by Zoe York
“You okay?” he asked.
She twisted in his arms, nodding even as her heart hammered hard at triple-time in her chest. “I think I’m fine.”
He eased his grip on her midsection and ran his hands over her upper arms, like he was warming her up. “Don’t scare me like that.”
“Sorry.” She gave him a half-smile.
“I’m going to make an executive decision and just fix this carpet now.”
“Okay.” She took a deep breath and nodded, then turned to continue her journey down the stairs.
Brent was standing on the landing, watching them. Before she could say something—and what would she say?—he turned on his heel and headed outside.
Taking a deep breath, she followed, catching up to him at his truck.
He scowled at her. “So he can fix your carpet, but I can’t?”
“I slipped. That changes the urgency of fixing it, I guess.”
“Yeah. I saw that. You slipped right into his arms.”
“Are you mad he caught me?”
“I’m mad he didn’t let you go. I’m mad he told you not to scare him and you said okay like you’re half-way in love with him.”
She wanted to slap that angry look right off his face. “How dare you be jealous?”
“How dare I? I’m your husband. That’s how.”
She wanted to shout at him that he wasn’t, that she’d moved on, and letting him back into her life was a mistake.
And yet her heart wouldn’t let her do that. Stupid heart. “You’re a shitty husband.”
“I’m aware.”
“There’s nothing going on with Evan.”
“That’s not what it looks like.”
“And what if there was? You claimed that you knew he wanted to date me, which so far, he hasn’t expressed to me, so I think you’re wrong. But that aside, so fucking what? You and I aren’t dating.”
“We should be.”
“Oh, Brent.”
“Hear me out.”
“Not now.” She glanced back at the house. “Not here. Not outside, not while Evan is here. Not. Now.”
“When?”
“Later,” she whispered, hating the way her heart tripped over itself in excitement. “We can talk about it later. After we’ve unpacked, after Evan leaves.”
He stepped closer to her. His hands settled on her upper arms, and he squeezed. She didn’t miss that it was the exact same place Evan had touched her. Men were so freaking predictable. She might want Brent to want her, but not because someone else had marked her. She had no time for this macho bullshit.
She did have time for the way he felt against her, though. Too much time. This is a mistake, she warned herself. It did no good. Leaning in, she let him hug her, let herself soak up his warmth.
Their hug was interrupted by the slap of the front door and Evan’s footsteps, heavy on the porch. “Fixed the carpet,” he called out.
Jess stepped back from Brent, guilt rioting through her wildly. There was no reason she shouldn’t be hugging him in front of Evan, but feelings were weird. “Great,” she said, looking at the ground, then the house behind him. “Thank you.”
He strode right up to them. “Talked to Carrie, too. Lola’s part-timer cancelled, so she’s stuck at the boutique, but I can go and pick up lunch with Carrie.”
“You know what?” She shook her head. “I think we’ve done enough today. I need to hit the grocery store and do a big shop. Maybe I should do that first.”
“Do you want us to keep working?”
She glanced at Brent. “I’ll go with you to the store,” he said. “If you want the company.”
Evan’s gaze slid from her to her husband and back again. He nodded. “Okay, I’ll head out, then.” He frowned. Just a little, then it smoothed out, but she didn’t miss it. “Are we still on for tomorrow?”
She reached out and lightly squeezed his arm for no good reason, but she liked the way his skin felt and the way one corner of his mouth quirked up when she touched him. “Yep. I’ll see you at noon.”
The quirk turned into a slow, lazy smile. “Can’t wait.”
Now she saw it. He was definitely flirting with her. Time for Evan to go, absolutely. If he kept it up tomorrow at their meeting—their work meeting—then she’d believe him. Otherwise, he was just being a jerk for his own prideful reasons. “Later.”
She watched as he sauntered to his car, stowing his toolbox in the back before sliding into the driver’s seat. When she glanced at Brent, he was watching Evan, too.
Then he turned around, and they were alone on the sidewalk in front of her new house. “Do you want me to go home?”
After that weird morning? She wasn’t sure what she wanted. “What’s my other option?”
“I could stay.”
He meant it like, he could stay and go grocery shopping. But for a second—a split second, before her tender heart could clamp down on it—that baby bird inside of her flew, and it felt amazing.
“I do need to hit the grocery store,” she admitted. “And could use the company.”
“Let’s do it. My truck?”
“Sure. Let me just lock up.”
Going grocery shopping with her husband. The fluttering in her chest got stronger. But then he would leave, and it would be back to reality.
At least she had her beach surprise with Evan to look forward to the next day.
14
Evan finally admitted at one in the morning that he wasn’t falling asleep, and he shoved out of bed. He pulled on a pair of shorts, because working out naked felt weird.
In his gym space, he turned on the TV. It was already set to the business news, and he cranked up the volume so he’d hear it over the clang of weights. He felt like lifting some heavy shit, and not politely.
“It’s just you and me,” he said out loud to the rack.
