by Laura Drewry
When they’d set those boxes in the truck, Nick took her hand and walked her up the stairs for the last two boxes. Without a word, they picked them up, stored them on the passenger side of the truck, then stood at the bottom of the stairs staring into the empty space.
“We did it,” Nick murmured. “With twelve hours to spare.”
Jayne laughed as she pulled off her gear, but it sounded forced even to her own ears. All that stuff and not a single book, not a thing to hint that perhaps Gran had a change of heart, that maybe, just maybe, she thought of Jayne as something more than just an unwanted bastard child.
Instead, all Jayne found were walls in desperate need of repair, loose railings, plumbing that leaked, and half a dozen light fixtures that didn’t work.
As if that wasn’t depressing enough, she had a bookstore without any books.
“Hey.” Nick wrapped an arm around her shoulders and squeezed. “You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Liar.”
Without the strength to do anything else, she leaned her head against his shoulder and sighed. “Yeah.”
“Come on, I’ll buy you dinner.” Neither one of them moved.
“Nick?”
“Hmm?”
“I’d rather just go home … I mean, to your house.”
“Home it is.” He kissed the top of her head and squeezed a little tighter. “I’ll even cook.”
As Jayne locked up, Nick moved to the back of his truck, his phone pressed against his ear. She couldn’t hear what he was saying, and by the look on his face when he came back, it was probably just as well.
Any other time, she would have sent him off to whoever was on the other end of that call, and she was guessing it was Lisa. But tonight … tonight she didn’t care. It was selfish and unfair, and a huge part of her knew she’d regret it, but sitting in Nick’s kitchen eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with him was exactly what she needed.
She guzzled the last of her milk, wiped her mouth with a napkin, and pushed her plate back. “That was, without question, the best dinner I’ve had in a very long time.”
“Hey, I’m the full package, sweetheart.” Nick’s eyes warmed to pools of gold from across the table. “I cook, I hammer, and I make the best Cosmo this side of the Rockies. What more could a girl want?”
“I can’t imagine.” Jayne started to grin back at him, then let it fall when his phone vibrated on the table beside him. She gathered their dishes and mussed his hair with her hand as she walked by. “Tell her I’m sorry I ruined your plans tonight.”
She closed her bedroom door on her lie as Nick’s sigh floated after her.
“Hey, Lisa.”
Chapter Seven
So do you always bring an extra girl when you go out?
Amanda Jones, Some Kind of Wonderful
She should be happy Hague gave them the thumbs-up, should be doing a little happy dance in the empty space they’d worked so hard to clear. Instead, Jayne slid down the wall and stared blindly at the list he’d handed her. Three pages of blue checkmarks and scribbled notes, and two weeks to fix everything.
Two weeks.
“Let’s see it.” Sitting beside her, Nick held his hand out, fingers wiggling, but Jayne didn’t move. “Come on, give it over.”
There was no choice; she had to accept his help or she’d never make Hague’s deadline. Hell, even with Nick’s help, she probably wouldn’t make it. There was too much to do. With a sigh, she held the pages up to him, then let her head fall back against the wall as he went over the pages one by one.
“It’s not good,” he said, giving her one of his half grins. “But it’d be a hell of a lot easier if you knew a good contractor.”
“There’s this one guy I know,” she chuckled wearily. “But his cousin tells me he’s the biggest idiot ever.”
“An idiot, sure.” He shrugged. “But I’m told he knows his way around a construction site and—this is where it gets good—he’ll work for food.”
“Probably cheaper to pay him outright.”
“Probably.” Nick grinned, but when he spoke again, he was dead serious. “It’s a lot of work, Jayne, but we can do it.”
“In two weeks?”
“Two and a half. He gave us a few extra days, remember, and yes. But first we need to agree on a couple things.” He crouched in front of her, rolled the sheets into tubes, and tapped them against her bent knee. “Number one, we’re not going to fight over cost. We’ll get it done and settle up at the end.”
