AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I didn’t know you were crafty,” Nate said.
Colby wanted to roll her eyes. Crafty felt like such a patronizing word. “I run a small business making handmade home décor and needle art,” she said. “Not surprised you didn’t know. We didn’t really get to know each other all that well outside of class.”
Maybe we would have if you showed up for our date, dummy.
The words came out sharper than she intended, but she didn’t regret them. Nate stiffened at the words but didn’t respond. Guess the passive-aggressive approach wasn’t going to make him talk. He traced a hand over an embroidery hoop with hand-sewn design featuring the state of Texas with the words “howdy y’all” sewn in a cheerful script.
“You did all these?”
She made a face. Her Texas-themed designs were some of the most popular, but not her favorites. Many of them had slogans that you could find almost anywhere. “I did. You Texans love anything Texas.”
Nate stopped by a framed cross-stitch sampler, grinning. It featured the USS Enterprise and said, “Keep on Trekking!” Next to it was an embroidery hoop that she had stitched to look like the board game Settlers of Catan. It was on the edge of mainstream, more of a cult hit, but she could tell by Nate’s smile that he recognized it.
These were more of her passion pieces—nerdy pop culture chic. But it was much harder to find a market for them, so she kept up with the popular orders, but continued to roll out her own designs. She described them as quorky—a combination of quirky and dorky. She named the new site Quork, which was also a lesser-known race of creatures from Star Wars, making it a totally perfect name.
While she had most of her pieces up on Etsy, Colby had been trying to navigate everything over to the Quork website, where she could sell everything direct and make more money. It was taking much longer than expected and the developer she hired kept charging her for more and more add-ons.
Nate pointed to a doormat that she had hand-painted—the first in a new product line. It had a quote from Lord of the Rings: “You Shall Not Pass.”
“This is brilliant,” he said. “What else do you make?”
Colby didn’t want to engage him further. She wanted to find a way to make him explain himself and where he’d been. But she couldn’t seem to find questions that felt right. She moved closer to the table, showing him a few more things. “I do screen printing as well as the needle art, but I don’t think I have any of the T-shirts here right now. Pillows, wall-hangings. I dabble in jewelry, but not as often.”
“I guess you’ll be getting a lot of packages?”
“Yep. But you can leave them on the porch. I send a lot of things too. For the last carrier, I would just leave a plastic tub with a lid on the porch with packages in it. Are you just her substitute? I know she was having a baby.”
“I’m just a temp. This isn’t my real job. I’m developing an app full-time, actually.”
“Sounds more like the Nate I knew. Or, thought I knew. Anything I might have heard of?”
He wasn’t taking the bait on any of her pointed comments, but he suddenly looked terrified. Colby noticed that he was spinning a ring on his forefinger with his thumb. His eyes scanned the photographs on the wall behind the dining table of Liz’s kids.
“It hasn’t launched yet,” he said finally. “Still in development. I need to go. Can you sign for the packages?”
Fine, coward.She signed on the electric reader he pulled from his messenger bag.
“Our old carrier just left things on the porch,” Colby said. “No one really expects to sign for things.”
“I’ll probably have you sign anyway. I like to follow the rules. I mean, if you don’t mind.”
Colby covered her snort with a fake cough. She took a long swallow of water to keep her from letting her thoughts spew out into words.
Rules? If you cared so much about rules, why didn’t you call when you stood me up? Just a quick phone call to say you weren’t coming. Or why. A text, even. You could have told me you weren’t dead, but you decided you didn’t like me. Or…whatever.
Clearly, rules don’t meanthat much to you.
This angry Colby was new. Usually, people described her as a nice girl. “A lovable dork who happens to look like the prom queen,” Liz said once. Colby had never accessed this fiery, bitter side of herself. It felt powerful.
It felt awful.
What she really wanted was to beg Nate to tell her what happened. She wanted him to have a reasonable explanation that she could forgive him and say yes when he asked her out on a date now, one that he would show up for. With roses and that crooked grin…
No. She wasn’t that girl anymore. Prince Charming was a little girl’s fantasy, not a reality. Happy endings weren’t guaranteed and love stories were messy. Nate had broken her trust. For Colby, trust was the currency of love. Nate hadn’t earned and didn’t deserve either.
“I’d rather you just leave them on the porch. You can forge my signature. I don’t care.”
Nate looked down at his hands and stopped spinning his ring. “Maybe I’ll do that.”
