Page 23 of The False Flat

“He looked fine!” William said around two-thirds of a biscuit. “How did it feel to be left in the dust, though, all by yourself?”

“She. The chicken was a lady, Gloria. And I wasn’t by myself.” Grant looked up, directly into my eyes. Mine ricocheted away, fastened onto a small sign that read HOMEMADE BUTTERMILK PANCAKES in the middle of the table as my cheeks burned. Look at the way they dust that powdered sugar!

I forced myself to focus on Dani, but all through the meal—I ate two bites—I felt Grant’s eyes on me. Those eyes prevented me from demolishing this gravy-smothered amazingness. Too nervous.

Relief flooded me when someone suggested we head back outside, but then Grant stepped up beside me. My pulse giggled like a schoolgirl. Ignorant pulse.

“You’ve enjoyed the ride?”

“Yeah, thanks for the invite.” But it wasn’t an invite . . . begging? It was begging.

“Think you’ll come again?”

No.

I shrugged. “Sure.”

“Good.”

I grabbed my helmet and put it on. Why was he standing here?

“Has Deanna talked to you about Wildhorse yet?”

I pinched the skin of my neck in my helmet strap. Ouch! “Who’s Wild Horse?”

“Wildhorse Saloon. Downtown.”

I shook my head, and Grant smiled.

“You’ve been downtown, right? Broadway?”

“I have an office downtown.”

William came up beside us, threw his arm around Grant’s shoulders. “But have you been down Broadway? Honky Tonk Highway? Line dancing? Country music?”

I shook my head.

“If you’re going to live in Nashville,” William continued, “you’ve got to go down Broadway at least once.”

“But I don’t dance, and I don’t like country music.”

William grabbed his chest as if I’d insulted him personally.

“I don’t like country music either,” Grant admitted, still smiling. “But a swing group rents out the first floor of Wildhorse once a year. We’re going in a couple of weeks. You should come. You can get a taste of downtown Nashville without having to listen to that much country.”

“You have to come,” William insisted.

Grant looked at me, waited for my answer, that smile still just under that mustache.

“But . . .”

I needed to ride because I had the uncomfortable feeling country music was in my future.

CHAPTER 10

EIGHT CALLS, PENELOPE?

“One card before we go out to meet Deanna and her friends,” I said to Chad two weeks later as we sat on my bed, and I held up a small box.