She started to protest, but Nick talked right over her.
“Number two, stop worrying about how much time this is going to take away from Lisa and me. It’s a couple weeks; we’ll be fine.”
Was it her imagination or did he hesitate there?
“So come on.” He helped her to her feet and started for the door. “I’ll make a copy of this list, and then we’ll sit down and prioritize everything, sort out what you can do on your own, and figure out what and who we’ll need for the rest.”
He was halfway to his truck before he realized she’d stopped walking.
“What?”
Jayne inhaled slowly, then smiled. How could she not when he got all serious and bossy like this?
“Thank you.”
She’d seen him grin like that thousands of times before, and every time she’d managed to quash the tingle it left in its wake, but this time … whew … maybe she was just too tired to try hard enough.
* * *
Nick left the bouquet—a bundle of wild pinky purple something-or-others with all sorts of green leafy things—on the end of Jayne’s bed, then went to shower off the day’s grime. He’d just pulled on clean jeans when he heard her come through the front door, and was in the middle of lathering his face when she came roaring through the living room to his side of the house.
“Nick!”
He stepped half out of his bathroom with a towel flung over his bare shoulder as he continued to lather up with his shaving brush.
“Hmmm?”
“Oh.” She slammed to a stop, the flowers clutched between her hands, and her mouth hanging open. It took her some time before she found her voice, and even then it wasn’t nearly as forceful as he’d expected. It started out sounding as though her mouth was full of dust, and going by the number of times she cleared her throat, something had to be off with her.
She looked at the flowers, then the floor, then the wall beside her before she finally managed to look up at him.
“You have to stop spending money on me.” As she spoke, her nose twitched ever so slightly as though she was trying her damnedest not to lean closer to the flowers and inhale as deeply as she could.
“Why?” He moved back into the bathroom and set to work with the razor, moving the blade down his cheek in even strokes. “It’s my money, I can spend it any way I want.”
“But—”
“If it makes you feel better—or less better, if that’s what you’re going for here—I got some for Lisa, too, only her bunch was bigger.” He stretched his mouth down and gently shaved the stubble from his upper lip. “How would it look if I got her flowers for our date and not you?”
“It’s not a date when you take your girlfriend and me.”
“Fine. It’s a celebration for getting by the first hurdle with Hague. I was at Maya’s flower shop, I saw those, and figured since they were purple …”
“Nick.” A big fat tear hovered at the edge of her eye, but Jayne being Jayne, she held it back. “We’re supposed to be showing people we’re just friends, remember?”
“I can’t buy my friend flowers?”
“A couple daisies, sure. A potted mum, absolutely. But this?” She exhaled a tired sigh. “This doesn’t look right.”
“I don’t give a shit how it looks.” He rinsed the razor and patted the towel over his face. “This is who I am, this is who we are, and I don’t want to change any of it.”
“But flowers are brutally expensive.”<
br />
“Do you like them?”
“Well, duh!” she grunted. “They’re gorgeous.”
He couldn’t resist any longer; that tear was driving him crazy. He wiped it away with his thumb, then cupped her cheek in his hand. “Then it’s money well spent.”
She sniffed softly and leaned into his hand for a fraction of a second. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He smiled to himself as she shuffled back down the hall. Abby had never cried when he gave her flowers, or ever worried about the cost. Come to think of it, neither did Lisa. “I think there’s a vase above the fridge.”
Half an hour later, he shot her a wink and waggled his brow as he held the truck door open and helped Jayne climb in. “You look great.”
“Yeah, right.” Jayne rolled her eyes as she pressed her hands down her stomach. The short-sleeved mossy green dress looked like it was made of T-shirt fabric; nothing fancy, just a simple dress that gently hugged her curves. “You’re just used to seeing me in sweats and filthy shorts, so anything else is an improvement.”
