“He’s a little spooked, but he’s fine,” Nate assured her. His eyes twinkled at her with amusement. “Did he fall asleep in here?”
“How’d you know?”
“He panics when you wake him up,” Nate explained.
“Oh, poor puppy,” Lily said. “I should go apologize.”
“Apologize? You’re going to go apologize to the dog?” Charles glared at both of them when they turned to face him. “I’m the one who got smothered, why isn’t anyone apologizing to me?”
“Charles, Beau couldn’t help it,” Lily soothed. “He’s just a dog, and he got scared.”
Charles, sounding as though he had lockjaw, said, “I wasn’t talking about the dog.”
Lily folded her lips to contain the smile. She recognized the snit her friend was working himself into, and knew if she didn’t handle it carefully, there would be some very big groveling in her future. “Charles, I am so sorry. I wasn’t really laughing at you but at the situation. See, the puppy was so cute, scrabbling to get out, and—”
“Stop.” Charles held up a hand. “You were laughing at me. And then you didn’t even get up to help me.”
“I’d fallen,” she explained, eyes as wide and innocent looking as she could make them. She hoped they’d detract from her twitching lips. “When the mattress fell, it knocked me down, and I hit my head. And then I was sort of pinned and couldn’t get up.”
“Oh, you hit your head?” Charles gave her a look of exaggerated sympathy. “Poor baby.”
“Charles, you look like you could use a cool drink,” Nate interjected smoothly, and the only sign of his own mirth were his dancing eyes. “Would you like to come up to the house for a bottle of water, or maybe a strawberry smoothie?”
Charles favored Nate with a genuine smile. “Thank you, Nate, that’s very civilized of you. But I think I’m going to go home. I have a date to get ready for, and I have no desire to make myself late for it by helping out my ungrateful ex-friend here.”
He sniffed triumphantly at Lily’s alarmed expression. “Good luck getting the truck back by six,” he sneered, and turning on his heel with the precision of a five-star general, made his grand exit.
Lily found her voice and dashed to the open end of the truck just as Charles was getting into his car. “If it makes you feel any better, I think I cracked a rib laughing!” she shouted.
She grinned when he gave her a single finger salute then turned back with sigh. “That’s going to cost me.”
“Oh?” Nate asked, and Lily looked up with a grin.
“Oh yeah,” she said. “Charles is nothing if not high maintenance, and I’m sure at the very least I’ll be springing for an ‘I’m Sorry’ spa day.”
“Small price,” he drawled.
“You’re telling me,” she sighed. “I haven’t laughed like that since college when he fell over backward into the Jell-o wrestling pit.”
“What did that cost you?”
“Front row tickets to see Bette Midler.” She grinned when he laughed. “Thanks for trying to help. I thought you had him with the strawberry smoothie.”
“The situation seemed to call for drastic measures,” he told her.
“I appreciate the gesture, even though it didn’t do me much good.” She surveyed what was left in the truck to move. “I’m never going to get all of this moved in time to get the truck back.”
“I’ve got a free hour. Why don’t I give you a hand?”
“Oh, I couldn’t ask you to do that,” she protested, suddenly uncomfortable. “You must have work.”
“Free as a bird,” he said easily. He tilted his head. “Is there a reason you don’t want my help?”
Lily opened her mouth to protest, then shut it when the words wouldn’t come. She could feel her cheeks flush with embarrassment. “No, of course not,” she finally managed, bravely meeting his knowing look with her own.
He grinned, and Lily could swear he knew how uncomfortable he was making her. What’s more, she’d swear he liked it. “Well then, let’s get started.” He picked up a box of books, hefting it in a way that made his biceps bulge and her mouth water, and headed out.
“Oh God,” she sighed. “It’s going to be a long afternoon.”
