Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 61591 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 308(@200wpm)___ 246(@250wpm)___ 205(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 61591 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 308(@200wpm)___ 246(@250wpm)___ 205(@300wpm)
For a few seconds, everything was quiet. I forgot where we were, or that other people existed in the world. It felt like we were both holding our breath, waiting for something to happen.
In the next instant, a phone rang nearby, someone loudly answered the call, and reality came rushing back to us. I grabbed the barbell with both hands and tried to think about anything besides Ever’s proximity.
After we finished working out, we jogged home, showered, and changed. Then he drove us to the shelter, which was located in a beautiful, vintage former firehouse.
About three hours into my shift, Ever had finished the exercise class he conducted for anyone who was interested, and all of the residents had gone out for the day. That just left him and me in the building.
I was in the ground floor rec room—an open, cheerful space with clusters of colorful furniture, a wall of shelves stuffed with books and games, and a TV with two different gaming systems. It was the Monday before Thanksgiving, and we’d just received a donation of several boxes of fall decorations. They’d been used at a wedding reception over the weekend, and the bride’s family had decided to bring them here now that they were done with them. The shelter had a lot of support from the community, and interesting things were always showing up.
I’d started dotting mini pumpkins around the room when Ever joined me and asked if he could help. I handed him a wreath, and he immediately put it on like a crown and went to turn on some music. He almost always had something playing, and not surprisingly, today he went with his favorite band. As Cheap Trick’s “Dream Police” came to us in surround sound through the rec room’s built-in speakers, he began to shake his hips to the music.
I secretly admired how unselfconscious he was. The same couldn’t be said for me, though. When he danced over to me and stuck a wreath on my head, I immediately tried to take it off. He caught my hand, his blue eyes sparkling with mischief as he told me, “You should leave it on. It suits you.”
“I doubt that.”
“It does! It makes you look like a Roman emperor.”
“Because that’s clearly the goal.”
“Before you take it off, take a picture with me,” he said. “I promise not to post it.”
“If you’re not going to post it, then what’s the point of taking a photo?”
“It’s for me, so I can always remember the time Tracy Garcia loosened up for one whole minute.”
He was teasing me, but I muttered, “Fine. Go ahead.”
Ever stuck his face next to mine and snapped a photo with his ever present phone. Then he showed me the screen and grinned. “We look like we stepped out of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream.’ I love it.”
“Look at you, dropping Shakespearean references.”
“Don’t sound so surprised,” he said. “I read, you know.”
“Nutrition labels don’t count.”
A bark of laughter burst from him, and I grinned a little. Then, as he started untangling a leafy silk garland, he asked, “When are you going to come and see my building? The construction crew made a lot of progress on it over the past couple of weeks, and it’s really starting to take shape.”
“I’ll come see it whenever you invite me.”
“I asked you twice this month if you wanted to go with me when I visited the job site.”
“That’s too vague,” I said, as I unpacked a box of gourds. “You need to specifically invite me, so I know you actually want me there.”
“Please come with me to see my building on your next day off.”
“I’d love to.”
“Good. I’m glad that’s settled.” He looked amused.
“Did you get that problem taken care of? The one that had something to do with the earthquake retrofit?”
“Yup. Like most problems with that building, all I had to do was throw fistfuls of cash at it, and my crew got it fixed. I really need that to be it though, because my budget can’t take any more surprises.”
I asked, “Have you thought about doing a membership presale to generate some income before the place opens?”
“I’m definitely going to do that, but not yet. I just keep thinking, what if something happens between now and when we’re supposed to open in April? I don’t want to take anyone’s money until I’m one hundred percent certain I can really make this happen, which means I’ll only do a presale maybe two months out.”
“Something might delay the grand opening, but you don’t really believe it might not open at all, do you?”
“I don’t want to think that way,” Ever said. “But you never know.”
“It’s going to work out. Even if problems come up, you’ll be able to deal with them.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I believe in you.”
He grinned at that. “Look at you, being my cheerleader. It’s kind of like being given a pep talk by Eeyore.”