Page 40 of Piece By Piece

“Do you know much about trucks?” Jake asked.

“I drive a Honda Civic.”

“Oh.”

He looked genuinely disappointed, like she told him she didn’t believe in Christmas or hated puppies.

By the time the check came, Liza had learned about diesel engines, brush guards, tire pressure monitoring systems, and the difference between a crew cab and a double cab.

But she had not learned a single other thing about Jake Brennan as a human being.

And she did not want to.

He walked her to the bookstore, which was closed for the evening.

They stood on the sidewalk as the evening turned into night.

He smiled at her, and it was a perfectly nice smile from a perfectly nice man, but she felt absolutely nothing.

No tingling, no goosebumps, nothing at all.

“I had a really good time,” he said.

“Oh, me too,” she lied. “Thanks for dinner, Jake.”

He left. Liza stood there for a moment looking at the fairy lights and the darkened window of the bookstore and wondered if this was what dating was going to be from now on.

Nice people talking about things that did not matter a bit while she wished she was somewhere else.

The light in The Puzzle Post was on.

She could see the edge of Grant’s workbench through the window and the glow of his desk lamp.

He was working late again.

She wondered what he was building this time, what grid was taking shape under his pencil, what words he was putting together in the quiet of his shop.

Meanwhile, she had been stuck listening to a stranger talk about brake calipers.

She went upstairs and didn’t look back.

But she thought about the light in his window for longer than she should have.

Liza was opening the bookstore the next morning when Grant walked out onto his porch with a coffee.

“Morning,” he said.

“Morning.”

He took a sip of his coffee and looked at the sky, then looked at the street.

Then with the nonchalance of someone who had definitely been thinking about this, he said, “How was dinner?”

Liza leaned against the bookstore doorframe and crossed her arms.

“And how did you know I had dinner?”

“It’s a small island.”