Stay Sweet(43)

“Even if you accidentally led him to that conclusion, which I know you didn’t, it’s still Grady’s responsibility to be up to speed on all things Meade Creamery. It’s his fault for assuming. This is his problem. This is his stand. We’re just the employees.”

Amelia knows this is true, even if it doesn’t feel that way. “Well, I don’t mind helping him find them. We’re on the same team.”

“Grady isn’t Molly. He’s not some sad old lady trapped in a farmhouse, making ice cream to ease her broken heart. He’s smart. He’s savvy. If he makes you feel bad or like you have something you need to prove to him, it’s because he’s playing you.”

“Playing me? What do you mean?”

“Let me guess. I bet he dropped his boss routine real quick and acted all grateful and nice to you, so you’d stay up there and help him tonight.”

“He was grateful,” Amelia says. Though how can she be sure it wasn’t also, simultaneously, a guilt trip? She doesn’t even know the guy. Not really. But she’s nervous when she admits to Cate, “I told him I’d go back tomorrow morning to help him look some more.”

At this, Cate is silent, but when she reaches the next stop sign, she puts her truck in park and turns to face Amelia. “I’m not saying don’t help him find the recipes. Just remember you don’t owe him anything. At the end of the day, this is his problem to solve. Don’t let him use you.”

Amelia fiddles with the flower pin on her collar. She knows that Cate is probably right. This is Grady’s problem. And hopefully, sooner rather than later, he will solve it.





CHAPTER NINETEEN


AMELIA RIDES HER BIKE TO Molly’s farmhouse and arrives by nine o’clock, two hours before the stand opens, dressed in one of her newer, brighter Meade Creamery polos and a pair of white twill shorts. Grady answers the door in running shorts and no shirt, his hair wet from a shower.

“Hey, Amelia. I didn’t expect you here this early.” He holds the door open with his foot.

“I’m on the schedule for first shift and I don’t want to leave the girls shorthanded,” she says flatly, and quickly averts her eyes, though she can almost feel the heat of his tanned skin as she passes him in the doorway. “Can you please put a shirt on?”

“Oh. Sorry. Of course,” he says, though Grady doesn’t seem embarrassed to be half-naked in front of her. Amelia remembers walking through a coed dorm on a campus tour of Gibbons; when the group stopped to look at a study lounge, a boy walked out of the bathroom dressed only in his boxers. He excused himself, completely unselfconsciously, while passing between Amelia and her mother to cross the hall, and his body wasn’t even half as good as Grady’s. Maybe this is what dorm life does to you?

He holds out a plate balanced in his hand like a waiter. “You hungry?”

“I’m fine,” she says, because she’s there to work, not hang out, though his eggs do smell good. They’re fluffy and cheesy, just how she likes. White toast, too, glistening with melted butter.

“You sure? Eggs are my specialty.”

“Boys who can’t cook always say that.” That’s what her home ec teacher used to say, anyway.

“Well, I’m also ace at doctoring up cafeteria ramen. Just give me access to a half-decent salad bar and some hot sauce and I can make ramen magic happen.”

“I’d rather we get started.”

“Suit yourself.” Grady shovels the eggs into his mouth in three bites before setting his plate on a foyer table.

She clears her throat. “Did you get your paper in last night?”

“Yeah. About a minute before midnight.” He grabs a T-shirt hanging on a doorknob and slides it over his head. Then he claps his hands once. “I think it’s safe to say that the recipes are not in the basement. So let’s start clearing the first floor room by room. Cool?”

“Cool.”

Amelia begins in the kitchen. She checks every cabinet, empties two junk drawers. She shakes out every cookbook. She drags one of the kitchen chairs over to see the top of the refrigerator.

Nothing.

Meanwhile, she hears Grady rummaging around in the back bedroom. He emerges more disgusted than disheartened.

“What’s wrong?”

He almost can’t make the words, like he’s got a mouth full of sour candy. “Doing a granny-panty raid in my deceased great-aunt’s room is not exactly what I had in mind for this summer. Have you finished in here?”

“Almost,” she says, stepping down. “I still need to check the pantry.”

He opens the pantry door and gasps. “Hells! Yes!”

“What?”

After a fist pump, he reaches in and removes a tin box marked RECIPES. “Boom! We’re back in business!”

He pops the lid off and dumps all the index cards onto the table. Amelia joins him and they begin checking each one, front and back, like some kind of matching game. One that, after a minute, they lose.

Grady slumps into a seat. “I really thought . . .”

“Come on. Shake it off,” Amelia says. “Where do we try next?”

Amelia follows him into the living room but splits off at the foyer, diligently searching places she is 99.9 percent sure the recipes won’t be, like in the pockets of the coats hanging in the hall closet, and tries not to feel disappointed when she comes up with nothing but loose change and lint.