by Noelle Adams
The corner of his mouth turned up as he looked at her.
She suddenly realized she’d made a plan to seduce this man, and it hadn’t crossed her mind since he’d arrived. She’d been too busy thinking he was amazing to remember that she needed to attract him.
She’d always imagined being sexy meant being cool and sophisticated and bold—like Ginny who’d always been able to make men drool by nothing more than a flip of her hair. Carol, on the other hand, was always overflowing with her feelings, always getting too excited about things, always too sincerely earnest to be strategic.
Even now, as her mind raced, searching for something sexy to do or say, she could think of absolutely nothing. She was sitting on the floor, beaming at Patrick, still laughing a little.
His eyes were still resting on her face, looking for the moment like he liked what he saw, so maybe she wasn’t totally blowing it.
“Thank you,” she told him, unable to think of anything strategic so just saying what was on her mind.
“You’re welcome.”
“You didn’t have to waste your time helping me.”
“Helping you isn’t a waste.”
A shiver ran up and down her spine at the texture in his voice. “Remember when I was in tenth grade and you helped me with that stupid geometry game I couldn’t figure out.”
“Yeah. I remember.”
“You were always the only guy who would help me.”
Something changed on his expression, but she didn’t understand what it was. Some of the softness flickered out. “I’m sure that’s not true.”
“It was. Most guys just ignored me, and the ones who didn’t never seemed to… take me seriously. You always did.” She placed a hand on his arm, wanting to see that warm softness return to his face. “It’s always meant a lot to me.”
He glanced away, looking suddenly uncomfortable. “All I did was help with your homework when you asked.”
“And you think that was nothing to me?”
He cleared his throat.
He’d seemed to have retreated internally and she didn’t know why. She couldn’t help but be disappointed. She wanted him back the way he’d been a few minutes earlier—dry and clever and understated and sweet.
She sighed. “Anyway, thank you for your help making the boxes fit. Do you want something to eat? I’ve still got a couple of cupcakes left.”
He stood up, his expression relaxing, as if whatever had made him uncomfortable was over now. “Sure. Thanks.”
She got him coffee and a cupcake and sat with him at a table in the main room. They talked about work and about their friends and about what was happening in the world.
Carol enjoyed it. But she also missed the something special between them she’d felt on the floor of the storeroom. She’d wondered what had happened to make it disappear the way it had.
***
At nine o’clock on Saturday morning, Patrick was sitting at a table in Tea for Two with his laptop in front of him.
His friends all usually ended up at the shop on Saturday mornings, trickling in whenever they got up and out. Patrick lived in an apartment just a few blocks away, and he was an early riser by nature, so he was usually the first to arrive.
Except Carol, of course. Carol always came in before six so she could start baking.
She’d stuck her head out to say hello to him a while back, but she hadn’t lingered. Since none of his friends were here yet, Patrick was focused on his computer.
He was so absorbed in what he was doing that he didn’t even notice when Emma, Noah, and Ginny came in. They were actually sitting at the table with him when he was finally aware of their presence.
“Do you really work every hour of the day?” Ginny asked rather tartly.
Patrick did work a lot—more than any of his friends. He’d started his own IT company a few years ago, and it had taken off beyond all expectations. He carried his laptop with him everywhere, and in any spare minute, he worked on one project or another. He wasn’t working at the moment, but he also didn’t want the others to know what he was doing. So he just gave a slight sneer and didn’t answer.
Emma leaned over to look at his screen, a move that caused Patrick to act quickly. He was halfway through the profile he was completing and didn’t want to start over, so he couldn’t close the window completely. But he minimized it before she could see what he was doing.
Emma frowned at him. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing.”
“If you’re looking at porn at nine thirty on a Saturday morning, I’m going to be very squicked out.” That was Ginny again.
Patrick rolled his eyes. “If I wanted to look at porn, I wouldn’t do it in the middle of a tea shop.”
Ginny and Noah both laughed. They were siblings, and both had green eyes and the same smile. Emma, his own sister, wouldn’t be distracted from her curiosity however. She’d reached over to bring up the browser he’d minimized earlier.
“Hey, stop it.” He tried to swat her hand away. “Am I not allowed to have any privacy?”
“Not from us. You know that.” She stared at the screen to his laptop as the page registered in her mind. “You’re filling out a profile on a dating site?”
Patrick was a bit self-conscious as the three of them all looked at him. None of the others had needed to use a dating site to find someone. But he wasn’t like Ryan and Noah, who both had always had girls hanging all over them. Women didn’t usually go for Patrick, so he had to take some extra steps. “Yes,” he said, meeting his sister’s eyes. “I want to date again. Do you have a problem with that?”
He did want to date, but the need had become more pressing lately since his thoughts had been drifting in wrong directions more and more often.
“Of course not. But if you want to date, why not ask out girls you already know?”
“Like who exactly? I don’t know any available women. I work with three women, and one is my sister, and two are married. Where exactly are all these girls I’m supposed to ask out?”
He saw Ginny and Emma exchange a glance, and then Emma’s eyes strayed over to the door to the kitchen.
