Tell Me It’s Right (Sweetspire #1)

Chapter 26

Chapter Twenty-Six

LIAM

I hurry through the shop with my arms full of supplies to set up for my next client. That meeting with Christine took longer than I expected, and I don’t know how much of it to believe.

She says she feels bad about how dinner went, that she had no idea Hailey was involved, that she wanted to help to try to make things right.

But I learned a long time ago not to take anything my family says at face value. At the same time, Christine’s never had that calculating air about her.

The bells above the door ring as Gracie returns, and I let out a sigh of relief. I don’t know how I’d get through this day without her. She’s standing frozen less than five steps inside, looking like she’s seen a ghost.

I stop in my tracks. “Gracie?”

She blinks and focuses on me, but she’s still white as a sheet.

“You okay?”

She blinks again, finally seeming to snap herself out of it, and heads for the front desk. “Yeah.”

Ah, shit. “Did Christine say something to you?”

“No.”

She sounds nothing like she did before she left with Casey. What the hell happened out there? I pile everything on the tray and head over to her.

“What’s wrong?” I touch her arm, and she jerks away hard enough that I stumble back a step. “Hey?—”

“Nothing. Come on. You only have ten minutes until Mina gets here.”

Her voice sounds all wrong, and her hands shake as she organizes the already pristine desk. “Come on, Gracie. Just talk to me.”

“Everything’s fine,” she snaps, then pushes to her feet and hurries toward the back of the shop.

“What’s wrong?”

“Why do you care so much?” she demands.

I let out an incredulous laugh. What could have changed so drastically in the past ten minutes? Even with all the craziness, we were getting along so well today, or at least I thought we were. Maybe I’m just oblivious.

“Oh, come on,” I say, trying to lighten the mood. “The ice cream couldn’t have been that bad.”

It’s the wrong thing to say. I know it the second her shoulders tense, but worse is when she whips around and I see how glassy her eyes are.

My stomach drops.

“Everything is just a joke to you,” she murmurs.

The words are barely audible, but they hit like a punch to the gut. It’s the same damn thing my dad’s been saying all my life.

Stop fooling around.

It’s time to be serious.

You treat everything like a joke.

Grow up.

And maybe there’s some truth to it. Maybe I’m not serious enough at times. But with the shop, with Gracie, that’s never been the case.

And I thought she knew that.

But maybe she sees the same thing my dad does when she looks at me. When everyone looks at me.

“Everything’s a joke to me? I’m the one trying to have a conversation with you, but you just expect me to be able to read your mind and magically know what’s wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

I flick my wrist. “Yeah, the tears are really selling that.”

I wince as soon as I say it. That didn’t come out right at all.

Her eyes harden. “You know what? Fuck you, Liam. And fuck trying to save your shop. I don’t know why I’ve even been trying so hard when it’s obvious this is all a game to you. Consider yourself off the hook for your summer charity project. I quit.”

She storms toward the closet for her bag.

Summer charity ? —

Oh. Oh.

“Gracie.”

She throws her bag over her shoulder, and the second she turns toward me, I don’t think. I just move.

I close the space between us, grab her face with both hands, and crush my mouth to hers.

She goes rigid, but that lasts only a fraction of a moment, and then her lips part for me. I’ve imagined kissing Gracie more times than I care to admit, but the reality of it?

Earthshattering.

I can feel her uncertainty, her confusion.

But she kisses me back.

She kisses me back .

I kiss her harder, letting my fingers weave into her hair and breathing in the fresh floral scent of her.

I don’t know what she heard, why this is coming up again now. And it doesn’t matter. I can never seem to say the right thing, so all I can hope for is to be able to show her. That maybe feeling sorry for her played a hand in offering the job, but it stopped being about that from the first moment she walked through that door.

The moment I saw her work and felt some hope that I could make this place work after all.

The moment she started putting her plans into action and I knew I’d made the right choice.

The moment she changed from quiet and uncertain to barking orders at me.

The moment hours passed as I sat at her bedside without even noticing.

The moment I saw her on the side of the road, or when I spent all night holding her hand because I couldn’t bring myself to let go even once she fell asleep.

And I’m quickly realizing kissing her now was probably the wrong thing to do too. Because now that I’ve started, I don’t know how I’ll ever stop. Nothing, not a single thing that has ever happened in my life, has ever felt more right than this.

She pulls back an inch, then another, her blue eyes wide as she stares into mine. They’re not as light as they seem from far away. There are layers to them, like the gradient of the sky right before sunset.

Now would be a good time to say something, but I can’t string a coherent thought together. I just stare back, slightly breathless and completely failing at not looking at her mouth again.

“You have never been a charity project,” I murmur, silently pleading with her to believe me. To see it in my eyes.

She steps away, forcing me to drop my hands, and when she breaks the eye contact, I feel it like a physical loss.

“I should go,” she whispers, then all but runs out the door.