Sandcastle Beach (Matchmaker Bay #3) - Jenny Holiday Page 0,31
a more pragmatic tone. “Well, we are a nonprofit community theater, but let me see what I can do on that front.”
She got up and started pacing. “Great!” She turned and threw one arm in the air in triumph. The sudden move made her hair, which she hadn’t returned to its topknot after waking, fan out like she was in a shampoo commercial. “I’m so thrilled, Holden!” She nodded enthusiastically while she listened to him. “Okay! Yes! Great! I’ll speak to you soon! Thank you so much!”
She turned as she disconnected the call, and she either didn’t realize Law was back from the kitchen or she didn’t care. She didn’t make eye contact with him, just pressed one hand to her forehead like she was overwhelmed—with joy. Then, as if her legs could no longer hold her up, she collapsed into a smiling heap on his sofa.
“Good news?” he inquired mildly, drawing her attention. Hopefully, whatever it was, it had eclipsed the odd moment they’d shared earlier.
“Yes!” She shot up to a sitting position, her spine ramrod straight. With all the dramatic up-down-up, she was like a yo-yo in human form. “Except now I have to—” She stopped, became utterly still. She was staring at the coffee table.
“What?”
He realized with a thud in his gut what she was staring at. In his hurry to get the TV turned off, he’d forgotten his other piece of incriminating evidence—the restaurant loan paperwork. He lunged, but she got there first.
Her mouth fell as she read silently. “Lawson’s Lunch!” she exclaimed. “Are you opening a restaurant?”
She started paging through the business plan that had been under the loan papers, so there was no hiding it. “Yeah. It’s still in the early stages, but yeah.”
Her lip curled as she let the papers flutter to the table like they were radioactive.
“I don’t know why you care,” he said. As much as he hadn’t wanted her to see those papers, now that she had, he was annoyed by her disdain. “My entrepreneurial ambitions have no bearing on you or your life.”
He expected her to say something like Except when your entrepreneurial ambitions are belching smoke all over my theater. But instead she merely said, “You’re right. They don’t.” She stood. “I have to go.”
He followed her to the door. “You want me to walk you home?” he asked, as he always did when she was leaving his place at night.
“No, I do not,” she said, as she always did. “I live less than a hundred feet from here.”
It was good to be back to “normal,” going through the motions of their customary farewell, saying their lines like they were in a play.
His body didn’t seem to be getting the back-to-normal message, though. He was jittery, and his hand, the one that had touched her face briefly, was tingling. “It’s been nice doing business with you.” That was always his final line. Delivered in a monotone that suggested that it had not, in fact, been nice. So he leaned into it.
“Yep.” And that was her final line.
Except actually, this time, he needed to go off script. Say one more thing. “Hey, uh, I haven’t told very many people about the restaurant. I don’t want—” Ugh. He hated having to ask her for anything, the idea of being in her debt.
“You don’t want Pearl and Karl and Eiko all up in your face second-guessing every move you make until you’re driven to the brink of insanity before you even open?” she supplied cheerfully.
He swallowed a laugh. She was confusing. In the space of ten seconds, she had him whooshing from panic to laughter. “Yeah. That.”
“When are you opening?” she asked.
“October, I hope. I want to get a winter under my belt before I get hit with tourist season.”
“I will make you a deal, Benjamin Lawson.” She poked his chest. She actually physically poked him. It took him aback. It also caused a little shock at the spot where she’d made contact. “You.” She poked again. “Lay off your mermaid queen shenanigans this summer, and I will keep your little secret.” A final poke, a harder one, like the period at the end of a sentence.
He considered her proposal. It seemed wrong to agree to it, because it seemed wrong to imagine anyone else as mermaid queen. But whatever. He was pretty sure she would end up elected regardless of what he did or didn’t do, because anyone could see that Maya was the mermaid queen.