by Laura Drewry
Jayne blew out a relieved breath. “Yeah,” she said. “Nick and his crew were amazing.”
The waitress set their glasses down, which they immediately raised and clinked.
“Then here’s to having a builder as your roommate slash friend slash not-boyfriend slash whatever-he-really-is!”
Jayne and Maya both laughed and drank.
“Is Regan coming?”
“So far as I know,” Maya said. “But I haven’t talked to her much this week.”
“Me neither.” Ellie leaned over the table a little and lowered her voice. “Don’t look now, but those guys are here again and it looks like Blondie on the end is about to make his move.”
“What?” Jayne looked around until she spied the table of guys Ellie must have meant. They were the same four who’d been cheering so loud during the ball game last week.
Ellie jabbed her elbow into Jayne’s ribs. “I said don’t look!”
“But”—Jayne laughed—“who’s Blondie and what move is he making?”
Maya twisted in her chair to look, but she at least had the foresight to make it seem like she wasn’t gawking. She did a complete swivel as though looking for the waitress, then pointed at her for no particular reason.
“He’s cute,” Maya grinned. “I mean, he’s no Nick Scott, but he’s cute.”
The fun they’d had last week teasing her about Nick didn’t seem quite so funny this week, and Jayne didn’t even want to consider the reasons why. She’d barely taken a breath when the waitress stopped at their table and set another Cosmo in front of Jayne.
“From the gentleman at the table over there.” She pointed toward Blondie, smiled, and ducked away.
Ellie and Maya snorted and laughed, but Jayne’s mouth dried up like a cork. She’d never had anyone do that before and she had no freakin’ idea what she was supposed to do now. Thankfully, Ellie did.
“God’s sake, Jayne, at least give him a wave or a smile.”
Her face flaming, her hand shaking, Jayne somehow managed to lift the glass and curved her mouth in what she hoped was a smile, then immediately turned so she sat at an angle, facing more toward Ellie beside her.
“Jeez,” Ellie snickered behind her glass. “You’d think you never had a guy hit on you before.”
Jayne widened her eyes as much as she could until Ellie finally clued in.
“Shut up,” she breathed. “Really? Never?”
“Uh, no,” Jayne whispered. “I’m not the kind of girl guys hit on.”
“Are you kidding?” Maya asked, staring back at her. “Guys don’t need a type. They just need someone with boobs.”
“Yeah, well, my 34Cs aren’t anything worth writing home about.”
“Looks like Blondie disagrees.” She glanced over her shoulder, not even trying to be nonchalant this time. “You should go for it, see what happens.”
Jayne tipped her head to the side a little and whispered hoarsely. “I’m not going to go for it, Maya—I don’t even know who he is!”
“Well, you’re about to,” Ellie grinned. “ ’Cause here he comes.”
Panic swelled in Jayne until she thought she’d choke. “What do I say?”
“Maybe start with hello.” She cleared her throat and sat back, barely bobbing her head in the direction of the approaching Blondie.
“Sorry to interrupt, ladies.” He stood at the end of their table, grinning down at Jayne. Okay, he was cute-ish, with his finger-tousled blond hair and deep dimples. “I just wanted to come over and introduce myself.”
Jayne clenched the stem of her glass so tight she thought it might snap.
“I’m Ellie.” She reached across Jayne to shake his hand. “That’s Maya and this is Jayne.”
Blondie nodded a hello to both of them, then waited for Jayne to shake his hand. “Nice to meet you, Jayne. I’m Troy.”
Jayne almost laughed right out loud. Of course he was Troy. He looked like a Troy.
“Th-thank you for the drink,” she squeaked. “It was very sweet.”
“No problem.” He flashed those dimples again and Jayne had to wonder how old he was. “Maybe we could grab some dinner later?”
Jayne could feel Ellie’s stare, but didn’t dare look at her. “Oh, um, yeah, sorry, but I’m meeting someone in a little while.”
“Boyfriend?” he asked with a slight wince.
“Friend friend.”
“Cool,” he beamed. “Another time maybe?”
“We’re here every Tuesday,” Maya blurted out.
