Everything I Left Unsaid(59)

The library was nearly empty. There was no one standing behind me, itching to use the computer.

“Seriously?” I asked.

“We need to prove that the—”

“Computers are an asset. I know.” Truthfully, I needed to get going. I had a backseat full of groceries. And I’d found out what I’d come to find out. Dylan Daniels had been a handsome, playboy race-car driver.

But after the fire? Nothing.

Not a single image. Not a single word.

It was as if he vanished.

“I’m going.”

On my way out, I bought three more books from the book sale.

“Hey!” a voice said as I was leaving, and I turned around and saw a smiling blond guy walking in the door as I was walking out.

“Hi,” I said, stepping back.

I had, over the years living in the same place surrounded by people who were not stupid—who probably, if they didn’t know specifically, had a very good idea of what my life was like with my mom, and probably with Hoyt—learned how to keep this small sea of distance around me. By keeping my face calm, my eyes distant, by giving no one any reason to think that I cared about their concern, I could usually keep the questions at bay.

Years of practicing this face—and this guy didn’t seem to notice.

“We met here at the library a few weeks ago,” he said. “I was…I’m a cop. I was wearing my uniform. My name is Grant.”

I glanced down at his red shirt. The black shorts. Under his arm was a stack of books.

“Right,” I said. He’d knocked on the window and asked if I was all right while I’d been having my freak-out. “Good to see you again, Grant. I’m…ah, I’m Annie.”

“Good to see you too, Annie,” he said. God, he was like a golden retriever. All bright eyes and wagging tail. “You have something good?”

“Pardon?”

“Books.” He pointed at the stack of books cradled against my chest. “I come in every week. I’m like a library frequent flyer.” He flipped his books around to show me. The one on top was the next one in the series of the thriller I’d just bought on sale.

“Hey, look at that,” he said, noticing the same thing. Really, he was very…smiley. “It’s really good. You’re gonna love it.”

“Thanks. I read one of his earlier ones a long time ago.”

“Which one?”

“The one with the aliens and the hotel.”

“Oh, God, I loved that one. With the kid…”

“And the drawings. Yeah.” The smile came before I could stop it and he grabbed hold of it with both hands.

“You know, if you’re not busy, it’s my day off and I can drop these off and we could go get lunch.”

“It’s ten a.m.”

“Breakfast, then. Coffee?”

A date. He was asking me out on a date.

I’d never been on a date.

Not in high school. Not when Hoyt was…God, I have no idea what you’d call those six months before he proposed, but you couldn’t call it courting. Softening me up, maybe, for the horrors to come?

The closest thing I’d had to a date were the phone calls with Dylan. And those weren’t real. They weren’t anything.

This man and his offer of coffee might as well have been asking me out to see the dragons. Or raft the Nile. They were on the same spectrum of impossibility.

Why impossible? that voice in my head asked. This thing you’ve had with Dylan…that wasn’t impossible.

I could lie to this smiley, book-loving cop with the red shirt, the arms of which were pulled taut over pretty impressive muscles, just as easily as I could lie to Dylan. But I wasn’t even tempted. Not a little.

Dylan operated in a separate place, far removed from my reality.

Christ, I was just beginning to realize how f*cked up I was.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I can’t.”

“Sure,” he said, waving his hand, even taking the rejection with a smile. “No problem. Maybe another time.”

“Sure,” I lied, scared of giving him false hope, but finding it impossible to do anything else.

I headed home, thinking of Dylan. Trying to put what I’d learned about him on top of what I knew about him, and all the answers that I had to the questions in my head only gave me more questions.

How did he get into stock car racing?

How did he survive the fire?

What happened afterward?

Fire…I couldn’t even imagine.

And then I forced myself to try and stop imagining.

Because I could cyber-stalk him all I wanted to, but I would never—ever—get the answers I really wanted.

And asking the questions would only get me hurt.

—

At home I unloaded my groceries and on my second trip to my car for the box of wine, Joan was walking back from the laundry building with a basket in her hands.

“Only the good stuff?” she asked, eyeing my box of wine.

“Be nice and I’ll let you have some.”

She lifted her eyebrows in surprise, and truthfully, I was pretty surprised too.

“You want to bring it over to my porch?” she asked, shifting the laundry basket to her hip.

“You have any food?” I was starving, and olives for dinner was a stupid idea.