by Nicole Helm
“Jacob, I don’t know why you think I’m trying to hurt your feelings by being worried about you and Leah. I’m not saying you’re a jerk. I’m only saying Leah looks at you a certain wa—”
“Just don’t.” And he walked away. Because if he didn’t, he’d get angry, or worse, he’d want to know all the ways Leah looked at him. He’d had enough angry this year, and he had no business thinking about his friend that way.
Not when Grace was right. For whatever reason, despite his best efforts, he couldn’t make relationships work. And having something not work with Leah was never going to be an option.
CHAPTER SIX
LEAH DECIDED TO skip working on rewiring for the morning and focus on errands. Errands that could plausibly wait until, oh, say, next year, but she wasn’t going to let herself dwell on that.
Because, yes, of course she was avoiding Jacob after last night. What the hell else would she be doing?
Leah sighed heavily and glanced at the stoplight. It was getting close to lunchtime. Usually when she was doing errands downtown around lunch and Grace was working, she’d text her and see if she could take a lunch break.
Leah didn’t feel much like seeing Grace right now, either. Or Kelly or Susan, the rest of her MC family who would be back at the big house with Jacob, Susan doing her administrative duties or Kelly working on the interior design of the Council Bluffs project.
If she went back to MC and talked to them, she’d be tempted to tell them about Jacob kissing her and hell to the no.
She didn’t know why she kept saying it like that. He hadn’t really kissed her. Okay, he had, but it was his let’s-get-the-weirdness-out-of-our-system plan. Because if it was a real kiss you didn’t say, “Now that’s out of the way” directly after as if it was some dreaded chore you’d finally crossed off your list.
But damn. Damn. Damn. Damn. Quick. Surprising. Completely out of left field, and she still couldn’t stop playing it over and over in her head. She hadn’t even reacted in the moment. She could not read anything into it.
But that was exactly what her idiotic mind was doing.
The play of shadows. The contrast of cold air around her, except where he’d touched his mouth to hers.
Aw, crap, this was trouble.
Maybe what she really needed to do was plan a breakup. It was still a lie, but she wouldn’t have to do this stuff.
Of course, then her mother would hover. Ask if she was okay. Start hinting Leah should move back to Minnesota so someone could watch after her. Just in case.
Just in case.
As an adult she could find more understanding in her mother’s smothering. As a teenager it just felt like an affront, but now she could see it through the lens of a mother desperately worried about her daughter’s health. A legitimate worry considering.
Leah wanted to be able to let that understanding make her easy with it. Accept it without having to make up a boyfriend. Maybe even accept it enough that the thought of moving back to Minnesota didn’t make her throat close up with anxiety.
But she lacked whatever decency would allow that.
She needed her space, her autonomy. She’d never be considered 100 percent healthy, but she was the healthiest she’d ever been. She managed her allergies and her asthma, except for when she was cleaning the other night. She took her medication, only occasionally indulged in alcohol. Ate rightish. Exercised more often than not.
It had to mean something. Not just that she could take care of herself, but that she wanted to. Needed to in order to be happy.
Leah drove back to MC with a heavy weight in her chest. It was strange that this impending visit from her family could twist her up in knots, push all those old insecurities and suffocating feelings to the forefront when all she wanted was the family that had caused those feelings.
She wanted Mom to send her care packages with homemade nut-free cookies. She wanted to talk with Dad over a car engine. She wanted to tease her big brother about being as straight as an arrow stick in the mud.
She’d lost all that in the self-destructive years. The support, the comfort, the family. She didn’t want their suffocating ways of showing they loved her, but she did want their love.
Maybe it was too much to ask for. Maybe she simply wasn’t cut out for it.
She groaned into the silence of her truck cab. Once she pushed it into Park, she rested her head on the steering wheel.
She was not going down the self-pity hole. If the past seven years had shown her anything, it was that she was capable of building the life she wanted. So, all she had to do was keep working at it.
And if that meant things getting momentarily weird with Jacob, well, she’d survive it. She’d survived a lot more than some weird inappropriate crush and a fake relationship.
On a deep breath and determined shoulder straightening, she stepped out of her truck and walked into the back entrance of MC.
Voices drifted through the mudroom from the kitchen.
“You’re so good with babies, Jacob.”
Leah stepped into the kitchen and immediately wished she’d gone to her work shed instead. Because Jacob standing in the middle of the kitchen holding Kelly and Susan’s one-month-old girl was just... Was this some kind of karmic punishment for lying to her parents?
But of course, there he was, holding a freaking adorable baby on his hip. Might as well have a puppy lying at his feet and dinner he made on the stove. While doing the ironing.
Well, not with the baby nearby.
Get a grip, you lunatic.
“Hey, you didn’t tell me it was a baby day. I would have put off errands.” Probably not, but she was happy for her friends. Adopting little Presleigh had been something the pair had been working toward for a long time.
And here they were, a pretty little family. She’d focus on that instead of Jacob cooing at a baby. Because, really, karma was a bitch.