“Then I guess I’ll see you next Tuesday.” He didn’t wait for a reply, but instead backed up slowly toward his buddies, who were all watching from their table.
She smiled back at him, resisting the overwhelming urge to kick Maya under the table. She didn’t want to have dinner with him! She didn’t even want to have a drink with him!
“Thanks a lot,” she muttered through gritted teeth.
“You’re welcome.” Maya and Ellie clinked their glasses again, but Jayne refused. This wasn’t anything to cheer about. “That’s what you get for not telling us you had a date with Nick tonight.”
“It’s not a date. It’s just dinner.”
“A rose by any other name,” Maya muttered, grinning over her glass at Ellie.
Regan arrived about half an hour later and slumped into the chair next to Maya.
“Who peed in your Corn Flakes?” Ellie teased. “Cheer up, Jayne passed inspection and she’s buying.”
“Of course she passed.” Regan grabbed the waitress’s arm as she walked by and all but begged for a beer. “Her boyfriend had everyone waiting by the phone all weekend in case he needed something, even though they’d already put in sixty hours last week and even though some of them had plans for the weekend.”
Not some, Jayne mused. Todd. And Regan.
“First full weekend we’ve both had off all year, and then bam! Nick Scott wants his girlfriend’s building done so everything else comes to a grinding halt. Doesn’t matter what we had planned, no, just so long as Nick Scott gets what he wants.”
Jayne sat in stunned silence for a second, as did Maya and Ellie.
“Nick told me they weren’t going to have anything to do for a few days while he and Delmar boarded the house, so I hired them to do the work at my place.” She paused only long enough to inhale. “They weren’t working for him; they were working for me.”
“Like there’s a difference.” Regan accepted the bottle of beer from the waitress and chugged great gulps of it.
“Wow.” Ellie’s eyes rounded over the rim of her glass, but Regan wasn’t done.
“And if that’s not bad enough, Nick goes and fires Todd’s sorry ass, so I’ve spent all afternoon listening to him go off about it.”
“He what?” Jayne cried. “What happened?”
“Oh, please,” Regan muttered. “Like you don’t know.”
Maya and Ellie, sitting diagonally across from each other, sat with mouths agape, staring between Jayne and Regan.
“Look,” Jayne said, lowering her voice a little. “When I left the site today, all four of them were there, so if something happened after that, it had nothing to do with me.”
“Oh my God, Jayne,” Regan cried, her fingers flexed straight as she punctuated every word. “Everything Nick does these days has something to do with you!”
Jayne pushed her glass toward Maya so she could lean in more. The last thing she needed was everyone in the bar hearing this, but before she could speak, Ellie wrapped her hand around Jayne’s arm.
“Hold on,” she said. “What happened, Regan?”
“He fired Todd, that’s what happened!”
“Yes, we got that,” Ellie sighed. “Why?”
A great gust of anger blew out between Regan’s tight lips. “Things have been said, and then Nick found out Todd almost blew Jayne’s inspection today because he forgot to take the inspection report to City Hall when he should have.”
“What’s being said?” M
aya and Ellie both looked at Jayne, but she kept her eyes on Regan. If she wanted to tell this story, she could tell it. As far as Jayne was concerned, this was between Nick and Todd, and had nothing to do with anyone else.
“It’s so stupid.” Regan took another swig and slumped back in her chair. “Ever since Jayne showed up, Nick’s been ditching the guys, leaving most of the work on the house to Delmar instead of doing it himself. Todd says he spends more time with Jayne than he does with Lisa, and that it seemed like Jayne’s been leading him around by his—”
“Nick!” Maya exclaimed, looking over Jayne’s shoulder toward the door as she poked Regan in the arm. “Look who’s here.”
Jayne spun around in her chair, and there he was, dressed in faded jeans and a black twill button-up shirt, looking as good as he ever had. Maybe better. But did he have to bring such a big bouquet with him?
“Maya,” she mumbled. “You could’ve given a heads-up.”
“I didn’t know they were for you,” she whispered. “I just assumed they were for Lisa.”
