Chapter Twelve
More games. More music. Maybe a live band.
That was as much as Jamie picked up during the impromptu meeting. Because her mind was elsewhere.
“What do you think, Jamie? You know this town well. Which of those ideas would work best?”
The question came from Becker, as he picked up his glass of beer and took a drink. It was the end of the night, The Panting Dog was closed, and Becker, Kaitlyn and Jamie were discussing final ideas for the Spring Festival.
Correction: Supposed to be.
Jamie kept replaying the afternoon run-in with Smith, trying to figure out where she’d gone wrong. Smith was so laid-back and cool, so devil-may-care, that it had surprised her to learn he did care. A lot.
“A band would be great,” she said, seizing onto the last suggestion. She wanted to play a vital role in the operations of The Panting Dog. She couldn’t let on that she’d been drifting off during this whole conversation, thinking of Smith the entire time. The way he made her laugh. The way he teased her. How he understood her, and what made her tick, in ways no one else did. How he liked all sides of her, and how he had such a sweet, tender side too.
Had she been wrong about him and quick to judge? Was it possible that she could have a relationship with him? That he could commit the way she wanted?
She feared the answer was yes.
She’d been falling for him hard, but when he asked to spend time with her family, she balked. Not because she was embarrassed of him, but because she didn’t know how to admit that she’d gone all in. That there were no strings unattached anymore.
As she unlocked her door an hour later, she found herself wondering what Smith was doing without her. The last several nights they’d been together. Now they weren’t, and her house felt dreadfully alone.
She tried her usual techniques to busy her mind before bed. She picked up her favorite books. She thumbed through Browning, Donne and Shakespeare. She cued up Ron Burgundy. She even picked up the phone to call her sister, but she realized it was past eleven and too late to ring Diane. She scrolled listlessly through her phone, then noticed a text from Megan. “It’s over with Jason. I’m coming back to town.”
Jamie sat up ramrod straight and called her friend instantly.
“What’s going on?”
Megan told her everything—how she’d tried hard to make things work but Jason had been more in love with substances than with her.
“I’m so sorry, sweetie. That sucks. But can I tell you how happy I am to be able to see you again soon? Is that terribly selfish of me?”
Megan laughed. “No, it’s not selfish, because I can’t wait to see you, either.”
“You need to stop by the second you get to town. Plus, I want you to come see The Panting Dog. It wasn’t around when you were here and my boss is super hot.”
“You’re already trying to set me up,” Megan said. “Besides, if he’s so hot, why aren’t you after him?”
“Well, that’s the thing,” she said, taking a deep breath and deciding to lay it all out. She wasn’t embarrassed this time. She wasn’t hiding Smith anymore. She needed to talk about him because he mattered to her. “There’s someone else.”
She told Megan the whole story from start to finish. “What do you think?”
“I leave town and exciting things happen, that’s what I think.”
“So what do I do? I miss him,” she said, feeling his absence like an empty ache inside her.
“And you’re ready for a relationship with him?”
Her heart beat faster at the thought, crazy as it was. She’d be a fool to give up this chance at something more. She knew that now. “Yeah, I think I am.”
“Then there’s only one thing to do. Apologize. Lay it on the line for him.”
“How?”
“Think of a way that matters to him.”
Jamie mulled over those words, and within minutes she knew the perfect way to say she was sorry to the man who’d unexpectedly stolen her heart.
Nerves fluttered recklessly in her belly as she walked up the steps to Smith’s home. His truck was in the driveway, and she hoped so hard that he’d answer. She knocked and waited and waited and waited, the seconds stretching interminably as she shifted back and forth in her boots, hoping he would accept her apology.
When he opened the door, his face was inscrutable. He looked tired, but that wasn’t surprising. He’d been working late the night before to finish the bar. But he looked beautiful, too. As gorgeous as the times she’d lusted for him, and even more so now that her feelings had transformed from lust to something far deeper.
“Hi,” she said, the word coming out all jumpy sounding. But she soldiered on, unfolding the piece of paper in her hand. “I wrote you a Mad Lib. I call it Mad Lib poetry and I hope you’ll bear with me as I read it.”
The corners of his lips quirked up in curiosity and she began.
“I’m sorry—Name of Person—Sexiest and Sweetest and Funniest Man I’ve Ever Known. About the—Adjective—idiotic thing I did yesterday. I hope you’ll accept my—Adjective—heartfelt apology as well as some—Plural Noun—monkeys,” she read, and glanced up to see his eyes sparkling with recognition.
“Monkeys gets ’em every time,” he whispered, then tipped his forehead to the paper so she kept going.
“This is my way of saying I’m a—Self-Deprecating-Title—Dunce. And if you’ll still have me, I’d like to go on another—Adjective—wonderful, romantic, fun, fantastic date with you. And my big sister will join us for drinks because I’m not embarrassed of you. I was—insert words to describe how you felt when you were being a dunce—scared of getting hurt. And I really hope you’ll accept this attempt at saying let’s try with strings all attached,” she said, eagerly awaiting his answer.
“Darlin’, I have always been all in, and I could not be happier to give this a go for real,” he said, then pulled her in for a deep and devouring kiss that blotted out the whole wide world and turned her knees weak. Exactly as a kiss should do. “And incidentally, that was four adjectives rather than one for our second date tomorrow.”
“Then let’s make it four times as good,” she said.
“We will.”