* * * * *
Though it was only an hour, to Lily it seemed as if it lasted all day. And though Nate was a perfect gentleman, it seemed as though everything he did was fraught with sexual innuendo. She chewed her lower lip as she remembered how awful it had been when they’d moved her bed into the apartment. She knew she’d been stiff and awkward, but she hadn’t been able to help it. And when he’d tested the newly in place mattress by pushing on it with both hands and commented, “Firm,” with a wink—well, her mouth had simply dried up and her brain had gone on hiatus. The fact that his T-shirt was clinging to his now slightly sweaty and straining biceps certainly hadn’t helped.
She felt her whole body flush as she remembered the way she’d stammered something about washing her hands and dashed out of the room as though her hair were on fire, and she groaned out loud.
“Something wrong?”
She looked up at the clerk who was preparing her paperwork for the rental truck with a weak smile. “No, nothing.”
She sighed, and because she couldn’t help herself, glanced out the window to where Nate waited for her in his truck. Why, oh why couldn’t she have said something clever, or responded with a wink of her own instead of dashing out? Despite her despair at her own klutzy behavior, her lips curved into a smile at the sight of Beau, his bulk wedged between the bucket seats so he could drape his big head over Nate’s shoulder.
“Cute dog.” The clerk passed over the credit slip and a pen, and sent Lily a wink. “Cuter guy.”
“Yeah.” Lily picked up the pen and scrawled her name.
“They yours?”
Lily looked up from her copy of the receipt. “Oh. No, not mine.”
The clerk snapped her gum. “Bummer.”
“Yeah.” Lily smothered another wistful sigh. “Thanks.”
She pushed out the door and into the parking lot, trying not to notice how both man and dog tracked her movements as she strode toward the truck.
Nate smiled at her as she climbed in. “All done?”
“Yep.” She pulled the door closed behind her and summoned up a smile, even though the air in the vehicle felt too close, too thin. “I really appreciate the help.”
“No problem,” he assured her, and started the truck.
“No, really.” She pulled her seat belt around her as they backed out of the lot. “I would’ve had to pay for another day’s rental without it, and I’m sure you had more important things you could’ve been doing.”
“Actually, I’m in between projects,” he told her. “So me and Beau were happy to help. Weren’t we, pal?”
Lily grinned as Beau whined and tried to climb over the center console and into Nate’s lap. Nate blocked him with a practiced elbow, obviously used to such tricks.
“And do you forgive me, Beau, for waking you up and scaring you?” She reached up to scratch him behind his big floppy ears and grinned when he closed his eyes and leaned into her, moaning in doggy ecstasy.
“In case you’re wondering, that means yes,” Nate said dryly.
She laughed. “I figured.” She gave his head a last scratch, drew a deep breath, and reached for courage. “Golly, I’m starving. Could you go for a pizza?”
“Now that you mention it.”
“If we order it now, by the time we get back and get cleaned up, it’ll probably be there.”
He braked for a stop light and grinned, that dimple winking at her and sending her pulse scrambling. “Your place or mine?”
“Mine,” she decided, and tried to ignore the frantic pounding of her heart. “You and Beau will be my first dinner guests.”
“Ah…I’m not sure you know what you’re getting into there. Beau’s not exactly fit for company when there’s food around.”
&n
bsp; “I don’t mind if you don’t,” she told him, and he grinned again.
“Then we’d be honored.”
“Great.” The smile she sent back showed only a little bit of nerves around the edges, and she reached for her cell phone. “What do you like on your pizza?”
Chapter Five
Twenty minutes later she was kicking herself as she scrambled around the apartment, naked and dripping with no idea where Charles had put the box with her bath towels.
“Why didn’t I look for the damn towels before I got in the shower?” she muttered as she pawed through the boxes in the kitchen. “Because I thought the jackass had put them in the bathroom, like I’d told him to.”
A quick glance at the clock on the stove had her abandoning the boxes and dashing to the bedroom. The pizza delivery boy would be here any minute, followed by Nate and the dog, and the last thing she needed was for all three of them to catch her in her birthday suit.
