" Uh, Mom, do you think in the future, you could let me know when we’re going to have company in the morning?” I asked.
She finally looked at me then. Really looked at me. “Was there a problem?”
“Only running into someone I didn’t know before I was ready to be presented to the world.”
She smiled wryly. “Sorry. Mr. Wynter finished up a project earlier than expected, so he had time this morning to drop by to discuss some of the remodeling I want done. They’re going to start tomorrow.”
“They?” My stomach knotted up.
“He and his son.” She looked back out the window. “I can’t believe how pristine the snow is.”
She wanted to talk snow and I wanted to talk…
“So what do you know about his son?”
Mom shook her head. “Not a lot. His name is Josh. He goes to school here.”
Great. That was so not what I wanted to hear.
“Do you know what grade he’s in?”
“No, we didn’t really discuss personal things.” She studied me. “Are you sure everything is all right?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
“He seemed nice.”
“He was. I wasn’t.”
“That doesn’t sound like you.”
“I wasn’t awake yet.”
It was a lame excuse. I knew it. Mom knew it.
“I’m sure you’ll get a chance to apologize,” she said, moving away from the counter.
That’s what worried me. Seeing him again, trying to figure out what to say. I never had a problem figuring out what to say to guys. This was so weird, so unlike me. Maybe it was the cold. Maybe it had killed off some brain cells.
“I noticed it snowing last night. I guess I need to shovel the snow off the walk.”
Mom gave me another wry grin. “No. Josh already did it. See? Nice guy.”
Totally nice guy. Maybe too nice.
My instincts were sending out some sort of warning.
Too bad it was sending it out in a secret code that I couldn’t decipher. "

― Rachel Hawthorne , Snowed In