So True

by Serena Bell

  She was having trouble making sense out of it herself: Jax was back in town. And not just in town. In her space. Literally.

  “Maybe that’s for the best, hmm?” Willa said, misreading the expression on Chiara’s face.

  “I’ll definitely have a better time if he’s not there,” Chiara said—there, that was entirely true and completely honest—and unlike Auburn, Willa and Vannah didn’t seem to know her well enough to see through her, given that both women nodded and laughed.

  “Yeah. I wish Bryce Avers wasn’t coming,” Vannah said. “He was so nerdy and awkward in high school. And he had that weird crush on me.”

  “He’s had a lot of time to chill out and grow up,” Chiara said. “And rumor has it he runs his own tech company and is pretty successful.”

  Vannah gave a little shudder. “Which is adult-speak for nerdy and awkward! You guys have to run interference for me.”

  “Of course!” Chiara said. “What are friends for? You’ll be busy any time he tries to come talk to you.”

  “Or dance with me.”

  “Definitely,” Willa said. She held out her fists for simultaneous bumps.

  Chiara returned the fist bump, smiling. Her sister would like Willa and Vannah. Still newly returned to town, Auburn needed a posse that extended beyond her siblings. Obeying instinct, Chiara said, “Auburn’s taking me shopping for a new dress for the reunion soon. Wanna come?”

  “Hell yeah,” Willa said.

  Vannah nodded. “I’m in.”

  “I’ll let you know when we’re going.”

  Important business thus dispensed with, they packed up their stuff, waved at Em, the pink-, purple- and blue-haired owner/barista of Beans at the Beach, and left. Chiara headed back to use the restroom.

  When she came out, she did a double take. There was Jax, ordering a coffee, like they’d made him appear by reading his name off that list.

  Except if she’d had the power to conjure him, she sure as hell would have done it ten years ago.

  He looked up, saw her, smiled, and waved for her to come over.

  She refused to smile back. His pine-green t-shirt called out the green in his eyes—and she was mad at him for looking so good. For being able to smile at her like he’d never left town without a word.

  There was no way to avoid him short of total rudeness, and Em was watching them curiously. If she ignored him, the whole town would know about it.

  She headed toward him, dredging up a neutral smile as she approached.

  “I was a dick, and I’m sorry,” he said. No hello or hey, just right to the point.

  That made her smile for real. She’d always liked his bluntness. So many people made things more complicated than they had to be. If Jax had a flaw, it was that he made things simpler than they actually were.

  He raked his hair back and got to the point. “You’re right about Evan. We both love Evan. We can work together on this. I pushed my project out a bit, got my guys doing some things that can get done without me. If we sit down together and work out what we need to do, I think we can whip the shop into shape by Labor Day.”

  She wanted desperately to make the shop work for Evan. But Jax was talking about them working together. He was using the word “we.” It made her dizzy.

  “Sir—”

  She watched Jax realize Em was still waiting for payment. “Oh, God, sorry.”

  It was endearing to see him flustered. He hastily paid up.

  “Hey, Kee,” Em said cheerfully.

  “Hey, Em,” Chiara said. “Love the new ink.” She gestured at Em’s full-arm sleeve, a complicated whirl of abstract color vivid against Em’s pale-gold skin.

  “Thanks! Got it done at the new place in Caledona. He’s great.”

  Chiara admired the work—clean, sharp, bright. “It looks amazing.” She gestured at the cafe. “How’s business?”

  “It’s been a great week. I love August, you know?” She opened her eyes wide, rolling them towards Jax in an obvious “who’s the hottie?” inquiry.

  “Em, this is Jax Walker. His brother owns that new game shop, Meeples.”

  “New game shop?” Em asked, illustrating one of Evan’s marketing problems. He should have visited every shop in town and dropped off business cards—or something. Every shop owner in Tierney Bay should know he was here.

  “It’s across from the park. Come check it out.”

  “We’re about to do some renovations on it,” Jax said. “Wait a couple of weeks. It’s going to be amazing.”

  A couple of weeks. Jax Walker was going to be in and out of her line of sight for a couple of weeks. She closed her eyes in despair.

  The door opened and a large group came in, toting beach bags.

  “We’ll get out of your hair,” Chiara said to Em.

  “Good to see you! Great to meet you, Jax.” Em waved over their heads at her assistant—who’d been wiping down tables—to get himself back behind the counter.

  “Take care, Em,” Chiara said.

  “You, too, hon.”

  Chiara drifted down the counter to wait for Jax’s order with him.

  “That stuff you were talking about. Shelves, racks, tables, even. I think I can build most of that, and fast. Chairs—might be cheaper to barter or buy.”

  “Those don’t matter so much,” she said. “We can grab some mismatched ones from wherever.”

  Somehow, she was going along with him. Without quite meaning to. Like she was rolling down a big grassy hill, gathering speed.

  He gathered a cup sleeve, a lid, a napkin. “I can do some of the actual work in Evan’s apartment. To stay out of your way. And maybe I can find somewhere else to work on the bigger pieces.”

  She thought about that for a sec. “Maybe you could work in one of the sheds at Cape House. I’ll talk to Levi.”

