EMERSON
I was definitely going to hell in a handbasket—Grann would’ve said that, and a whole lot more. I missed Grann at times like these, when I needed advice . . . especially of the relationship variety, which had never been my strong suit. My dad’s mother had been wise and tough, and never one to hold her tongue.
So I’d come up with my own game plan.
Lucas’s problem: he was way too predictable. So not a problem for me, but it made him an easy target. He played the part of the free-spirited beach bum, but his days were well organized. He liked patterns. Schedules.
Even though I wasn’t an early riser, I’d learned over the past two months that he got up early every morning to wax his surfboard, before hitting the corner coffee shop for a bagel and an Americano. After a few hours at the beach, he had lunch at one of three places, depending on their daily specials.
He’d been busier these past few days—I knew, because I’d been doing a little recon of my own. Watching him. What he’d been doing, I hadn’t the foggiest. He still came and went, leaving early as usual, but now he was wearing those suits of his. And he came home later. It didn’t trouble me much, because for the most part I still knew the best times and places to catch him.
Wednesdays were trivia night at The Dunes, Fridays were mail day, and Tuesdays he did laundry. If he were Rain Man, he’d probably watch Judge Wapner.
Like I said, predictable.
“Um . . . hey, Em.” Lucas looked genuinely surprised to find me in line at the post office. After a rash of mail thefts in our neighborhood, we’d all been given the choice of coming here to collect our mail or installing locking mailboxes. Since I was only here for the summer, I’d opted to pick my mail up—and what a coincidence, I was here on Friday too! I’d only been waiting a few minutes before Lucas had parked his car in the lot.
His expression of bewilderment was the same look he’d given me when I’d bumped into him that first morning at the coffee shop, and again when he was buying his weekly lottery tickets at the gas station.
I caught his gaze wandered down my body appraisingly. Of course he checked me out, and so did the guy standing in line between us, who tried to be casual about sneaking a peek. “You look . . . great,” Lucas managed.
Hell yeah, I did. But that was the point, wasn’t it? To be everywhere Lucas was and to make sure he noticed me.
I craned my neck over my shoulder, being far more discreet than he had.
Damn. I’d have to lie. “So do you.” The words stuck in my throat.
He didn’t. He looked like death warmed over. And the shameless side of me hoped to God the fatigue on his face had something—maybe a whole lotta something—to do with me. That he was pining for me. Losing sleep over me.
“I was thinking . . . ,” he started to say, and every nerve in my body strained toward him the way a plant grew toward sunlight.
I held my breath, waiting to hear what he’d been thinking . . .
But then the guy in between us nudged me. “Your turn.”
I glared at the man, who wore a black knit cap and flannel in the dead of summer. “Thanks,” I grumbled grudgingly before turning to the clerk behind the counter.
It took all of three minutes to gather my meager stack of mail, mostly junk and one credit card statement—hardly worth the trip, if not for Lucas. But by the time I turned back to him, ready to pick up where we’d left off, he was lost in his phone, shooting off a string of texts.
“Catch you later,” I said, hoping to break the spell his phone had him under.
But he was chewing his lip and scowling down at his screen. “Yeah,” he answered. He glanced up briefly and, for a second, he wavered, caught between the person on the other end of the conversation he was having and me.
Choose me, I pleaded silently, hating myself for feeling so desperate.
Then I cursed him and the guy behind me in line and the entire postal service, when his screen flashed again—another stupid message. I realized I might as well be whistling in the wind for all the good it was doing me to stand here—Lucas had already drifted away from me again, moving forward a step to claim his spot in line.
I left Lucas to his stupid cell phone, and the text messages that were so important he hadn’t even heard me say goodbye. It was okay though. I’d learned an important lesson: this wouldn’t be the straightforward, surgical strike I’d hoped for. This would require a little more fortitude.
I needed to go home and prepare my next move. Plot my next strategy. I wasn’t used to the long game, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t learn to be patient.
And eventually, I’d wear him down. Mark my words, Lucas Harper would be begging me to come back to him.