Silence greeted Nick as he strode toward them. He nodded to the table in general, then looked directly at Regan.
“You okay?”
“Great.” Without moving her head, she slid her glare up to Nick. “The dumb shit never saved a freakin’ cent his whole life, so now he thinks we should move in together.”
“Oy,” Ellie squeaked. “I hope you said no.”
“Of course I said no! I barely make enough to support myself, I’m sure as hell not going to start paying his bills, too.”
“I’m sorry,” Nick said quietly. “I can’t have guys working for me if I don’t trust them, and we all know this isn’t the first time Todd’s screwed up.” He pressed his free hand against Jayne’s back. “You ready?”
“Yeah.” Jayne pushed back from the table and tried her very best to smile. “I’m sorry, Regan.”
“Me too.” It seemed to take a great deal of effort, but she finally looked up at Jayne. “It’s not your fault, I just needed to vent.”
“Talk to you later?”
“Yeah.”
She could feel their eyes on her back all the way across the restaurant. As they neared the table where Troy and his buddies were sitting, Nick nodded a hello.
“Hey, Nick.” All four of them spoke at once, yet none of them blinked.
Jayne cringed. She should have guessed they’d know Nick; he knew everyone. He pulled out her chair, waited until she was comfortable, then handed her the enormous bouquet.
“Hi,” he said quietly. “You look nice.”
If she wasn’t uptight before, she sure as hell was now. Every muscle in her neck and spine seized tight enough to snap and her heart seemed to be doing cartwheels between her ribs.
“They’re beautiful.” Jayne’s cheeks burned and she tried not to squirm under so many prying eyes staring at them from two different sides of the restaurant. “But why?”
After inhaling their deep sweet scent, she set the lilies on the end of the table with the heads facing her. Maya had outdone herself.
“First, because we’re celebrating,” he said, and she was surprised to see color in his cheeks, too. “And second, because it was a crappy day and I was a total shit when you came by before. I’m sorry.”
“God, Nick.” She didn’t know where to look because she could still feel all those nosy nellies watching her and anything she did or didn’t do would no doubt be scrutinized and analyzed to death. “You shouldn’t have done this.”
“Yes, I should have,” he frowned, looking about as crappy as she felt. “Especially after I got home and saw you’d moved all your stuff out. I kept thinking you were going to cancel tonight.”
From the corner of her eye, she saw Ellie and Maya lean their heads closer to each other, and after a second, Regan’s face softened and she leaned in, too. Jayne could only imagine what was being said, especially when Nick reached across the table and squeezed her hand, his skin warm, his thumb moving slowly back and forth over hers. Each new touch left a fluttering sensation in her stomach, which made her skin flame hotter.
Get a grip, Jayne!
When the waitress started toward them, Jayne slipped her hand back and tucked it on her lap where, for lack of anything else, she picked at every hangnail she could find and even started a few new ones. They spent a few minutes going over dinner choices, and by the time they ordered, the girls were getting ready to leave. Ellie was none too discreet about giving Jayne the thumbs-up and then tipping her head toward Troy, who stopped at their table as his friends headed for the door.
“Hey, man,” he said to Nick. “Didn’t know you were the friend she was meeting. Sorry ’bout that.” He slapped Nick on the shoulder, muttered a quiet good-night to Jayne, and moved away before Nick could say anything.
He took his beer from the waitress and tipped back a swig. “You wanna clue me in?”
“It’s nothing.” It was beyond weird telling him, even though she knew that was ridiculous. “He sent over a drink earlier and offered to buy me dinner.”
“And?”
“I thanked him for the drink and told him I was already meeting someone for dinner.”
“But you didn’t tell him it was me.” He seemed to be talking into his beer, and Jayne was finding herself going from feeling awkward to feeling downright uncomfortable and a little annoyed.
“He asked if it was my boyfriend and I told him it was a friend.”
Nick closed his eyes, leaned back in his chair, and groaned quietly. “And then I walked in with flowers. Shit. I hate it when Delmar’s right.”
“Delmar? What’s he got to do with any of this?”