She dug a pair of yoga pants and a narrow-strapped tank top in summer sky-blue out of one of the bedroom boxes then dashed back to the bathroom to rub her hair dry as best she could with a hand towel. A little dollop of gel dragged through the damp curls and her hair was done. She slathered lotion on her arms and legs, smoothing the fragrant cream into the soft skin of her abdomen before tugging on her clothes over damp skin.
In the nick of time too, she realized as she heard the knock on the door. “Just a second,” she called, and concentrated on evening out her breathing as she went to let them in.
“Hi.” She smiled as she opened the door. “Wow, the pizza’s here already?”
Nate lifted the boxes as he stepped over the threshold, Beau on his heels. “I ran into Billy on the walk over.”
“Billy?” she asked, closing the door behind him.
“Billy Jensen,” he explained as he set the pizza boxes on the kitchen counter. He set a six-pack of beer beside them. “He delivers for Mama Gina’s.” He smiled at her, eyes twinkling. “I order from there on occasion.”
“On occasion?” she asked, and felt that funny little belly flip again as his dimples flashed.
“Billy will probably go to college on the delivery tips to this address,” he admitted. “Or backpacking across Europe, if he can talk his mother into it.”
“And would his mother be Mama Gina?” she asked as she dug in the box marked Kitchen, disposable for paper plates and napkins.
“The one and only. And let me just say, he has about as much of a chance of backpacking across Europe as Beau does of winning a Rhodes scholarship.”
Lily laughed. “I don’t know, Beau’s a pretty smart dog. He might be able to pull it off.”
They both looked at the dog, who was staring at the pizza boxes as if he could will the food into his mouth.
“Okay, maybe not,” Lily said.
“Are you sure you want him here while we eat?” Nate asked. “I warn you, he’ll beg. We can always put him outside.”
“Then I’d have to think about him sitting outside all alone, pining for company.” She shook her head. “Can’t do it.”
“Softie.”
“Guilty,” she agreed. “But that doesn’t mean I’m sharing my pizza.”
He laughed. “Good thing we got two.”
“Well, I couldn’t eat what you wanted.” She handed him a paper plate. “Kitchen sink pizza?”
“As in, everything but the kitchen sink,” he explained, and flipped up the top of the first box. He drew a deep breath. “Mmmmmm, smell that?”
“Yes, I do.”
He chuckled at the grimace on her face as he slid three slices onto his plate. “Hey, to each his own. Personally, I can’t eat that feta and spinach thing you ordered. Sounds more like a salad than pizza.”
“Oh, it’s wonderful,” she said, and dug two slices out of the other box.
“To each his own,” he repeated. “Want a beer?”
“Love one,” she said. “Since the kitchen table’s covered in boxes, I thought we’d eat in the living room.”
“Sounds great,” he said. “I’ve got the beer, you get the napkins.”
They gathered up provisions and headed for the seating area. She’d arranged her sofa to face the windows, the two club chairs at a right angle to form an L-shaped seating area, her square leather ottoman perched in the middle. Using her shins, she nudged it a little farther away from the sofa, giving herself enough room to sit cross legged on the floor so she could use the ottoman as a coffee table.
He mirrored her actions and settled onto the floor across from her. Beau, not to be left out, planted himself between them and, with a pitiful sigh, rested his face on the ottoman between their plates.
Lily snorted out a laugh. “God, have you ever seen such a pathetic face?”
“You should see him when I order Chinese,” Nate said. “He’s mad for moo shoo pork.”
“I’m a dumplings fan, myself,” she told him, and bit into a slice. “Oh, that’s good.”
“Mama makes a hell of a pie,” he agreed, and tucked into his own. He passed her a beer, and they ate for a moment in companionable silence.
When the first slice was gone and the edge taken off her hunger, she sat back. Girding herself with a sip of beer, she forced herself to jump into the conversational breach. “So tell me how long you’ve lived here.”
Nate wiped his fingers on a napkin before reaching for his own beer. “About four years.” He took a sip. “I moved here six years ago, but I wasn’t sure if I was going to stick around, so I spent the first couple years in an apartment. But it was tough to work there.”
