What if I just kissed Todd? What if he said yes and we just kept it casual? What if I got used to this? What if he changed his mind and was all in? And so the game continued.
She heard the front door slam, and then again in quick succession. She got up from painting Livi’s fingernails a shade of iridescent pink and saw Zach run past.
“Whoa, Zach, are you okay?”
“Yep. All good!”
“Did something happen, buddy?”
“I thought so, but no.” He shook his head at her.
“I don’t know what that means.” She stood with her hands on her hips.
“I needed to talk to Todd.”
“Honey, you can’t just race over there and talk to him whenever you like.”
“He was out the front.”
“That doesn’t make it okay.”
“I’m back now.” She knew he wasn’t getting it.
“So I see. Next time you come back, don’t slam the door, and we will discuss when we can and can’t bug Todd later.”
“I’m not bugging him. He’s my friend.”
She let a little sigh. “Yeah, I’ll go check with him about that.”
“Maybe you’re the one bugging him, then,” Zach replied.
“Don’t be a smarty-pants.”
She went in and checked on Livi. He nails were sparkly and her dolls were getting new outfits. “I’ll be outside.”
“Okay, Mama.” She bent in and kissed her sweet head.
“If you need me, call Zach or use the ramp.”
“I know.”
Sarah smoothed her hair down and headed out the front door expecting to see Todd alone on his lawn, but there he was sitting on the porch chatting with Marissa. Hadn’t he said he was coming back over? Obviously, Marissa was more important.
She stopped and took a measure of her emotions. Jealous, yeah a little, they were laughing like they were intimate, which they were in that they were old friends. Anger, he said he’d be back and he hadn’t come back. What was that about? Disappointment, the truth was she had wanted him to come right back and he hadn’t. There was something else, too, she realized, another feeling and it was a realization that what she felt for Todd was more than friendship. It was a kind of longing. She was allowing herself to want him in ways that he’d already made clear were off-limits. None of this was his fault, he’d been nothing but honest.
He saw her and waved. A large smile crossing his face. She was miffed at a man who hadn’t really done anything wrong except sit down and talk to his best friend. She had no claim on Todd at all.
Marissa called out and asked her to join them. “I have extras.”
She couldn’t refuse without seeming ridiculous. That’s what she was, ridiculous.
Todd was a friend. He was a neighbor. He was a friend of her late aunt who was helping her. He liked her, and though she hated to admit it, he probably pitied her a little.
The lust, the little sparks between them, that was nothing and she needed to accept that it was all one-sided. She needed friends and a community that welcomed her far more than she needed to flirt with Todd.
She crossed over and took a beer with a smile.
“Sorry about Patty today.” Sarah’s eyebrows shot up in a question. “Moose told me. Don’t worry about her. She stole Jacob out from our friend Lucy while they were dating. She thinks everyone has her low moral code.”
“Ironic considering how high and mighty she acts,” Todd said.
“It’s nothing,” Sarah said, sipping her beer.
“It’s not nothing.”
“Okay, well, there’s nothing to be done about it, though.”
“That’s true.” She looked at Todd who was fresh from the shower and clean shaven. He looked too good.
“Good luck with Mike tomorrow. I hope it goes well for you,” Marissa said, polishing off her drink and standing to leave.
“Going so soon?” Todd asked, and Sarah saw his face fall.
“Yeah, sorry, Todd, but we’ll hang on the weekend. I promise.”
“Yeah. Yeah.” He waved her off. “You say these things to me . . .”
“You know I love you,” she said as she reached her car.
“Right back at you,” he yelled before she climbed in, rolled down the window, and said, “See you, Sarah.”
“Yeah, see you.” She wanted Todd to love her. It was ridiculous, but it was what she wanted.
“So, what time’s the interview?” was all he said. Oh well, she’d have to take what she could get.
“Ten.”
“You’ll be fine.”
“Sorry if Zach’s bugging you too much,” she said, rubbing a river of condensation that ran down the side of her drink with her finger.
“He’s not. I’m looking forward to hanging with him and Livi tomorrow.”
She stood to go. He’s already done so much for her, he’d given her so much, and the fact he couldn’t give her his heart wasn’t his fault.
“I’m so grateful.”
He waved his hand in a “don’t worry about it” gesture. “Just get the job, then be grateful for that instead.”
He was right, if she had a job she’d be more independent and that’s exactly what she needed to be. Her energy should be going in to looking after her family not mooning after Todd.
“I’ll try. I better get back to the kids. Thanks again.”
“No problem. Have a good night.”
When she looked out hours later, he was still sitting there, alone in the dark. What she wouldn’t give to know what he was thinking about.
Chapter 8
Todd had been somewhat deluded in his notion that he’d be able to work and mind the kids. He knew he couldn’t work in the tree house, but he had brought his laptop to a spare room in the house. The problem wasn’t the kids. In fact, they were great. It was just that he could hear their excited squeals as they mastered the games on his system and groans when one of them crashed and burned. The truth was he designed games that kids played, but now that they had a company, his team ran focus groups and tested everything out over in Napa. He’d been to several of these, but he realized he hadn’t been lately and watching kids play in a sterile office wasn’t the same as them at home.
