One

Honey brown hair and dark mournful eyes that flashed gold in the dim light. Grace had been seeing the same face so often in her dreams she could draw his aquiline nose and sharp cheeks, and she sucked at drawing. His brow always looked furrowed in her dreams like he was hunting through a house for his keys and never finding them.

Waking up from watching him always left her feeling wistful and apprehensive. Like she was supposed to be somewhere and just didn’t know where. But that wasn’t exactly a new feeling. She’d gone to college like she was supposed to, majored in something she liked, like she was supposed to. The Lucroy family was well off enough to send her to school forever if that's what she wanted to do, but it definitely wasn’t. Grace just couldn’t think of what else there might be to do.

A job, sure. But what kind? Majoring in something you like was s****y advice. She’d started out majoring in English, the academic track not teaching. At first she’d focused on the brits, there had been what felt like endless classes on the classics. Then she’d changed focus and branched out into creative writing, fiction, non-fiction, poetry, short-fiction. Once she’d gotten the Bachelor’s she’d thought about starting over again with library sciences… she’d lived in the library almost. Somehow it didn’t seem appealing.

She wanted something new, something that might actually lead to a job she would enjoy. Something that wasn’t solidly academic. Grace sampled classes in photography, classes on jewelry making, and now stained glass, at a different school. Surprisingly, the stained glass was the hardest but the most rewarding of all of them and she’d pursued it. As often as she’d heard ‘work with your head not your hands’ growing up, working with the glass was deeply satisfying.

When the opportunity to do a piece for an out of state business came up, she and more than half of her class leapt at it. Putting in weeks of work for a final piece for the class that might be bought was thrilling. She chose to do something that came to her in a dream, a forest scene. Inside the constraints of size it was tricky, the smaller pieces almost made her crazy, but the result was almost exactly what she’d envisioned.

Grace was standing next to her work when he walked in with the handworkers he’d brought to help judge the glass. The man was huge, she somehow hadn’t realized how huge he was in her dreams. He actually stopped when he saw her. The gold that flashed in his eyes was unmistakable. But the way he scowled and turned to speak quietly to the man closest to him brought her back to reality. It was stupid to think it was the same man from the dreams.

They moved through the room slowly taking their time. As they finally stepped over to hers to look over her work, he stood slightly closer than was comfortable and spoke softly, “Your name?”

“Grace Lucroy.” Standing this close to him, he smelled slightly of sawdust, as if he did woodworking as well as running a business.

“And this is…”

She turned immediately toward her glass realizing she’d been staring at him, “Um, sorry, this is-I went with a forest scene. It came to me in a dream, and I just… ran with it.” Grace was kicking herself, she wanted to talk about the difficulty or the colors, something, but she felt so flustered.

“It looks… intricate.” He offered, very lightly touching her back. The touch made her flush and she tried to think of a response.

“It is, I was surprised when she tackled something of that difficulty. For her level of experience I think she did an excellent job,” her instructor interjected graciously before making her stomach sink. “We do have two others who tackled more intricate projects and you’ll see the difference in skill level.”

“Many of these are beautiful, but I like the colors in this one, the composition. It reminds me of the view out of my window at home.” He started to step away, “Don’t leave, Ms. Lucroy.”

Grace nodded and watched him look over the rest of the glass. He occasionally glanced back at her as if checking to be sure she hadn’t left. When the perusal was finished, the classes were sent to mill around outside in the gloaming.

“We should go down to The Whiskey Fish after this.” Someone mumbled.

“No way, Annabelle’s. They have dollar beers tonight.”

“Dollar beers sound good,” Grace agreed with whoever was suggesting it and several more people agreed.

“How long are they going to be?”

“Does it matter? The three people who might get picked can stay.” The person who wanted to go to The Whiskey Fish muttered.

Several people agreed with that too and started heading toward the parking lot. Grace fidgeted and moved to go sit on the brickwork.

“Hey, Grace!” The voice made her look up. One of her friendlier classmates was beckoning her over. “Let’s get out of here. You want to go to Annabelle’s?”

“Yeah, but, I thought I might wait.”

He laughed and shook his head. “You’re not going to get picked. Come on. I’ll buy you a beer.”

“Ooh, big spender!” She teased him about the offer and earned a grin.

“You guys should come to Annabelle’s when you get the news, you can buy a round.” He waved to the group staying behind and they headed toward the parking lot. “Do you want to ride together?”

“You can ride with me if you want, I’m not a fan of riding with other people,” Grace gave him an apologetic smile.

“You don’t remember my name do you?” He grinned at her.

“I really don’t. I’m horrible with names. I had to look up the instructor’s name a hundred times the first semester.” 

“Jacob. I’ve been trying to find the right time to ask you out, it seemed like after the projects were done would be the best time.” He followed her to her little black Civic.

“Definitely. Beers after all that work, that’s practically a guaranteed yes.” 

Annabelle’s wasn’t far, Jacob spent most of the time in the car flipping through her music and chatting about some of the bands. They hadn’t finished their first beer when the man who’d come to look over the work came in looking around with an almost harried expression on his face. His employees moved through the crowd as if they were looking for someone.

She was looking at him curiously when he caught sight of her. His expression changed immediately from harried to sternly relieved. 

“Ms. Lucroy, I thought I asked you to stay.”

“Hey, I’m sure you’re not really aware but you’re stepping in on my date.” Jacob leaned forward, and then leaned back as the man gave him a look that made him pale. “I’ll, uh, give you a minute.”

His attention turned back to her and she took a deep breath and then another drink of her beer before answering, “You did. I didn’t see the point.” She studied his impassive face. “The instructor made it clear my work wasn’t good enough, and I don’t go out with people I don’t know. No matter how nice they smell.” That got a smile from him.

“You’re out, I’m here. I want you to know me well enough to let me take you out tomorrow.” He stepped closer, touching her back and letting her arm brush against his abdomen. “My name is Eli. Elias Redner.”

She opened her mouth to say something but nothing was coming out, it was almost like having him so close short circuited something in her brain. 

“You’re very quiet.” He moved closer, pulling her shoulder against his body.

“I, um, you…” Grace shivered.

Eli laughed and pressed his face into the top of her head, squeezing her tightly. “It’s hard to think when I’m this close?”

“Yeah.” She sucked in a deep breath.