Nick’s chest expanded with his breath, then he leaned forward, his hands wrapped around his bottle. “We sort of got into it a little last week.”
“It?” Whatever it was, it probably explained the tension earlier at the house.
“He said I was standing in the way of you meeting anyone.”
“You?” Jayne frowned. “But that’s ridiculous.”
“That’s what I thought, too, until tonight.”
“What—you mean Troy?”
Nick nodded, his mouth grim. “He probably thinks this”—he waved his hand between them—“is something, so now he’s going to back off. I’ll talk to him, let him know what’s what.”
“Maybe if you hadn’t brought the whole greenhouse with you …”
Finally, a smile. “Maya can use the money, thought I’d help her out.”
“Idiot.” Jayne kept her head down, focused on the tiny hangnail on her left thumb.
“Hey.” Nick waved his hand just above the table in front of her. “What’s up?”
“I don’t know,” she finally said. “The whole day’s just been … strange. The inspection, moving out of your place, Regan, and then this guy.”
“Troy’s okay.”
Jayne shrugged. “He’s too pretty.”
“Too pretty?”
“Well, come on. I admit my experience with men is rather limited, but I think it’s safe to say my type is definitely not any guy who uses more hair product than I do.” She snickered. “And it sure as hell isn’t any guy whose eyebrows are waxed better than mine.”
The gold flecks in Nick’s eyes sparkled.
“And seriously,” Jayne went on. “What is he, like twenty?”
His soft laughter made her feel better, bit by bit. “He’s got to be older than that. Twenty-three maybe.”
“Oh, good, so he’s twenty-three. When I was twenty-three, he was sixteen!” She shuddered at the thought. “Yuck.”
“So what are you saying?” His grin seemed to get bigger. “Do you want me to tell him to back off or not?”
“Yes. I mean no. I mean—” Their salads arrived, but Jayne just pushed hers around on her plate. “You don’t have to do anything. I’ll take care of it.”
“It’s no problem, Jayne, just tell me what you want.”
The snort surpr
ised her just as much as Nick.
“Sorry,” she grumbled as Regan’s words echoed through her brain. Everything Nick does these days has something to do with you. Damn it; Regan was right. “I appreciate the offer, but maybe it’s time you started focusing on your own life again.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about ever since I came waltzing back into town, your every waking moment became about me and my problems. You don’t do the things you used to anymore, and it’s causing problems.”
“Whoa.” He pushed his plate away. “Where the hell’s this coming from?”
“Come on, Nick. I know what’s going on. I know you’ve been ditching the guys at work, and that you had Todd cancel his plans last weekend to work for me.” She was completely out of hangnails to pick at. Damn it. “And don’t even get me started on poor Lisa.”
“What plans?” A deep frown creased his brow. “He never said anything to me, and even if he had, it was his choice to work. No one held a gun to his head.”
“Maybe not,” she said. “But it sounds like saying no to Nick Scott is just as lethal. Regan’s pissed.”
“That’s got nothing to do with us,” he said. “And as for ditching the guys—it’s a couple beers on a Friday afternoon, Jayne. It’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing, Nick, or at least it’s not nothing to Todd.”
Nick’s frown deepened. “Todd’s got a big mouth.”
“Maybe, but did you have to fire him?”
“Damn right.” He handed their still-full salad plates to the waitress who replaced them with their meals. “I need guys I can count on, not guys who are going to screw up and mouth off.”
“Mouth off about … us, right?” She lifted her fork, but held it still over her plate. “Which brings us back to the fact that if you hadn’t been focused on my stuff, he wouldn’t have said anything and he’d still have a job. I’m sorry all of this has screwed things up for you.”
“Nothing’s screwed up.” Nick stared at her for a few seconds, his expression softer. “I wouldn’t change a minute since you came back, and I wouldn’t do anything differently. It’s been fun.”
“Fun,” she choked. “Which part? Digging through ten billion boxes of crap, or working eighteen-hour days to get through inspection? Oh, I know what my favorite part was—when you introduced me to Marathon Barbie when I looked like I’d just fallen out of a dumpster.”