Zach was literally jumping all over, and Livi who they’d set up in a big bean bag, was rolling in that laughing her head off. On the one hand, he was thrilled that they loved the games so much, and on the other, he hated missing out.
He wasn’t a gamer for nothing. He loved games.
He clocked off his conference call and raced in to check on them.
“This is awesome, Todd.”
“How come you got all these kid games?” Livi asked.
“A friend gave them to me,” he said, sitting down on the floor next to her, picking up a spare controller. “Hey, you got a good score.”
“Thanks.” She rewarded him with a shy smile.
“I’m winning!” Zach told him. He was blitzing it. When he crashed out, they all started to play together, which meant Zach had some real competition and Livi managed to gain some ground.
That’s how Sarah found them when she returned. All on the floor, laughing and racing toward a finish line. In fact, they were so engrossed no one even heard her come in. He looked up to see her leaning on the door frame with an amused smile on her face.
“Working hard, Mr. Kowalski?”
“Very.” He returned his eyes to the screen. “How’d you go?”
“Well, actually.” He flicked his eyes her way and saw she was smiling.
“Good for you.” He crashed out on purpose, and the kids moaned. “You play without me.”
“It’s more fun with you.” Livi pouted.
“True.” He gave her a pat on the arm as he got up. “I am super fun, but I need to talk to your mom for a minute.”
He grabbed her hand and pulled her into the kitchen. The kids had been so touchy feely all morning he’d forgotten touching their mother was a bad
idea. He dropped her hand and leaned against the counter. He hoped he was subtle, but he doubted it. “So?”
“So he said I can start next week and do a trial, see how I fit.”
“That’s great.”
His phone buzzed in his pocket. Mike.
I might have told Sarah about weekend at cabin. Thought you would have invited her. Sorry if that’s awkward.
He sighed.
“Something wrong?”
“No . . . not really.”
“So, are you pleased?”
She gave him a big smile and collapsed in a chair. “Yes, and relieved.”
“Good. Appraiser says he can sell Big Blue in a heartbeat, so it’s all coming together for you.”
“I guess so.” She bit her bottom lip. Something was bothering her still. He hoped it wasn’t the weekend at the cabin. He hadn’t left her out on purpose. Okay, maybe he had. But they had made the plan long before she came to town and he was under no obligation to include her.
The truth was he had thought about inviting her, but he was already knee-deep in this mess fighting an attraction that wouldn’t quit so he’d made a decision to not invite her and now Mike had stuffed it up. It was his house, not Mike’s. He didn’t get to decide who came and stayed. He wasn’t sure if he was more annoyed at Mike or himself. Both probably.
She was still chewing on her lip, and the kids were laughing their heads off.
“They love that game,” he said, searching for something.
“Yeah, thanks for having them. I’m really grateful for everything.”
“You don’t need to be grateful. One thing you need to know about me is I don’t do much I don’t want to do, Sarah.”
“Yeah, you’re lucky, my life is made up of a great many tasks I don’t want to do.” She sighed.
“Do you not want the job?” She shouldn’t have said that. It sounded bitter and ungrateful. As if she didn’t love her kids, which wasn’t true at all, not one bit.
“No, I do.” She gave him an odd look. “I need a job, and also I need to be with adults. Since the accident, I’ve spent my time with medical people or kids, that’s it . . . I need to use my brain for other things and have conversations that don’t revolve around myself and my children.”
“That makes sense.” He stood up and went to pour a couple of cups of coffee.
“I wasn’t meaning to complain at all. It’s just as you say. You do what you want and worry about yourself and I seem to do nothing but think about others.” She paused. “Do you have family, apart from Mike?”
“Our mom moved to Florida. She remarried, again, while we were at college, packed up, and moved away.”
Again? “How many times was she married?”
“This one is our third stepfather. Dad died when I was ten.”
“Ah. It’s hard losing a parent that young.” She took the coffee from him. Not that she really needed more coffee. He knew how she liked it now, which was sweet.
“Yeah. It’s harder when your parent tries to replace him with an inferior specimen. You were an adult when your parents died?” He took a sip of his coffee. Well, that explained his aversion to having a family right there. His own experience of family had been inadequate.
She was pretty sure he knew the story of her parents’ death already.
“Yeah, they were shot. Wrong place, wrong time. It was ironic and sad, a drug addict shot them when they’d spent their whole lives as drug counselors.”
“Absolutely. My dad had a heart attack; he was only in his early forties. Dropped dead on the front lawn. Not a great day. Anyway, I visit my mother every so often, but she’s happy enough and if she misses us she does an excellent job of hiding it.” He placed his mug down a little too loudly on the table. Not a slam exactly. “Anyway, Mike and I have each other and friends, and now Mike has Marissa.” It explained why his friends were so important to him. And why he missed her aunt so much.
“Which leaves you very unencumbered.”
He wasn’t exactly alone, but he was very free. “Yep. Just the way I like it.”
She had a feeling he was making a point. “And you work by yourself, too.”
