Flawless River (Grizzly Bear Lake #2) - Ruby Shae Page 0,28

wanting to date her. He’d also said that he would wait as long as she needed. But that wasn’t love…was it?

“Oh yeah,” Elle added. “He’s terrible. When Liam did the shelves in my shed, Lael wasn’t allowed to work the saw because he can’t even cut a straight line with help. They let him pound in nails and hold things, but no cutting. It was hysterical.”

“Really?” Stacey asked, suddenly concerned. “But…”

“It’s not like you’re torturing him or anything,” Lacey rushed to add, “so don’t worry about that. I guarantee he’s there because he wants to be—because he wants to spend time with you—but just know that he’s not going to create any masterpieces.”

Stacey thought about the beads again, and then she remembered the awful paint by numbers, the bumpy uneven knots on the paracord, and the very loopy crochet scarf Lael had made for her. The scarf had been the best attempt, and she loved it, but it wouldn’t win any awards.

Did he love her? She still wasn’t sure, but she was certain about something else. Lael wasn’t completely flawless. He seemed that way on the outside, and there was no denying the fact that he was a perfect specimen in the looks department, but on the inside, he was good, and decent, and…flawed.

Which made him perfect for her, and she wanted to be perfect for him, too. Or at least try, and that meant doing some things that she sucked at as well.

“Well, that’s true,” she laughed. “But I don’t care. I like what he creates.”

“Oh god,” Lacey rolled her eyes. “You are literally the only person in the world who would say that. Hell, even our mom doesn’t love him that much.”

“This is true,” Elle agreed. The other woman glanced at her watch. “We’d better start cleaning up. You’re coming to the Farmer’s Market tomorrow, right Stacey?”

“Yes, I’ll be there,” she said, and then she took a huge leap. “Do you guys want to go shopping after? I need to buy a swimsuit, and…I’ve never owned one before so I literally have no idea what I’m doing.”

“Definitely,” Lacey nodded. “You can’t go swimsuit shopping alone.”

“I’m in,” Elle added. “We can get dinner somewhere, too.”

“That sounds great.”

And it did, too. Not only did she have friends to shop with, but she was about to buy a swimsuit for the first time…and hopefully learn to swim. Now all she had to do was ask Lael to teach her.

Luckily, she was pretty sure he would say yes.

Lael looked out the window of the shed and watched Stacey walking across the sand. She was smiling as she looked at the shack, but the smile didn’t quite reach her eyes, and he knew something was bothering her.

For once, there wasn’t anyone inside the shack, and for that he was grateful. Since he threw out the group a week ago, he hadn’t had an uptick in visits from the lake girls—and he was grateful for that, too—but they also hadn’t lost interest in him, either, and that meant he still spent most of his day fending them off or dealing with stupid shit.

He was always happiest when there was a lull in customer traffic, but a lull combined with a visit from Stacey made him ecstatic. He liked spending time with her without the annoyance of annoying onlookers, and even though they were always alone at her place, he liked the extra moments in the shack.

She’d been visiting him every day after her shift in the store, and sometimes she even stayed longer than a few minutes, hanging out with him for an hour or two like he’d asked her to. Then, after his work was done, he’d grab a couple of sandwiches from the store for their dinner, and they would hang out at her place, eating, laughing, and working on their craft projects.

And every night before he left, he would kiss her goodbye.

Nothing hot and heavy, just a few gentle kisses to remind her that he wanted more, and that he wasn’t going anywhere. She always kissed him back, too, which gave him hope that she was slowly starting to see him as more than a friend.

Even though it had only been a week, he was pretty sure she was changing her mind about him, or at least on the road to accepting how much she liked him.

Because she did like him.

He felt that deep in his soul.

He walked toward the entrance of the shack, and met her at the door.

“Hey, sweetheart,”