Batter of Wits (Green Valley Chronicles #22) - Smartypants Romance Page 0,41
unload some of what was weighing me down.
"Surprised because …" I paused and let out a slow breath. "Because not a single person in my life has ever picked up on it. Not one." I glanced over at her, heart thrashing erratically. "I'm not sure how I should feel about that, Grace."
Something about what I said didn't sit well with her, because her face lost a little bit of its color and she turned forward again. On the ground in front of us, a chipmunk darted out from the base of the tree to inspect the hollowed-out shell of a black walnut. Grace picked up her camera, carefully turned the lens and snapped a picture with a decisive click. The chipmunk disappeared with the shell.
"What would you do instead? If you weren't a lawyer."
Part of me was glad she didn't acknowledge what I'd said, because I wasn't even sure what to do about it. There was a strange cloud, a fog hanging over the picnic table, separating Grace and I from everything that waited for us outside of this small space. And neither one of us moved to leave it.
"There's a hundred things I'd rather do." The honesty came off my lips so easily, it was hard to believe. I'd stuffed it down for so long, for fear of disappointing my parents, or upsetting the path that my life had been since the day I was born. And it wasn't hard to stuff down, because no one in my life seemed to care enough to ask, or even see how unhappy I was in the first place. "I hate being trapped at that desk, in that office." I looked around us, and only stopped when her face came into view again. "Sitting out here, feeling the sun on my face, smelling the mountains, I want something that gives me this right here. It's the kind of peace I don't feel anywhere else in my life."
"And you don't think your family would understand? If you wanted to do something else?"
Unfortunately, I didn't have to think or question the answer to that. "No, they wouldn't."
Grace hummed. It was thoughtful humming, and just a little sad.
"I know my mom thinks Grady and I are a little nuts for moving here. But she wants us to be happy, more than anything, even if she doesn't understand it."
"I think my parents rate duty, responsibility much higher than happiness." I took a sip of my coffee. "Who knows, maybe they're right and I'm just being selfish."
"Selfish for wanting something that brings you peace?"
"Yeah, I suppose."
She tilted her head toward me as I answered, but still didn't look in my direction. Grace opened her mouth once, then twice, a battle playing over that face as clear as day. Her chest expanded on a deep breath, and she let the words slip out when she exhaled. "If I could bottle that for you, Tucker, that feeling you're searching for, I would."
If there was a sound that accompanied what she said, and the corresponding feeling it gave me, I never would've been able to give it a name. How did you find a word that described the realization that your life just shifted irrevocably, like the key turning—smoothly and unimpeded—in a lock that nobody had been able to find before that exact moment?
I spoke without thinking. "Where have you been hiding, Grace?"
She was up from the table in a flash, legs eating up the ground just shy of a run, only the slightest limp clear from our hike. "I should go."
"Wait," I said, striding after her. "Hang on."
Grace turned and held up her hands. Her eyes were wild in her face. "I shouldn't have said that."
"Maybe that's true," I admitted over the thundering in my heart. "But you still did."
Her eyes went bright and glossy, and my skin turned cold at the sight of her tears. None of this made sense. We jumped from one place to another so quickly, I could hardly remember how we got here. But even as it didn't make sense … it did.
"Why are you crying, Angry Girl?" I asked gently, desperately fighting against the desire to tug her into my arms.
"I don't know," she said miserably. "This is why it was a mistake to move here! This town makes me crazy, Tucker."
I smiled. "You don't seem crazy to me." The look she gave me was so full of disbelief that I almost started laughing. "Okay," I conceded, "maybe a little."