“Not exactly alone, but I work from home. I go to the west coast office a bit. I’m going next week for example, and I go to conferences and workshops, but yeah, I’m alone a bit. I like it. I’m a solitary animal.”
One with a lot of animal magnetism, she noted. The kids let out a whoop from the other room. “Someone won something. That might be our cue to leave.”
“No rush.”
“Do you ever work?” she asked. “What is your job?”
“I’m a designer . . .”
“Of?”
“Well, several things. I do graphic design for most of the businesses in town.”
“And?”
“And I design some apps as well.”
“Like for computers?”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “That kind of thing.”
Then, he stood and headed in to get the kids together. He hadn’t been evasive but that wasn’t exactly the most elaborate response.
“Okay, kids.”
“Awwwwwwwwwww.” Zach let out a groan.
“If you want me to take you to do some batting practice this afternoon, I need to do some work now. Sorry.”
Sarah could see he was conflicted. He clearly enjoyed the gaming system, but he really wanted to make that team. “Okay.”
Ten minutes later, they were home again and she was left with more questions than answers about Todd. She liked him a lot, maybe too much. Perhaps he saw in her his own mother and that was a problem for him. She could see that. Though in her own defense, she had always been fiercely independent.
She had to admit it had smarted when Mike had mentioned the weekend at the lake and she hadn’t been invited. Maybe it just felt like this friendship was more than it was because of proximity and because she didn’t have anyone else much. The truth was she shouldn’t expect to be included. She knew that.
That didn’t mean she didn’t want to be. And as much as she tried to stop herself, she wanted to think Todd wanted her around, not because he was being neighborly either but because he genuinely liked her. She had thought he did, until today, but now she really had no idea what was going on.
Todd was up in the tree house when he heard the familiar fall of steps on the staircase. Mike. Todd knew the sound of his brother’s walk like his own. It was part of the soundtrack to his life, like birdsong or rainfall or the garage truck coming on Tuesday morning.
He swiveled in his chair and saw his brother there. Like looking in a mirror and yet not. They were identical of course, but Todd always felt Mike had a slightly stiffer quality. He usually wore a checked shirt and a chino midweek. His brother’s hair a little neater than his own and his words a little more carefully chosen.
Having a twin was a strange thing. They were identical, and yet unlike a lot of twins, they were quite different. They hadn’t really discovered that until they’d moved away to college. Todd heading off to Caltech and Mike to NYU. They’d chosen different majors, spent their time with very different types of people, and given the chance, they’d also developed different hobbies. It had certainly been strange at first. To be so separated from someone you’d spent every day of your life with but they’d agreed on that decision and neither of them had any regrets. Still, they’d both gravitated home after college, back toward each other.
“Hey,” Mike said, taking a seat. “Sorry if I screwed things up. I just assumed . . .”
“Yeah, you know what they say.”
“So, we’re now both asses.” Mike shrugged. “Business as usual then.”
“She didn’t mention it when she came past.”
“Well, how do you say anything without seeming like a petulant teen who wasn’t invited to the dance?”
“It isn’t quite like that. This was a long-standing thing. I’ve only known her a couple of weeks.”
“I kn
ow that but she doesn’t.”
Todd leaned forward resting his elbows on his knees. “If I say that, I sound like a dick.”
“Just invite her.”
“Then it looks like an afterthought.”
“It is an afterthought, Todd.” Why did everything have to be so complicated?
“I bought you a sub.” His brother threw the sandwich at him. “Meatball, your favorite.”
“Thanks.” They sat in amicable silence eating their sandwiches for a few minutes.
“She interviewed fine?”
“Yeah, she pretty much ran the dance studio, did their accounts, bookings, and all that. She’s overqualified, but I’ll be flexible with the hours, so I think it’ll be a good start for her here in town. You deal with a lot of people at the paper; it is a great way to get your bearings.”
“Sure.”
Mike looked at him with an expression he couldn’t quite read. “So you like this one, huh? I mean on a more than platonic level.”
He generally didn’t lie to his brother. There just wasn’t much point. “Yeah, but I’m not going there.”
“Because of the kids.”
“And because she’s my neighbor. It would get messy fast when I wanted out.”
“You might not want out.” His brother took the final bite of his sub, screwed up the wrapper, and tossed it through the basketball hoop over the bin. “Score!”
“I would want out. Maybe not for a while, it would be very convenient, but that’s exactly why it is a bad idea.”
“I don’t think it’s the convenience you’re attracted to, bro.”
It wasn’t. He knew that. The convenience in this case was a massive inconvenience. If she even lived across town he was pretty sure he would have given in to her no strings attached offer the other day, but this was too hard. It was already weird now and nothing was happening.
“Anyway, it is not going to happen.”
“I’m not going to tell you what to do because I know you’re committed to your commitment-free life, but maybe you might want to at least consider letting yourself be happy.”
“You’re an expert now?” he growled.
“No. But I am happy because I took a chance.”
“You’re happy because Marissa was a love-struck fool who waited ten years for you.”
Any Way You Build It: An Upper Crust Novel, Book 6 (Upper Crust Series) Page 11