  He didn’t love that idea—she could tell—but he didn’t say no, either. Instead he took a deep breath. “I don’t know shit about game stores. You’re right about that. But I do know a lot about renovation. And building. And I’m good at swallowing my pride. I’m good at listening to someone’s vision and making it happen. So you’re in charge. You tell me what we need to do, and I’ll do my damnedest to make it happen.”

  She was pretty sure her mouth was hanging open, but before she could speak, Em called Jax’s name. He grabbed his drink, capped it, dropped it in the sleeve, and said, “Shit, I should have asked if you wanted anything.”

  “I just drank a venti latte. I may never want coffee again.”

  He cocked his head. “So, what do you say? Are we partners?”

  She’d said it herself. It wasn’t about her. It was about Evan. Evan, who’d played with Hannah even though she was two years younger and a girl. Evan, whose brain was full of the strangest ideas. What would happen if you had a tournament where the NFL and the NHL had to play alternating hockey and football games against each other? Evan, who’d spent his eighth birthday in the hospital, and had been one hell of a good sport about it; sweet, even.

  She looked at the man towering over her, and was surprised to find he was waiting patiently. Even more surprised to see that foreign softness in his eyes. A kind of—hope.

  Oh, God, what was she doing?

  She had no idea; she only knew she was doing it.

  “Sure,” she said. “We’re…partners.”

  8

  They went back to the store and sat at the table. It was too small for comfort. Her knees didn’t quite touch his, but he could feel them. She grabbed some paper from the printer and spread it out, and then they both started drawing. She had her phone out, too, and after a few minutes, she started pulling up photos up to show him.

  “I’m going to make a Pinterest account for the store,” she said. “That way we can both collect things we find.”

  “I’m not going to add things to a Pinterest board.”

  “You never know.”

  “I know.”

  “Well. I made one. It’s called Meeples,
and the password is—” She spelled it out for him.

  He wrote it down, despite himself.

  She sketched the outside of the store, shingles repaired, window box replanted. A big wooden sign that stretched the whole length. Meeples. With two little gingerbread-style people on either side.

  “What are those?”

  “Those are Meeples,” she said. “They’re game pieces.”

  “Oh.”

  She got up and went to find a game, which she brought back to the table and set next to him. It was called Fresco. She opened it, pulled out two tiny zip-seal bags, and shook the little wooden people out onto the table.

  “Got it,” he said. He peered into the box. “That’s a lot of plastic bags. Why can’t it all go in one big one?”

  “Well. You don’t want the pieces getting mixed up or it takes forever to set up the game when you want to play.” She carefully replaced the small yellow people in their zip bag, returned the game to its shelf, and went back to sketching. She sketched the front counter and a row of comic racks. She sketched a wall of shelves for games that were for sale and another wall of games that were for demo. She filled the center of the store with tables and chairs. There was a small back room in the shop, and she reshelved it with deeper, taller shelves for holding game inventory, holding comic inventory and for files. “Not that we want to store a lot. We don’t. Only the most popular items. We want to keep things moving.”

  She kept passing him pages, and he kept passing them back. “You’re going to want drawers here,” he said, pointing. “And—you’ll need more space here. You want people to be able to stand behind the chairs and look at the shelves without feeling crowded.”

  “Oh. God. You’re right.” She erased and redrew, scattering shavings with a sweep of her hand. She’d always done that.

  Her cheeks were bright pink. Her mouth was red. Her eyes were so blue it hurt to look at her. He could feel the shimmer of her skin, that vibration, that buzz that lit into him. She loved what she was doing.

  When he first met her, she was just one of the Cape House kids. Just his boss’s kid. He thought she was boring. She dressed in clothes that didn’t draw attention in any way. Jeans and t-shirts—pop bands and famous musicals and TV shows. Nothing that would get you in trouble. She hung out with kids who took hard classes and got good grades. Once when he’d been on shift, her friends had come over and they’d done homework together, and then gone into the TV room and watched some teen movie. She and her friends sat together at a lunch table and didn’t make waves. She wouldn’t stand out anywhere.

  And then one day he was wiping down the tables in the lobby and she was sitting where she always sat, doing her homework. Except when he got close he saw she wasn’t. She was drawing. She had earbuds in and was singing quietly to herself and shading in something with a colored pencil. He got closer so he could see. It was a superhero, a girl. Or woman, actually—hourglass curves. She wore a cape, and on her chest—swooping over an exceptional set of tits—was the letter K. The drawing was really fucking good—like, you could see the expression on the girl’s face: surprise.

  But it was the expression on Chiara’s face that made Jax stop breathing. She looked so dreamy. Happy. And not ordinary at all. Lit up, on fire.

  It was the first time he felt the tug in his chest that later became as familiar as hunger or thirst.

  Just then, something clued her in that he was standing in her space and she looked up and covered her drawing with her arm. Everything about her posture told him that he needed to keep on cleaning and pretend he hadn’t seen anything, so he did.

  But he had seen. And he couldn’t think of her the same way again.

  “What?” Chiara asked. She’d looked up—in Meeples, right damn now—and caught him watching her.

