Page 79 of No Match Found
“Of course you are,” he said. “You’re the most capable woman I know. But I’m on a date with you, Vivian, and I’d like an excuse to be close—if that’s all right with you.”
It shouldn’t have been all right with me, but I didn’t stop him. “Is this you carrying out your threat?”
“My threat?” he asked with a slight furrow to his brow.
“I won’t be going easy on you,” I mimicked in an exaggeratedly low voice.
The corner of his mouth quirked. “Oh, Vivian. I’ve definitely been going easy so far.”
I forced a laugh, but it flickered like a candle when he came up behind me. “What’re you doing?” I tried to resurrect the mocking laugh with only marginal success.
“Haven’t you ever watched a movie?” He reached his arms around me. “You can’t stand next to someone and show them how to do something. You have to stand behind them and guide them.”
My hands were on one open bottle of resin and one of hardener, but Grant’s hands covered them.
I was stiff as a board, and I hoped Grant would interpret that as me not liking the contact. In reality, I was holding onto my composure with white knuckles and diminishing strength. Where was the man who’d brought me rotting vegetation when I needed him? “Oh me, oh my,” I said in bland monotone. “Whatever would I do without your guidance?”
He chuckled softly, his breath ruffling my unwanted side bangs from their place behind my ears. He smelled like wintergreen gum.
I was a peppermint girl. Or used to be.
“Thankfully,” he said with a smile in his voice, “we’ll never have to know the answer to that.” He guided my hands in measuring and mixing the resin and hardener while I envisioned a stop sign in my mind.
A couple of canned lights flicked on like spotlights on our worktable. The light outside had shifted from afternoon glow to twilight blue, leaving the workshop dim except for the string lights around the window. It was arguably romantic lighting, and when the song ended and gave way to a slower ballad, I’d have laid odds that Misha had done it on purpose.
Grant released my hands, stepped back, and rolled his shoulders, wincing slightly. “They don’t show that shoulder fatigue in the movies, do they? Can you manage mixing the color in without me, do you think?”
“It’ll be tough,” I replied dryly, “but I’ll find a way. Just be ready in case I faint from feminine weakness.”
He turned away, and I took a deep breath, noting the way the nerve endings wherever Grant had been touching me pulsed. I really really really needed to recalibrate.
“I forgot a mix-in,” I said.
He nodded absently, focused on mixing resin, and I walked over to the mix-in table. With a quick glance to make sure he was still occupied, I turned around so my back faced him, then pulled out my phone.
I considered texting Katie for moral support, then decided to go with my tried-and-true method of grounding.
Chase’s text worked like a charm. It was a time machine, taking me back to the crushing feelings, helping me remember why I’d made Matchify and what was at stake with this date.
I stared at the words of the text for a few seconds, then turned off my phone and went back to the worktable.
It wasn’t until Grant peeked at me that I realized I hadn’t brought a mix-in.
For a second, I thought he might make a comment, but he just gave me a quick wink and returned to mixing resin.
We worked in silence for a time, getting the colors right before the pouring began.
Grant hummed distractedly to the music, his upper body moving to the slow beat so subtly, I was certain he had no idea he was doing it. The song wasn’t even a dance song. It was a slow song, but he was feeling it.
It made me smile in spite of myself.
He looked up at me but didn’t stop dancing. “What?”
He’d caught me admiring him.
No, not just admiring him. What I felt watching him in his element went deeper than simple attraction or admiration. It was more like want.
It meant Chase’s text hadn’t worked.
