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Matchmakers
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All Grown Up Time To Go
AudreyOf all the people to run into at Gabby’s, Jesse Miller was probably the last person I would have expected. I had never expected him to hang out around Aberdeen for as long as he had. I would have thought he would be long gone by now. But when he mentioned his dad dying and the fact that he had taken over the hardware store, it suddenly all made sense. Jesse had always been the sort of guy that you could rely on.And plans had a tendency to change.I tried not to be too gloomy, but I couldn’t keep thinking about my own change in plans. If I were back in Paris right now, I’d be asleep, just waiting for the next morning. Then I would get up, eat a light breakfast, do my stretches, and train like I did every morning. Part of why I felt so out of place here in North Carolina was because I was missing my routine. When had I become one of those people who couldn’t live without their routine? Where had my spontaneity gone?When Jesse asked me to dance with him, I leaped at the chance t
All Grown Up In Her Bedroom
JesseShe kept talking as I drove her home.“I can’t wait until summer,” Audrey said. “I’m going to go to the beach every day. Maybe I’ll start surfing again. The director would probably kill me if he found out about that. All my focus is supposed to be on dance. But you know, he told me to use this time to focus on my other hobbies, so it’s kind of his own fault.”I blinked over at her in surprise. I hadn’t expected that she would be sticking around for that long. Her still being there for the summer made me think that she must be retiring from dance or something. But then she had said that thing about the director being mad if she was focusing on something other than dance, so she must still be employed. It made me wonder.Audrey was still chattering away. “Surfing’s just like dancing anyway, isn’t it? Just a dance with the waves. And I bet my balance is way better now than it used to be. Bet I can do all sorts of tricks that I never used to be able to.” She frowned. “Of course, I’l
All Grown Up Not A Possibility
JesseI knew that I was going to get shit from Joe on Tuesday morning as soon as he showed up for work. He had been texting me since Sunday night, his texts getting increasingly lewd. My departure from Gabby’s with Audrey hadn’t gone unnoticed, and for the first time, I started to think about what the town would think. Everyone knew that she and I had been close before. Would they think that something more had happened?I felt embarrassed at the thought of it. Not because I cared what they might think of me but because Audrey didn’t need them all thinking that she’d slept with someone on her second night back. She didn’t need to be in the gossip mill already.Joe had had his day off on Monday, so I hadn’t seen him since Gabby’s. Now, I was sure that I would hear about his speculations in person.“There he is,” he said with a broad grin as he came in on Tuesday morning. He clapped me on the shoulder. “You’ve been quiet. You guys go for round two?”“There was never a round one,” I mutte
All Grown Up Not My Life
AudreyI wandered into a late breakfast on Wednesday morning. Annabelle was already at work at the bookstore, and I’d kind of been hoping that Mom and Clayton would leave as well. It wasn’t like I was trying to avoid the two of them. There was no avoiding them when we all lived together in such a small space. But I’d kind of been hoping to have a quiet breakfast by myself. A breakfast that my dietician would approve of, too.As it was, I was already starting to feel the effects of eating unhealthy food since I’d arrived here. I’d tried to limit myself, but there was only so much that I could do without offending Mom. I couldn’t seem to get it through her head that I couldn’t eat like I used to when I was a teenager. Not while maintaining the level that I wanted to maintain to go back and get the sort of roles that I wanted to.Of course, part of the trouble I was having at the moment was just motivating myself. Homesickness had sunk in hard, and I couldn’t help but want to be anywhere
All Grown Up Have To Get Back
AudreyI had to get out of the house, I decided. I couldn’t sit here wallowing, or I was going to drive myself crazy. What did I used to like to do around town when I was younger? I thought back.Then, the perfect idea came to me. I headed to Annabelle’s room. I thought about it as her room now, even though the queen-sized mattress had been temporarily removed and twin beds had been put back in, just like when we were kids.I perused the shelf of books that she had on display. There were tons of them. She said she got a lot of them for free for working at the bookstore. I hadn’t heard of half of them, but finally, I found one that I vaguely remembered having wanted to read at one point in my life. I grabbed that, dropped it into a bag, and headed into town. Even with my ankle, it wasn’t far to walk, and I used to do this all the time.I looked down main street, which looked different in the daylight than it had when I had gone out to Gabby’s the other night. I hadn’t really been payin
All Grown Up Only Friends
JesseI was going through one of the delivery slips, checking it against my order slip and making sure that we had gotten everything that we had ordered when Joe came behind the counter and nudged me in the ribs. “Well, would you look at that,” he said, nodding toward the window.I grunted but didn’t say anything, even though I knew that, in itself, was probably damning. The truth was, I had seen Audrey already. She had walked by the shop not that long ago on the other side of the street. I had found myself hoping that she would stop and turn, that she would come inside. But why the hell would she do that? She probably didn’t know the first thing about hardware, and it wasn’t like she was going to suddenly decide to build something for her mom’s place.Although come to think of it, she was probably bored out of her mind here in Aberdeen. It would probably do her some good to have a project to work on. Not that I would ever suggest that to her. I didn’t know what she would think of the
All Grown Up It Slips Out
JesseIf I went anywhere else in town, I’d not only be leaving the shop in Joe and Chance’s hands—and who knew what might happen then—but everyone in town would wonder why I wasn’t there in the middle of a workday. Joe would probably be more than happy to tell them why I was gone.Besides, there was a part of me that wanted to use this as the excuse to go and talk to Audrey. She might not like me like that, but I still liked her, and she was my friend.I slowly walked over toward the park.Audrey saw me coming and put her book down, smiling up at me. “I was wondering if you were actually going to walk over here, or if you were just going to stand there watching me,” she said teasingly, and I realized abruptly that while my whole inner struggle had been going on, she had been sitting there watching me.I ducked my head, kicking at the grass. “I didn’t want to disturb you,” I muttered. “You looked, I don’t know, peaceful.”“Honestly, this book is terrible,” Audrey said, holding up some
All Grown Up Digging A Hole
AudreyThe minute the words were out of my mouth, I wished that I could take them back. Was there any possibility that Jesse hadn’t heard me clearly? From the shocked look on his face, he clearly had. Oh brother.“I mean, maybe not the biggest crush,” I immediately said. “I don’t know if it really was a crush at all. It was more like, you know, we just spent a lot of time together, and everyone I knew who spent a lot of time together with a member of the opposite sex, they were basically dating, right? And everyone I guess sort of thought that you and I were, you know, an item. That’s all. I never really thought that we were. I mean, it’s not like I wanted to be with you or anything. I just thought that we’d be good together. That’s all.”I realized that I was digging the hole deeper and deeper, and I felt mortified. My cheeks were burning, and I wished that I had never brought up that day in the first place. Hell, I wasn’t drunk now. Why even start rehashing all the times that Jesse
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