Ever since he’d left Jess’s new house, he’d been consumed by thoughts of her and Brent together. He hadn’t missed the jealous anguish on the other man’s face when Evan had caught her on the stairs.
If Brent was going to make a move, it happened tonight.
Something shifted inside Evan when he thought about that. He’d spent more than a month convincing himself that his crush on Jess wasn’t appropriate. It wasn’t what she needed right now, and he could see how much she and Brent still loved each other.
But.
But fucking but.
Brent was a hot mess of repressed desires.
And Evan couldn’t stop thinking about a line Jess had blurted at him in anger the night of the gala. “What I need is to be fucked.”
He hadn’t figured it out right away. It took him weeks for that to click into the right place, to slide against his memories of Evie’s wedding and shift into a better context.
She had been so fragile at the wedding. Beautiful in a haunted way, and he’d been drawn to her. Evie had caught him out, too. Noticed him staring and done her usual thing of assuming just a little too much, but still sticking the landing on her meddling.
He’d had a date that night, but it hadn’t mattered. That was the origin of his crush on Jess, and it made everything so much more complicated.
Now, more than a year later, he saw this same woman being strong and fearless. He wanted her even more for that, but deep down inside him, he was still treating her like that haunted beauty so recently damaged.
And then he’d contributed to a re-do on that pain by accidentally sharing too much about Brent.
Except out of that had come this new, fledging re-relationship for the Dorans, leaving him on the outside.
Where he belonged.
It was going to be Brent, not Evan, who she would bring into her bed. That was for the best.
It had been a long time since he’d felt the burn of jealousy, though. He wasn’t used to it. He was always the one who left. He’d told Jess as much. Of course, she wasn’t leaving him. They’d never been together. They’d shared a date, a kiss, and were w
ork colleagues, that was all. She didn’t know he’d been harbouring thoughts of her for more than a year. Hell, he hadn’t really either.
The thing to do here would be to move on himself. Find a guy with a perfect bum and spend a weekend in bed.
The problem with crushing on a married couple who found their way back to each other, though, was being ruined for both men and women simultaneously.
Melodramatic much?
He’d played the game forever. He knew the rules. He still had all the other people in the world who didn’t remind him of Jess or Brent; so he just had to spin that Rolodex long enough to find a new spark of chemistry.
But he didn’t want to.
With a start, he realized he was nursing a bruised heart. He tapped on his chest and shook his head. He’d thought the thing didn’t work like that. Damn.
It actually was just him and the weight rack now. Taking a deep breath, he loaded his max rep for squats onto the bar, and got in position.
The next day, Jess appeared in the door to his office at ten to noon. “I’m early,” she said brightly. “Don’t let me interrupt what you’re doing.”
He put his pen down and gave her his most casual-but-secretly-careful assessing look. She was carrying a basket, and wearing a buttoned-down dress shirt and jeans, her feet in Converse sneakers and her hair up in a ponytail. She looked adorable and happy.
He was relieved to see her. With a jolt, he realized that he’d thought she might cancel.
“I’m all yours,” he said, meaning it on more than one level. Damn it, West. Get your shit together. “What are we doing?”
“It’s nice and warm out today. We’re going to the beach for the afternoon.” She lifted the basket onto his desk.
He peered inside. There was a blanket and a tube of sunscreen, and… “Notebooks and pens?”
“Market research.”
They were going to the beach to take notes? He’d need some fortification to get him through the close proximity. “You don’t even have a bottle of wine. This is picnic basket sacrilege.”
“It’s a working day at the beach.”
“In my business, working days include wine.” He went to the fridge on the wall and pulled out his favourite bottle of white. “Let’s go downstairs, we can grab an insulated bag and some snacks.”
“I didn’t packing anything like that for a reason,” she said as she hurried after him.
She was cute. Smart, but too focused on the task at hand to consider that once they were stretched out on that blanket, maybe he wouldn’t want to get up and go in search of food and drink.
Which was, it turned out, her point.
A half hour later, as they were finishing their first glasses of wine, she gestured at the space behind the beach. “There’s nothing here.”
“That’s because the main drag is only two blocks away,” he pointed out. “And most people bike down to the water, grabbing food on the way. Or bring their own like we did.”
“You need food trucks here on the weekend,” she said, ignoring him.
“I don’t know if our local restauranteurs will like that.”
She rolled her eyes. “Everyone is afraid of competition at first. They’ll get over it. Not everyone wants to eat artisanal toast or six variations on BBQ brisket. But food trucks are Instagram-able.”
“You keep saying that phrase.”
“And I’m not going to stop. This new beach is going to debut with a splash, and people are going to drive hours to get here from the city because they will be promised options. We’re not going to abandon the local food providers, I promise. Ideally, the food trucks will be local, too. We’re going to have some time here, we’ll build this the right way.”
“With your ice cream stand.”
“It’s your ice cream stand. And how is that going, by the way?”
He gestured down the stretch of beach to where the empty lot was—and the sold sticker plastered on the sign. “You aren’t the only person who’s made some real estate acquisitions lately.”