He stiffened his spine as he realized what they were thinking. “Don’t even start with that. Just because Noah and Ryan poached from their friends’ little sisters, doesn’t mean I’m going to do it too. If you’re having ridiculous fantasies of some silly triple wedding, you can forget about it. It’s never going to happen. And what kind of friends are you if you want poor Carol to get stuck with me, just to close this crazy loop you’ve got going?”
He hadn’t meant to say quite that much, but the hints and looks he’d caught over the past few months, ever since Ginny and Ryan had gotten together, leaving only him and Carol left of the six of them, had really bothered him.
As if sweet, gorgeous Carol would ever want someone like him.
A few days ago in the storeroom, he’d come to the unavoidable realization that, if he didn’t take some real steps to distract himself, he was going to act on the feelings he couldn’t help but have.
The others at the table looked a bit taken aback by his indignant retort, and Patrick suddenly wished he hadn’t said so much.
“What do you mean she’d get stuck with you?” Emma asked, her eyebrows drawing together in a clear sign of concern.
“Nothing,” he mumbled. “Just don’t you dare try to fix us up. Promise me you won’t do anything stupid like that.”
Emma hesitated but then met his eyes. “I promise I won’t do anything stupid.”
Patrick wasn’t particularly reassured at his sister’s words. He moved his laptop back in front of him and started typing again.
“What kind of woman are you looking for?” Ginny asked, clearly trying to sound casual and break the tension of the moment before.
“I don’t know. But I figure it’s worth a try.”
“What’s worth a try?” The voice surprised him since he’d been so focused on his computer he hadn’t s
een Carol come out from the kitchen.
She was flushed and tousled and had a dusting of flour on her neck. Her top was cut lower than usual, showing more cleavage than Patrick was comfortable with, and her reddish-brown hair was all falling out of a clip that wasn’t nearly up to the job of holding back so much thick hair. She always got hot and messy when she was baking, but the end result made her look like she’d just rolled out of bed after having some very good sex.
Patrick swallowed hard and looked away quickly.
He couldn’t let himself think about Carol and sex in the same moment.
That would be a huge mistake.
“Patrick is going to join a dating site,” Emma explained almost gently.
Patrick tried to keep looking at his screen, but he couldn’t resist a quick glance at Carol to see her reaction.
Her eyes were focused on him, but he couldn’t read her expression. He wondered if she thought he was a loser who couldn’t find a date any other way. He’d had a girlfriend for a year in high school and another girlfriend all through college. Then he’d dated a woman a couple of years ago for almost a year. That was it—his whole history with women.
Three of them.
“Oh,” Carol said.
“It’s not that strange,” Patrick mumbled, wishing he’d managed to keep this a secret from his friends. “People do it all the time.”
“Of course they do,” Emma said quickly. “It’s not strange at all. We just didn’t know you were looking for someone.”
“Well, I wasn’t before. But I’ve been thinking about it. The rest of you are all hooking up.”
“I’m not,” Carol said. “I haven’t had a date in ages.”
“Maybe you should do the dating site too, Carol,” Ginny suggested. “That might be fun.”
Patrick didn’t like the idea of Carol joining the dating site. Who knew how many creeps she’d get paired up with. He could hardly say such a thing however.
“Maybe I will,” she murmured. Then she got up from the table. “The cinnamon rolls are running low. I’ve got to go make some more.”
Patrick watched as she left until his eyes drifted down to the lush curve of her hips. Then he wised up and looked away.
Something had seemed off about her, but he didn’t know what it was.
He hoped she hadn’t been serious about the dating site. He could just imagine how annoying it would be to see her hooking up with a bunch of assholes, none of whom would come close to deserving her.
***
Ten minutes later, Carol was rolling out dough in the kitchen, trying not to think about Patrick dating someone else.
He hadn’t seemed interested in dating for a while. He was always so focused on work, and he wasn’t the kind of guy who had casual flings, which most of the sites these days seem to be set up for.
If he started dating someone at this point, he’d probably end up marrying her.
The idea made Carol want to cry.
“Hey,” Ginny said, suddenly beside her. “Are you all right?”
Carol blinked, still rolling dough as if her life depended on it. “Of course.”
“He’s just joining the site. It doesn’t mean he’s going to be dating someone else.”
“He probably will be though.”
“But it won’t necessarily mean anything.”
“I know. It’s not a big deal. I always knew he didn’t think about me that way.”
“Maybe it’s a good thing that he’s starting to think about having a serious relationship. At least we know he’s thinking in that direction.”
Carol forced a smile. “Sure.”
“Damn it,” Ginny muttered, clearly seeing that Carol was upset. “Why does he have to be so clueless?”
Carol couldn’t help but chuckle. “He wouldn’t be Patrick if he weren’t completely clueless.”
Laughing too, Ginny said, “Well, I don’t think it’s hopeless.”
“Oh, I know it’s not hopeless. I’m not giving up. It’s a roadblock but not an insurmountable one. I still want to go through with our plan. Clueless or not, I’m going to seduce him if it’s the last thing I do.”