Nick pulled out of the driveway and turned south toward Lisa’s. As they waited at the light his phone rang, cutting in through the music on the radio. “Hey, Lisa, sorry, we’re running a little late.”
He shot Jayne a look that she ignored.
“That’s okay,” Lisa said, her soft voice coming through the speakers. “I’m going to have to take a rain check anyway.”
“How come?” Nick frowned out the front windshield. He could feel Jayne looking at him, but kept his eyes forward. “You okay?”
“Fine, but the Fairmont’s sprinkler system flooded all the conference rooms so I have to find somewhere else for the Outreach group to go tomorrow.”
“How long’s that going to take?”
Lisa’s sigh filled the cab of the truck as Nick turned onto the highway. “I don’t know. It’s a big group, so it could be awhile, but you guys go on. If I finish up early enough, I’ll meet you back at your place later.”
“You sure? This was your idea, we could do it another night.”
“Don’t be silly. Go on. Say hi to Jayne for me.”
Nick smirked and mouthed a hello to Jayne who returned the silent greeting.
“Jayne says hi back.”
“Sorry about this,” Lisa said. “Love you.”
“ ’K. See you later.” The radio kicked back on but for once Jayne didn’t sing along, even though he’d set it to the eighties channel she liked. No singing, but her mouth was wide open.
“Nick!”
“What?”
“She just told you she loved you, and your response to that is … what? Nothing?” Jayne choked over a strangled laugh. “You just let her say it and then leave her hanging like that?”
“I don’t let her say it, Jayne, she just does.” He changed lanes and picked up speed. “And what do you want me to do—lie to her?”
“You don’t love Lisa?” The shock in Jayne’s voice made it sound like he was crazy. “Really?”
“Don’t get me wrong, she’s amazing; sweet, pretty, and she’s always good to me, but we’ve only been together a couple months. It’s a little early for me to be throwing the L-word around.”
“That never stopped you before. Ten minutes into any relationship, you were always gushing over how much you loved your new girlfriend.”
“Give me a break,” he laughed, hoping his face wasn’t as red as it felt. “I’ve learned to contain the gushing over the years.”
“Attaboy. A little restraint is good.”
Restraint had nothing to do with it. If he even thought he loved Lisa, he wouldn’t hesitate to tell her, but so far that feeling hadn’t come. There was something missing, and though he didn’t know what that was just yet, he knew once he figured it out, he could fix it, and then he’d love her.
He edged the truck into the exit lane and followed the road around the side of the theater.
“What about you?” He put it in park and climbed out of the truck, then went to get her door. She was already out by the time he got there. “Who was the last guy you gushed over?”
“I don’t gush.” She smoothed her hands down the front of her dress and turned so she was ahead of him.
That was true; Jayne had never gushed over any guy in high school, and even though she’d mentioned a few men over the years, none of them seemed to last more than a couple months, except that guy Barry. Nick had only met him once, but that was enough. From the second Barry opened his mouth, Nick knew he was all wrong for Jayne, and to this day he never understood why she stayed with him so long.
Nick hustled after her and nudged her arm.
“Come on, spill it. When was the last time you told a guy you loved him?” After a staredown, he let her pay for the tickets, then ushered her toward the popcorn counter. “And please don’t tell me you were in love with Barry.”
“No.” Jayne pulled some napkins from the dispenser and lifted his large iced tea before walking away. “One and only time I ever gushed was June twentieth, 1998.”
“You remember the exact—” Nick’s hand froze around the popcorn bag and it took him a second before his feet would move. June 20, 1998. The day after they graduated. The day he drove Jayne to the bus station.
The day she told him she loved him.
“Hang on.” He had to hustle to catch up with Jayne and her smart-ass smirk. “That doesn’t count.”
“Oh, it counts.”
“No it doesn’t because you didn’t mean it like”—he lowered his voice to a harsh whisper—“like you were in love with me. You meant it like you were my—”
“Your what?” She laughed over a slow sip of his iced tea. “Your sister?”