“You want a turn to hold her?” Kelly asked.
“Oh, she’s going to need to firm up a bit before you let me near her.”
Susan rolled her eyes, but smiled.
God, babies made her uncomfortable. All that love and need and...expectation. She’d done a pretty good job of hiding that fact from Kelly and Susan, using humor to mask her discomfort. Lack of experience to excuse holding or interacting too much with the gorgeous bundle of blankets.
“How can you be afraid of babies?” Jacob demanded, smiling broadly at Presleigh.
Leah was pretty sure this was killing her. “I’m not afraid. They’re just all soft and...bobbly. I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“It’s easy.”
“Oh, don’t push her. It is something to get used to if you haven’t been around babies much. I think it took me a week to stop shaking every time I picked her up.” Kelly gave Leah a reassuring smile.
Presleigh fussed and Jacob easily maneuvered her onto his shoulder, crooning soothing words and patting her back.
Leah was pretty sure her ovaries exploded.
And then the baby spit up a bunch of white curdly goo down Jacob’s shoulder and back. Ick. Ovaries back in place.
“Well, that is unpleasant,” Jacob said, though his tone was amused rather than upset. He handed the baby off to Susan, grabbed a rag out of a drawer and tried to wipe off the offensive fluids.
“Give me a hand here, huh?”
Aw, crap, he meant her. Leah crossed to him and took the rag and gingerly wiped at the spot on Jacob’s back. He glanced over his shoulder at her, and for the love of God, why was she blushing at that? Because you are loony tunes, Santino.
“There,” she muttered, handing the rag back to him, avoiding all eye contact.
Jacob’s phone dinged. “Conference call,” he said, and since she refused to look at him she had no idea if he
was looking at her or what. And then he left, thank God. Her whole body relaxed, until she turned to face Kelly and Susan.
Susan stood next to a sitting Kelly, who was now bouncing the baby on her lap, but all three of them were staring at her, heads cocked in identical scrutiny. Okay, not the baby, but Leah wouldn’t put it past the itty-bitty creature with big blue eyes to be scrutinizing, too.
“So...” Kelly offered.
“So what?” Leah crossed her arms defensively.
“Did you guys sleep together or something?”
“What?” Leah screeched.
“That was weird. Like...sex weird.”
“No, it wasn’t. We did not have sex, and we’re not going to have sex, you nut jobs. I just...asked him a kind of weird favor and we’re still working everything out.”
“Was the favor sex?”
“Good Lord. Do you have sex on the brain? And should you even be talking about sex around your baby? Isn’t that kind of wrong?”
Kelly shrugged. “Maybe.”
“He’s...just going to pretend to be my boyfriend while my family is here. It’s nothing. Except a little weird. But definitely not sex weird.”
Kelly and Susan exchanged a look and Leah groaned. “Save me your married looks and your disbelief. It’s just...it’s just...”
Kelly and Susan waited expectantly, but Leah didn’t even know what she was arguing at this point. She was flustered and embarrassed and about two seconds away from confessing the weird pseudokiss last night. Because these were her friends and usually she confided in them about all manner of man stuff, but this was all wrapped up in stuff she told nobody.
Besides, if she confessed the fake kiss, then they’d really think this was about sex. “It’s nothing. I have work to do.” She stomped off and repeated those seven words over and over in her head, hoping desperately that they were true.
* * *
LEAH WASN’T GOING to like it, but Jacob was used to doing things Leah didn’t like. And, okay, maybe he got a little thrill out of riling her up. Maybe.
He stood on her porch trying to ignore the prick of conscience. This was a little bit of a line cross, especially considering he’d kissed her last night. And she had acted incredibly uncomfortable around him all day.
He supposed that should bother him. But it didn’t. Not in the way it should. He didn’t feel bad or want to get rid of it.
He wanted to explore it. He wondered, way too much in the span of twenty-four hours, What exactly might be the harm? Aside from screwing everything up, remember?
He was having a hell of a time remembering.
He knocked on Leah’s door. Kyle’s and Grace’s disapproving faces annoyingly popped into his mind, but he pushed them away. He wasn’t a complete and utter moron. He could keep his hands to himself.
He could also not keep his hands to himself without ruining everything.
Okay, if history served, that wasn’t true at all, but he’d never exactly gotten handsy with someone he’d been friends with first before.
And when you were a twenty-eight-year-old man using the word handsy in your internal monologue, you really, really needed to get a grip.
“What are you doing here?” Leah demanded, not even opening the door the entire way. In fact, she seemed to be using it as somewhat of a shield.
Jacob held up his toolbox. “We have work to do.”
“I told you—”
“And you really thought I’d let that stand in my way?” He shifted from foot to foot. “I’m freezing very important bits off here. Please let me in.”
She cursed and grumbled, but the door swung open and he stepped into the warmth of her cluttered entryway. She was wearing an oversize sweatshirt, baggy sweatpants and her hair was a haphazard mess on her head.
