The Unexpected Everything - Morgan Matson Page 0,51

leash, wondering why Clark was acting like this—like there was a teleprompter he was reading off of that I couldn’t see. It was making it that much harder for me to segue into asking him out. I took a breath, reminding myself once again that this didn’t matter. Why was I so nervous? “So, Clark—” I started.

“I was wondering—” Clark said at the exact same time.

Silence fell between us, nothing but the sound of Bertie slurping from his water dish as we both waited for the other one to start talking. “Sorry,” I finally said, gesturing toward him. “You go first.” I really didn’t think I could ask him out now, only to have him say that he needed to change the time of Bertie’s walk or something.

“Um. I was wondering . . . ,” Clark said. He looked around and gestured to the counter behind him. “. . . if you would like a chocolate?” I took a step closer and saw the large box that was sitting there, a very fancy and expensive kind that I recognized. Small boxes had been given out as favors at one of my dad’s fund-raisers, and I’d eaten the extras for weeks. “I didn’t buy them for you,” he said, then blinked. “Not that I wouldn’t have,” he clarified, talking fast. “I just . . . They were sent here today, that’s all. That’s what I meant.”

“Thanks,” I said, fighting the urge to smile as I pulled the lid off the box and grabbed the first one I saw, hoping that it wouldn’t be hazelnut. I liked almost every other kind of chocolate, but couldn’t stand hazelnut anything. I popped it in my mouth and felt my stomach clench when I realized that it was, in fact, hazelnut. It seemed to be hazelnut-cream flavored with an actual hazelnut thrown in for good measure.

“Is something wrong?”

I shook my head and tried to force myself to swallow quickly and avoid tasting as much as possible. “Fine,” I said, when I was able to speak again. “I mean, thank you. That was . . . chocolate.”

“So,” Clark said, crossing his arms and then uncrossing them and knocking the box of chocolates to the floor in the process. “Oh, jeez,” he muttered as I watched them go flying.

“I’ve got these,” I said, chasing down the two that had spilled out of the box and landed near my feet as Clark picked up the still-full box and placed it carefully on the counter. I stepped around him to toss out the two that had landed on the floor just as he took a step back, my hip bumping his, our shoulders brushing. “Sorry.” I felt heat rush to my cheeks and told myself that I was being beyond ridiculous. He liked me, right? He had to, otherwise he wouldn’t be this nervous. I just had to get this over with.

“So, um,” Clark said, adjusting his glasses, “do you ever work nights?”

I felt my smile fade as I realized I might have read this all wrong. I had thought that maybe he’d been working up the nerve to ask me out. But maybe all of this had just been about the dog. “Nope,” I said, trying to keep my voice professional and friendly and not reveal anything else I was currently feeling. “But . . . I mean, if there were an emergency or something, I probably would.”

“No,” Clark said, shaking his head. “I was just . . . trying to get a sense of your schedule.” He blinked, like he’d just heard himself, and I could see the tops of his ears were starting to turn red. “Wow, that sounded creepy. I didn’t mean that in, like, a weird way. I think I’m making this worse. Oh god.” He took a breath, then swallowed hard. “I was wondering, you know, what you do. At night.” He stared at me in horror after he said it, like he couldn’t quite believe the words had come out of his mouth. “Oh, man,” he muttered, closing his eyes behind his glasses for a moment. “This isn’t going well.”

I had to bite my lip to stop myself from smiling wide. “Hey, Clark?”

“Okay,” he said, taking a big breath, and I was pretty sure he hadn’t heard me. “Andie. So you’ve been spending a lot of time with Bertie. You know, taking him on walks, and . . .” Clark’s face fell as he realized a second too late what he’d done.