Ginny squeezed her arm. “Good girl.” Then she leaned in and whispered conspiratorially, “Just don’t tell Emma you used the word seduce.”
Two
Despite the fact that she had brought Emma and Ginny into the conversation, Carol’s plans to attract Patrick were still rather sketchy the following weekend.
Her friends had coached her on how to dress and what to say to Patrick, but he spent most of the time working, and the rest of the time, he was hanging out with all of them as a group.
So after a week of nothing, her seduction plans had boiled down to trying to get Patrick alone.
It wasn’t as easy as it sounded.
Patrick didn’t pick up on hints—any hints. And he wasn’t afraid to object if he was pushed into something he didn’t want to do. If he didn’t want to spend time alone with Carol, then there was nothing she could do to make it happen.
It had been far easier when she’d been trying to give Ginny and Ryan some alone time a few months ago. Ryan was laid-back and good-natured and never dug in his heels like Patrick. It had been easy as pie for Carol to maneuver opportunities for Ginny to spend some time with Ryan on their own.
She might as well be trying to seduce a lamppost, for all the opportunities she was getting to be alone with Patrick.
The following Saturday, Carol was starting to get frustrated.
They were all helping Nan—Noah and Ginny’s grandmother—move out of her house and into an in-law suite in Noah’s house. Carol was trying to remain optimistic, and she’d spent a lot of time following Ginny’s advice on makeup and outfit. But Patrick, working on his laptop on the kitchen table while they waited for Noah and Ryan to arrive with the truck, didn’t even appear aware that she was in the room.
“You look very pretty today, dear,” Nan said, coming over to stand beside where Carol was leaning against the kitchen counter.
Carol smiled, genuinely pleased by the compliment. “Thank you. How are you feeling about everything?”
It had been a very hard decision for Nan to move out of the house she’d lived in most of her life. But Ginny was engaged to Ryan and moving in with him, and so there was no longer anyone who could live with Nan in the house. Noah had been willing to pay for a live-in caretaker, but Nan wouldn’t allow him to “waste” that money when she could easily move in with him.
“I’m sad,” Nan admitted. “I love this house.”
Carol reached out to put a hand on Nan’s shoulder. She’d known Nan since she’d been ten, and she loved her almost as much as her own grandparents. Her throat was a little tight as she said, “I know you do. I’m really sorry.”
Nan shook her head. “Don’t be sorry. I’m blessed to have grandchildren like Noah and Ginny who want to help me out. Her children rise up and call her blessed.”
Carol realized from the shift in tone that the last sentence must be a verse from the Bible, which Nan was in the habit of quoting in nearly every conversation. She smiled and leaned over to kiss Nan on the cheek. “Well, your grandchildren certainly rise up and call you blessed. And your grandchildren’s friends too.”
When she pulled back, there were tears in Nan’s eyes, even as she was smiling. “Thank you.”
Carol had always been emotional and cried easily, so she was a little teary herself as she glanced away. She didn’t intend to look over at Patrick, but her eyes landed on him anyway. He’d looked up from his laptop and was watching her—probably just accidentally—so their eyes met for just a moment.
Carol looked away quickly, strangely embarrassed by his catching her so emotional over something so little. She quickly swiped away a tear that had beaded on the corner of her eyelashes.
Nan was about to say something, but Noah and Ryan came into the house just then, breaking up the conversation. The room broke into a flutter of activity an
d chatter, but for some reason there was a break in conversation just as Ryan came over to where she was standing and said, with his typical brotherly bluntness, “What are you so dressed up for?”
Washed with a wave of self-consciousness since she knew Patrick had heard him, she scowled at her brother and said, “I’m not dressed up. What are you talking about?”
She wasn’t dressed up. She was wearing a pair of jeans, a tank top, and an oversized button-up shirt over it. It was a perfectly normal outfit for the context. But she knew Ryan had probably noticed that she’d taken care with her makeup and hair, trying to convey the pretty, natural look that Ginny and Emma had mastered and that she never could quite achieve.
She didn’t want it broadcast to the whole room though.
Ginny gave Ryan a discreet elbow in the side to shut him up.
“Ouch,” Ryan said loudly, clearly not taking the hint as he looked indignantly at his fiancée who had waged an unprovoked attack on his person. “What was that for?”
Carol’s cheeks were flaming, but she took comfort in the fact that Patrick seemed completely unaware of any undercurrents. He was focused on his laptop again. He took the damned thing everywhere.
“Let’s get going, folks,” Noah said loudly, taking charge as he did by nature. “I don’t want to still be doing this at midnight.”
After that, Carol didn’t have any time to think about attracting Patrick since they were all carrying boxes and furniture.
They didn’t have to move the whole house. Nan was just bringing over the things she wanted to keep and that would fit into her rooms in Noah’s house. The rest of the stuff would later be thrown away or given away.
Even so, it was a lot of hauling as they filled up the small rental truck.
At one point, when Carol had just carried a box of books to hand to Ryan, who was packing the truck, Ginny caught up with her. With a quick smile, Ginny unbuttoned the two buttons that were holding Carol’s shirt closed.