He made himself look at her face instead of the freckled shoulder exposed by the too-big neckline of her sweatshirt.
“You know Friday is only three days away, right?”
She glared at him. “Cleanliness isn’t my strong suit. I get it. I’m trying to work on it, but—”
“But it’s impossible to put your shoes where they belong?”
“But I like doing things my way. Which is why I don’t want you butting in on that third room.”
“I can’t take it. It’s eating me alive. Just sitting there in disrepair. Let me. Please.” He grinned at her because he knew at least this was their common ground. House stuff. Restoration. They could disagree about everything but this passion they shared.
Do not think about the word passion.
She pressed her lips together in the way she did when she was trying not to smile. Some days he tried to poke out the smile as much as he tried to get under her skin.
“It is hard to say no when you say please.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” He didn’t exactly mean for that to sound suggestive; it just came out that way. She turned away and he wondered if she was blushing. Like this afternoon when she’d wiped baby spit-up off his back. That was a weird moment. Weird in its domesticity and proximity and everything.
Christ, what are you doing?
He was going to do a little restoration work, that was what he was doing. He nodded, following Leah to her extra room. He’d lose himself in measuring and planning and he wouldn’t think about Leah that way and if he did...
Grace’s words niggled at him. Be careful with her. I don’t want to see her get hurt.
Aaaand now he felt vaguely sleazy even if he did consider Grace’s admonitions ridiculous.
He needed to start dating again. All this alone time really screwed with his mind.
“Ah, my precious.” He set his toolbox down, immediately going for the measuring tape and notebook he’d jotted notes down in the other day. “How can you stand it?”
“The same way I stand a lot of things. Willful ignorance,” she muttered. Then she glanced around the room. “We have four days. What can we do?”
“I don’t have any pressing business this week. I can get the floor done tomorrow.”
“Too much damage to get it done in one day even if I help you. Besides, I don’t have the money for this.”
“Well...”
“No.”
He hated the way she shut him down before he even suggested anything. She was always doing that. As if she could read his mind. Except, obviously she couldn’t or they would be doing a lot more interesting things than talking about money and floors.
Or maybe she was just being sensible. Which was also quintessentially Leah.
“A loan.”
“You already sign off on my paycheck, asshole. You’re not giving me money.”
“Asshole? Seriously? Calling the man who signs your checks ‘asshole’ seems like a bad move.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Oh, you are giving me a headache.”
“You invested in MC. We can cash you out.”
She dropped her arm, blinked incredulously. “So then I’m not invested in MC?”
Okay, he hadn’t thought that through. “Just take a damn loan, Leah.”
“Take a damn step back, Jacob.” She glared, so he glared back. This was often where they ended up. And yet, at the end of the day, they still walked away friends.
It was one of the few things in his life he couldn’t work out.
“Why are you really here?” she asked, sounding far more exhausted than she looked.
She looked rumpled and pretty. Usually she had that tough-girl exterior, all put together like armor. But in her slouchy clothes and with her messy hair, obviously tired and fed up with him, she looked infinitely touchable. “Do you really want to know?”
She looked away. “No,” she grumbled. “You’re right. I don’t.”
“
Well, then let’s talk about drywall.”
“No. I’m closing the door. They’re not going to see it, and on the off chance they ask why my contractor boyfriend hasn’t had his grubby paws all over it, I’ll tell them the truth. I can’t afford it. I have one guest room suitable for my parents, and Marc can crash comfortably on the pullout couch. It’s fine.”
Another thing he couldn’t work out was how easily she irritated the crap out of him just by being so damn reasonable. Because she wasn’t wrong, and he wasn’t right and he hated that.
“Fine. You’re right.”
“I’m sorry—can you repeat that?”
He scowled. “Bite me.”
She smiled and it didn’t take that clingy red dress from the party for him to think about the fact her bedroom was right across the hall.
Yeah, seriously, why had he come here? Did he really think he was just going to walk in and redo this room? No, he’d been thinking...well, not thinking. Feeling. Restless.
Maybe he needed to tell Grace to be his babysitter because he couldn’t trust himself with the idea of a “thing” hanging between them.
“Why don’t we talk about why you really came here?”
“I thought you didn’t want to.”
“Well, maybe we need to.” She looked up at him, brow furrowed, blue-green eyes shading toward blue in the darker light. “Why did you kiss me?”
Full truth or half-truth? In this case, as much as he wanted to let the full truth go, the half-truth was the right way to go. Knowing Leah had some kind of low-level interest in him didn’t change a thing because she hadn’t acted on it. Not once in five years.
And he hadn’t, either. The red dress certainly wasn’t the first time he’d thought of Leah inappropriately. This whole pretending-to-be-involved thing was bringing it to the forefront, but he’d been reasonable for five years, too.
Maybe if he wrote it on his palms he’d remember that before barreling over here whole hog again. Yeah, half-truth was the way to go. “We’re going to have to.”
“Why on earth would we have to?” Throwing her hands in the air, she stalked away from him, then back. “People don’t make out in front of their parents.”