“Why’s that?”
“Writing music isn’t just the notes on a page,” he explained. “A lot of what I’m working on these days is scores, for movies and television. So it’s layers of music for different instruments. And I need to hear how the notes sound on those instruments, so I tend to make a lot of noise when I work.” He grinned. “My neighbors, it turned out, weren’t that fond of the tuba.”
“No kidding,” she said dryly. He must have accurately read the look on her face, because he grinned.
“Don’t worry, nothing I’m working on now involves tubas.” He sat back and began absently scratching the dog’s head. “Anyway, by then I’d decided I liked this area enough to stick around, and I’d just gotten the beast here, so I figured it was time to look for a permanent place. This was the first house I saw, and I didn’t see any point in looking further.”
“It’s a great house,” she told him as she reached for more pizza.
“The only thing it didn’t have was a workspace,” he said. “I had all my instruments crammed into the den, I was tripping over drums and clarinets every day. So we converted the carriage house. Plenty of space, great acoustics.”
“And an extra apartment,” she reminded him. “But that came later, right? After the bet.”
He grinned. “Yeah, the bet.” He got up to get more pizza. “Want another slice?”
“Please.”
She waited until he’d brought back pizza for them both before asking, “Did you really do the work up here by yourself?”
“Most of it.” He chewed thoughtfully. “I brought in plumbers and electricians to handle that end of things. But my father was a cabinet maker, and one of my uncles is a general contractor. I grew up around wood, around building things. I wanted to see if I could still do it.”
“It’s really great,” she told him, and then with a sly grin, “It’s a long way from Boys Will Be Boys,” she said.
Nate tossed his head back and howled with laughter, and Beau took advantage of his distraction to snatch the pizza off his plate.
“How long have you been waiting to say that?” he asked, still chuckling.
“Not that long,” she told him. “I actually didn’t put it together, but when I told Bridget what your name was, she knew right away.”
“Bridget’s your old roommate?” he asked then blinked as he stared at his empty plate. “Where�
��s my pizza?”
“I must’ve eaten it by mistake.”
“Uh-huh.” He shot Beau a quelling look and rose to get another slice.
“So, what do you want to know?” he called from the kitchen.
“About what?” she asked, and fed her pizza crust to Beau.
“About Boys Will Be Boys.” He sat back down, fixed Beau with a look that had the dog dropping his head with a whimper, and bit into his new slice.
“Well, now that you mention it…” She leaned over the ottoman and lowered her voice to a conspirator’s whisper. “You didn’t write ‘Launched By Love’, did you?”
He grinned and leaned in. “No,” he whispered back, and winked. “But I thought it was really sexy to sing.”
Lily didn’t say anything. She couldn’t. They’d been having such an easy, low-key evening she’d relaxed, forgetting all about the butterflies that showed up in her belly whenever he smiled at her. Well, almost forgot. But they were back now, with jumping, jig-dancing frogs for company, and she suddenly realized how close they were.
He stayed there for a moment, mere inches away with those extraordinary eyes staring into hers. Breathing became an effort, and just when she thought he might make a move—Yes, please Yes God let him make a move—he eased back.
“What can I say, I was young.”
“We all were,” she managed, and took a swig of beer to cover her confusion and cool her suddenly warming-up libido.
“Thankfully, my musical ability has evolved since then,” he told her.
“Do you miss it?” she asked.
“What, fame and fortune?” He shrugged and sipped his beer. “It had its moments. I was young, it was all fun and girls and parties—”
“What girls?” she demanded, and he grinned again.
“Ah, ah,” he said, wagging his finger. “I never kiss and tell.”
“Spoilsport,” she teased, and he laughed.
“It was fun, but it got old after a while. You start to realize everything you’re missing. Simple things like going to football games, homecoming dances. Playing tricks on the math teacher or building a stink bomb in chemistry class. Stuff you can’t do because you’re on a tour bus eight months of the year, in the studio the other four, with no one but tutors and band mates for company. High school would’ve been a refreshing change.”
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