He is adventurous, an entrepreneur, no stranger to hard work, and he loved his grandpa. How sweet is that? And though he only looked to be about thirty-five, he’d already gotten through his midlife crisis and figured out what mattered in life. Impressive. I glanced at Luke’s left hand, noting neither wedding ring nor the telltale tan line of a married man who likes to cheat (after my Matt Costa debacle I always look for the tan line), so he is single too. The more we talked, the more perfect Luke Pascal appeared to be.
But still. Not Italian. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine him as Luigi Pasquale.
“Monica? Are you all right?”
I opened my eyes. No good. He was still blond and not only was my butter not melting, it was cold enough to make piecrust.
“Oh. Yes. I was just . . . uh . . . trying to picture those carved apron supports you were describing.”
Dang. You can’t start a fire without a spark, but a guy this good really shouldn’t go to waste. When Grace arrived with Alex in tow, it occurred to me that maybe he didn’t have to.
“Hey, Grace, do you have a second? Come over here. I need help figuring out what kind of tables to order for the restaurant.”
I knew Grace was in a hurry and that she was already doing me a favor by dropping Alex off after practice. But I also knew she had a hard time saying no.
Grace is a good person and unfailingly polite, a product of her Midwestern upbringing. Unfailing politeness is not something I suffer from. Normally, I try not to take advantage of Grace’s particular weakness. But since I was acting with her future happiness in mind, I figured it was okay.
After taking a moment to glare at me as he passed, Alex slumped down in an empty booth and started messing with his phone. He spends so much time on the phone that sometimes I feel like it’s been surgically attached to his hand. But when he’s texting with friends at least he’s not arguing with me.
Grace sat down at our table. Her polite but pained smile told me that she really needed to go, but I pretended not to notice. Potentially perfect men don’t just walk in off the street every day, you know. I wasn’t one hundred percent convinced that Luke and Grace would be a good match, not yet. But if my instincts turned out to be right, an extra five minutes of her time was a small price to pay. She’d thank me later.
“Luke is new to Portland,” I said, after completing the introductions.
Grace was distracted, her eyes a little glazed, probably thinking about all the things she should be doing besides helping me pick out furniture. I gave her a subtle nudge under the table and a pointed look, signaling that I needed her to focus. A bit startled, she looked at me, then Luke, and smiled.
“Oh. Really?” she said, sounding so vague that I wasn’t sure she’d actually heard my comment.
“Not completely new,” Luke said. “A returned former resident. Things have sure changed since I left, especially the housing market. It’s completely crazy. The asking price for my little bungalow in the Hollywood District, with a workshop garage for my business, was so outrageous that I asked the Realtor if she was quoting me dollars or yen.”
The joke wasn’t bad, just okay, but I gave him a couple of extra points for trying. So many guys have zero sense of humor (cough, cough—Rob Russo). But the thing that put Luke over the top was his grin. When he smiled, his eyes crinkled at the corners and his lips bowed, exposing a little chip at the bottom of one of his upper teeth, kind of a snaggletooth. Totally adorable.
I was right. He was perfect for Grace.
Grace, I knew, would disagree. Ryan Reynolds could have walked in the room with a dozen roses and an indecent proposal and she still wouldn’t have budged. For all her inability to say no, Grace is incredibly stubborn on this subject. But it was high time for her to find some happiness. As her friend, it was my job to help her, whether she wanted my help or not.
She’d thank me later. Or not. Either way, I had to come up with a plan to get these two together. But how?
“Look,” Luke said, his expression suddenly serious, “I’m going to be straight with you. I’m trying to get my business going, so I really need this job. I know you’re not really in the market for fine furniture; you just want something good looking and sturdy that will do the job. But I’m willing to work with you, make you some real quality pieces at a price that’ll fit your budget.
“I do good work, Monica. And I’ve trained with the best. But you don’t have to take my word for it. If you’d come out to my workshop, I could show you.”
Bingo! There it was. Luke didn’t know it, but he’d just teed up the ball for me. Now all I had to do was take a swing and follow through.
“You know, that’s a good idea. I would like to see some of your work. Do you have a portfolio?”
Luke nodded. “Sure. I’ve got a book with pictures of all the pieces I made when I was in France. I meant to bring it with me, but—”
“Great,” I interrupted. “But instead of going to your workshop. . .”
I made it up as I went—the food show I never attended, the restaurant gift cards I never received, the industry courtesy that didn’t exist. Luke wanted this job badly, so I knew he’d agree to anything I proposed. Grace, I was less sure of.
Besides being too polite for her own good, Grace has a couple of other weaknesses. Number one, she is loyal to a fault, will do anything for a friend. Number