“No. Like you were my best friend.”
“Either way, let’s think back to what your response was.” She tapped her chin, pretending to think hard. “Oh, that’s right. Nothing.”
“You didn’t give me a chance!” He held the door open, then followed her inside the theater where he could only hope the fuzzy lighting would hide his embarrassment. “One second you’re standing there staring at the ground and the next second, the bus is pulling away and you yell it out the window.”
Jayne stood at the top of the aisle, scanned for empty seats, then widened her smirk. “A real best friend would have yelled it back.”
The only seats left were up against the wall in the second row from the front. Jayne made their apologies as they stepped over everyone as quickly and painlessly as they could.
Nick waited until she was settled in her red velvet seat before he nudged her arm and whispered, “You freak out any time I try to hug you, so I always figured with anything else, you’d probably beat the living crap out of me.”
“And I may well have.” When she turned her head, he expected to see that smirk of hers, but it seemed to take awhile to materialize, and even when it did, he knew it was forced. God, he was a schmuck.
“You’ve really never said it since then?”
“Nope. Once was more than enough, thank you very much.”
The lights dimmed almost immediately and a hush of anticipation fell over the room. It wasn’t until that moment that Nick realized how much he’d missed going to the movies with Jayne. They’d take turns picking, but it seemed for every chick flick she made him sit through, she sat through twice as many car chases and gun fights, so when they rented movies to watch at his house, he always let her pick.
Nick was probably the only guy in their graduating class who’d sat through every John Hughes film at least once. If Judd Nelson or Emilio Estevez was in it, they probably watched it three or four times.
“Want some?” Nick held up his bucket of popcorn, but Jayne shook her head. The red licorice, however, she took.
He slid down in his seat so he wouldn’t have to crane his neck as much and grinned when Jayne did the same. She chewed her Twizzlers and he munched his popcorn, just like old times.
Was it weird that t
hey’d slipped back into each other’s lives so easily? Or that he couldn’t honestly remember a time when he’d been this happy? It was a stupid happy, too, one of those sloppy, can’t-stop-smiling kind of things.
He had absolutely no idea what was happening in the movie, except that the guy onscreen was about to get his throat slit and everyone in the theater knew it. The music swelled, the guy turned … it was a damn good thing Lisa hadn’t come. She would’ve hated this.
“What’s so funny?” Jayne whispered.
Nick had no good answer for the grin on his face, and no matter how hard he tried to stop, it didn’t do any good. Right there, sitting in the forty-year-old theater with a Frankenstein scar sewn across the top right corner of the screen, everything conspired to make him smile; the collective gasp that arose when the bad guy jumped out, the way the teenage boy in front of them held his girlfriend when she squealed and buried her face in his neck, the way Jayne smelled so good, like fresh strawberries.
He could feel her eyes on him a few times, but when he glanced her way, she’d gone back to watching the movie. By the time it ended Nick couldn’t name a single character, couldn’t have guessed why the guy was killing everyone, and he had a slight kink in his neck, but he didn’t care.
They waited until their row cleared, then Nick took her by the hand and wound a path toward the door. They’d almost cleared the crowd when he saw them.
“Shit. Let’s go.”
“Why?” Jayne’s gaze shot up. “Who’s that?”
“Hurry,” he whispered hoarsely, but it was too late. Dressed in matching green-and-white plaid outfits, the Schwanns blocked their escape. “Judy, Ross, good to see you. This is Jayne.”
Judy’s mouth, covered in the darkest red lipstick Nick had ever seen, smiled sweetly; she nodded at Jayne as she spoke to Nick. “I thought you were dating that other girl. The pretty one with the dark hair; she’s so sweet.”
“Yes, yes she is.” He gave Jayne a quick tug and started to move away. “We have to get going, but I’ll tell Lisa you were asking about her.”
Before Judy could say another word, Nick all but dragged Jayne out the door and pushed her toward the truck.