excuse for a smile on her face and froze.
Sean stood on the porch, his face set in the expression she recognized as the one he used to mask uncertainty. But her gaze only settled on his face for a few seconds before being drawn to his chest.
He was wearing a button-up dress shirt and it was pink. And not a tint of pale blush, either. It was pink.
“Hey,” he said, handing her a small bouquet of pink-and-white gladioli, the stems tied together with a length of pink ribbon.
Her breath caught in her throat as she took them, her mind racing to make sense of what she was seeing. What did it mean? Why was he here, dressed like the man of her ten-year-old self’s dreams?
“I, uh…made some revisions to your owner’s manual.” She hadn’t even noticed the journal in his other hand, but when he held it out, she took it.
“Okay.” Her voice was as shaky as her hands.
She opened the cover and found a bright pink sticky note stuck to the first page. I miss you.
“I miss you, too,” she whispered, and slowly turned the pages.
You don’t take any crap from me.
You make me laugh.
Missionary is my favorite position now because I can see your face. That made her laugh, even as the sweetness of the sentiment warmed her heart.
I’ll let you drive. She gave him a doubtful look and then turned the page. Sometimes.
Yeah, there was the Sean she knew and loved.