“Hey! That’s great!” She lifted her glass in cheers. “To new adventures.”
It was a decent opening, and he was going to take it. He couldn’t mind his own business as much as he knew he should. “How was your first night in the new house?”
“Great.” Her eyes softened.
God damn it, he was a glutton for punishment. “Did Brent hang out for the rest of the day?”
She gave Evan an appraising look. “Why?”
“No reason.”
“Really?”
He sat up straighter. “It’s none of my business, that’s all I mean.”
“Huh.” She shrugged and added some more wine to her glass. “Okay. Good.”
“Wait, do you think it’s my business?”
“I think it’s complicated and you’re a very confusing man.” She continued to watch him over the rim of her glass.
“I want whatever is best for you.”
“You know what’s funny? Both of you say that, deferring to the other one to deliver it.”
He frowned. “What?”
Oh, man. She’d gone pretty far off course in her plan to stay cool and aloof and strictly professional. If she re-ran her own words back to herself, Jess was pretty sure she’d just challenged Evan to prove he wanted her, and she wasn’t even sure he did. Except he was wearing that wood and spice cologne again today, and that was something.
The man was sending a lot of mixed messages.
But then so was she, probably. It was time to cut through the noise. “I’m a grown-up, Evan. A single woman. There have been times—” When his hand was on her ass and his tongue down her throat, for example— “That I have thought you might be into me. And then there are other times when you’re definitely just a friend. And in between, I’m doing this weird round and round thing with Brent, but I have made it crystal clear to him that he hurt me. I’m not ready to be in a relationship with him again. I might never be. So here I am, a single girl, just looking for a clue—”
He reached out and took her wineglass from her.
Her breath caught in her throat.
“You want a clue as to how I feel?” Evan said, setting both of their glasses in the picnic basket.
She glanced around. They were alone on the beach. It was still too cold to swim, and it was too late for dog-walkers and too early for families to come and play after school.
“Jess?”
“Mmm?”
“I’m right here. I’ve been following you around like a puppy—”
“There’s nothing puppy-ish about you,” she whispered.
“Like an eager, oversized, untrained puppy,” he repeated. “I don’t know what I’m doing because I’ve never done anything like this.”
“Like what?”
“Seducing a woman who’s in love with another man.” He gave her a grim look. “Don’t deny it. I see how you look at him. How he looks at you.”
“He says the same thing about you.” Her heart was rioting through her chest. Gallumping. It might kill that baby bird if it wasn’t careful, the one that was madly fluttering against her ribcage. “I think you’ve said more to Brent about all of this than you have to me.”
“He got the better of me and I said too much.”
“What did you say?”
He moved closer. “I told him I wanted to see you again. That I’d ask you out.”
“You didn’t.”
“Because he told me that he still loves you.”
“You made that decision for me?”
“I got out of his way.” She protested hotly with a curse under her breath, and he held up his hands in a mea culpa gesture. “And I get that wasn’t my call to make.”
“Exactly.”
“I’m sorry.” He settled back down, leaning on one arm, and gave her a beseeching look that soothed her frustrations more than she expected.
She eased back down onto the blanket next to him.
“S
o,” he said softly. “There’s this amazing Latin American restaurant in Leamington some of our seasonal workers got Ty hooked on. And he in turn hooked me. It’s this little… I don’t want to say hole in the wall, because it’s not like that. Unassuming, let’s say, an unassuming shop in a strip mall, and their salsa is the best I’ve ever had. Amazing pupusas.”
“Yeah?”
He nodded.
She wasn’t going to make this easy for him. “I’ll have to check it out.”
He gave her a funny look.
“What?”
“I’m suggesting we go together.”
“You and me? To Leamington for tacos? That wasn’t clear.” She said it innocently. “Like on a date?”
“You want me to ask you properly.”
“Yes. It’ll be our first date, and I think the nice thing is to ask me clearly. Given the lack of clarity in the past.”
He grinned. “We’ve been on a date before. This will be our second. Or maybe it could be our third if you count this outing to the beach.”
“I don’t. And we’ve been on a fake date. Which was…complicated. A real one would be even more so if we aren’t all super clear with each other.”
“Clarity is your hot-button topic, I see.” He was laughing now. “Okay. Jessica, I’ve been attracted to you for some time. And I would like to spend more time with you in a social setting, in a romantic way.”
“So you suggested tacos.”
“Tacos are fun.”
“Are they?”
“Tacos with me will be the most fun you’ve ever had.”
“That’s a bold claim.”
“I’m a bold man.” He took her hand in his and rubbed his thumb over her knuckles. Oh, that felt nice. The look he gave her felt even nicer. Nice in a sinful sort of way. “Jess, I think we can get past the complicated parts and have a lot of fun. If you want to.”
She did want to. Very much. What about Brent? What about him, indeed. She swallowed hard. “If I say yes, you have to know that Brent is still very much a part of my life.”
“That’s okay.” He squeezed her hands. “I’ve shared before.”
She did a double-take. “Pardon?”