  “Just—” He almost said, I was just remembering… But it would be so far out of line. “What about colors? You have colored pencils?”

  “What? No. No colored pencils. We can just, you know, label the colors. Bright colors, definitely. Because we want everything to appeal to families. And the games should be organized by youngest to oldest.”

  “You used to always have colored pencils.” It popped out, against his will, against his better judgment.

  She didn’t respond. She was labeling the shelves with colors and age-levels. “That was a long time ago,” she said, finally, when he’d stopped waiting for her to answer.

  “Do you still draw?”

  “I’m drawing now,” she said, not looking at him.

  “You know what I mean. Do you still draw, you know, the comic book characters?”

  She shrank in on herself, shoulders curving, chin dropping. Her face shuttered.

  “What do you think? Could you do something like this for the racks?” She pushed a sheet of paper across the table to him. “I mean, I could probably find some used ones somewhere for cheap, but—”

  “Yeah. I could do that.”

  She wasn’t going to answer him, and who the hell could blame her? Drawing had brought them together. It had been special, between them. As special as kissing or sex, that intimate. He couldn’t just bring it up like it was fair game. He’d ruined that, like everything else, when he’d left. Even though he’d had his reasons.

  So he changed the subject. He started breaking the work down for her. Order of operations—draw plans; spec materials; build what he could outside the shop; paint and finish; paint the interior; build what couldn’t be built outside the shop; install the rest; carpet; paint. He’d try to work around the weekends. Sunny days would be for exterior work—which, he’d decided, might need to include reshingling the roof. They needed to get in touch with the landlord—she wrote that down on her list.

  After a while, she relaxed, and her face opened up, at least a little. But she didn’t let him see the brightly lit, focused version he’d caught just a glimpse of.

  And God, he wanted to see her again. His Chiara.

  9

  “Um, I need to get a few measurements back here—you mind?”

  Jax had poked his head into the shop late Wednesday, taking measurements, asking questions. Now he was behind the counter with her.

  “No. Go ahead.”

  He knelt, playing out the tape measure, then standing up. He was close enough that she could smell his laundry detergent, fresh and bright. He stepped back—thankfully.

  “How’s the height for you? It’s technically a little low for counter height. I could boost it up. Might make it more comfortable for working when you’re standing.”

  “Huh. Yeah, it is uncomfortable to work on, now that you mention it. I thought it was just me.”

  “No—a lot of people don’t know this, but there’s a standard table height and a standard counter height. And this is somewhere in between. It’ll feel awkward no matter what you try to do at it. It was probably custom-built this way for the original owner.”

  “Yeah. A little higher would be nice. I mean, we can ask Evan, but—”

  “I’ll ask him,” Jax said.

  He was wearing a soft gray cotton t-shirt that fit him like a second skin. It was tight around his biceps, and she was having trouble taking her eyes off the shadowed cut that defined the bulge of muscle above.

  “What about the length?”

  “What?” She yanked her gaze away from his upper arm and found him watching her, one eyebrow hiked in amusement. She looked away, cheeks hot.

  “The length of the counter. I’m building the new one from scratch, so I can do it any way you think would work. You want enough room for two register stations? I know Evan doesn’t need it now, but he could, right?”

  “Definitely,” she said.

  Her phone rang and, grateful, she answered it, face still warm.

  “Chiara?”

  “Yes?”

  “This is Lyra at Buyathon.”

  Buyathon! “Hi, Lyra.”

  “I’m calling because we’d love to get you back here to meet some o
f the team.”

  She’d been expecting the call but it still gave her a little thrill of accomplishment. She’d done it. She’d made it to the second round. “Absolutely. When do you want me?”

  “Would a week from this Friday work? The sixteenth? Early afternoon? Scheduling is a disaster here right now. Somehow everyone booked August vacations, so there are, like, two days in all of August that everyone is in the office together.”

  Jax reached up to examine the small window behind the counter. His t-shirt rode up, leaving smooth, tanned skin exposed, above a thin strip of white, untouched by the sun, and the gray waistband of…

  “Chiara?” Lyra said.

  “Sorry!” Chiara said. “I was just looking at my…calendar and thinking about some logistics. Friday the sixteenth should work perfectly.”

  “I’ll get it on everyone’s calendar.”

  “Please let them know I’m really looking forward to meeting them,” Chiara said.

  When she hung up, Jax said, “Friday the 16th should work perfectly for what?”

  There was no harm in telling him the truth, and he was, in fact, the most logical person for her to ask to cover the store. “I have to go up to Seattle. I’m interviewing for a job. This is the second interview, so I’m meeting with a bunch of people. If you’re still around by then and Evan’s not back in the shop, any chance I could convince you to take over for me that day?”

  “Sure,” he said, with a shrug. “A job in Seattle, huh? Don’t you have your own business?”

  She hadn’t told him what she did. She gave him a quizzical look.

  He shrugged. “I googled you.”

  She immediately wanted to know more. When—and how often—had he googled her? What exactly had he found?

  Funny, that she had spent so many years deliberately not googling him, when he’d been doing it to her. That was the privilege of the dumper; you didn’t have to guard your heart—or your pride.

  “I do have my own business.”