For Better or Worse

by Lauren Layne

  “For the record, quiche is delicious,” Heather said, pointing her knife at him. “And no, they’re not fussy. Not really. Brooke is sort of bubbly and sweet, Jessie’s a little firecracker and probably the most outgoing person you’ll ever meet. And Alexis is . . .”

  Heather broke off. How did one explain Alexis Morgan?

  “Complicated,” she said.

  “Is that your girl way of saying you don’t like her?”

  “No, I love her!” Heather said, scooping up a handful of the sliced berries and dropping them into the bowl. “I mean, yeah, she’s my boss, but she’s become a friend, too. When I say she’s complicated, I just mean more . . . I sometimes think that I don’t know her. I’m not sure that anybody does.”

  “A mystery woman,” Josh said as he began slicing mushrooms. “That’s hot.”

  “Says the man whose bedmates are all giggles and lip gloss.”

  “You bashing your fellow kind, 4C?” he asked.

  “Absolutely not, 4A. I’ve been known to giggle and rock the lip gloss myself. To be clear, I was bashing you.”

  He nodded. “Sure, sure. Gotta keep up your walls, I get it.”

  “Oh, I’m not the one with walls,” she said confidently as she opened the container of blueberries and went to the sink to rinse them.

  To Heather’s surprise, Josh came back with neither a defensive remark nor a quip. Instead he kept his focus on his mushrooms, almost as though relying on the fungi to provide a buffer from whatever dark thoughts had caused a little line to form between his eyebrows. Heather bit her lip as she studied his profile, torn between the urge to dig a little and the desire to respect his privacy.

  She’d hardly spilled her guts to him; it’s not as though she could fairly expect him to do the same. And yet, the more she got to know him, the more she wanted to really know him.

  Because she suspected Josh was just as much as a mystery as Alexis. He just was a hell of a lot better at hiding it than Heather’s reticent boss.

  They fell into companionable silence as she finished up the fruit salad, and he set out the rest of the ingredients for the eggs. It wouldn’t be quiche, but as far as scrambled eggs went, they’d be the high-class variety. Mixed mushrooms, scallions, and some grated Swiss cheese.

  “Yes or no on the bacon?” Heather asked, holding up the package as she glanced nervously at the clock. There were only twenty minutes left.

  “Seriously?” he asked, plucking the package from her hand. “The answer is always yes to bacon. Do you have a cookie sheet?”

  Heather blinked. “For what?”

  “The bacon.”

  “You don’t cook bacon on a cookie sheet.”

  “Maybe you don’t,” Josh said, shoving at her hip as he correctly guessed which cupboard she kept the cookie sheets in.

  Heather watched skeptically as he placed foil on the cookie sheet, then placed a cooling rack on top of that before laying out the bacon in neat strips.

  “You forgot to preheat it,” she said as he opened her oven door and slid the sheet in.

  “It goes into a cold oven. Set it for four hundred degrees. Check on it in twelve to fifteen minutes.”

  “Are you trying to sabotage my brunch?” Heather asked. Her mother had never cooked bacon—or much of anything—but when Heather’s grandmother had been alive, she’d always done it in a cast-iron skillet on the stove.

  “Guess you’ll have to trust me,” he said, fishing a grape out of her fruit salad, popping it into his mouth, and giving her a maddeningly smug grin.

  “Yeah, because that’s what smart women in New York City do. Trust strange men who prefer to walk around naked and bed a new woman every other night.”

  Josh hoisted himself onto her counter. “Strange? Really? You’ve seen me in my underwear, you’ve listened to my band practice, I just went grocery shopping for you, and you’ve met my mother. I’d say we’re well beyond being strangers, 4C.”

  “True,” Heather said as she arranged the ingredients for her coffee cake. It wouldn’t be done by the time they got here, but she could pop it into the oven after the bacon came out. “You know, now that I think about it, I don’t think a boyfriend has ever done my grocery shopping. And I’ve certainly never met a guy’s mother.”

  “Really?” he asked.

  She glanced at him as she measured out sugar. “You seem surprised.”

  “I am. Beneath all the girl-power energy, you’ve got a little old-fashioned about you. I would have thought you’d have come close to the altar a couple times.”

  Heather snorted.

  “Come on,” he pressed. “You’re telling me you’ve never lost your cranky little heart to a guy?”

  “No,” she said slowly. “I don’t know that that’s for me.”

  “Well, would you look at that,” he said with a little grin. “We have something in common.”

  “What, the dedicated bachelor has never been in love? I’m shocked. Shocked I say!”

  “Hey, I never said I’ve never been in love,” he corrected, “just that I don’t have plans to be in the future.”

  “Really? When?” she asked, curious as to what sort of girl could hold the attention of a committed bachelor.

  “Second grade. Her name was Robin, and she let me play her Game Boy at recess.”

  “However did you let her slip away from you?”

  “I’m ashamed to say my eye was caught by another lady. Her name was Anna and she had a better game selection on her Game Boy.”

  “A player even then, huh?”

  “Then and always,” he said.

  His voice was still teasing, but there was a slight intensity to his tone now, as though he were trying to tell her something.

  Heather glanced up and locked gazes with him. “Josh Tanner, are you trying to warn me off right now? Give me fair warning not to fall in love with you because you’ll never fall back?”

  He laughed. “That obvious, huh?”

  “Definitely,” she said, shoving his legs out of her way so she could pull a spoon out of the drawer and taste her coffee cake batter.

  “And in case it wasn’t clear, I’m confident my poor little heart is withstanding all of your charm just fine.”

  “Glad to hear it, 4C. Because despite all your sass, you are a relationship kind of girl, and I’m not a relationship kind of guy.”

  “Some girl will change that,” Heather said, digging her tasting spoon into the bowl.

  Josh’s fingers wrapped around her wrist, and she glanced up, startled by the firmness of his grip. “No,” he said quietly. “That won’t change.”

  “All right,” she said with a nervous laugh. “Take it easy, no one’s trying to march you toward the altar.”

  He smiled, but it seemed forced, and she was struck by a little stab of sadness at how resolute he was. Instinct told her this was more than just manwhore avoidance of commitment. Josh was deliberately holding himself back from the possibility of a relationship for something that went beyond a love of playing the field.

  “I’m going to ask you something,” he said, his thumb brushing the inside of her wrist, his voice low and dangerous.

  Heather swallowed. “What?”

  His gaze dropped to her mouth. “Why’d you kiss Trevor?”

  She gave a nervous laugh and tried to pull her hand free, but he held tight. “Because he’s hot.”

  Josh’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t think so.”

  “Well, I hardly think a heterosexual male is the best one to judge another guy’s hotness,” she countered.

  Josh’s gaze dropped to the spoon in her hand, and he pulled it toward his mouth, sliding it in between his lips in a gesture that was far sexier than it had a right to be.

  “Delicious,” he said as he licked the spoon clean, holding her gaze.

&nb
sp; “Quit flirting,” she said, trying to pull her hand back. “You just got done telling me how falling in love with you would be the end of life as I know it.”

  “Oh, I don’t want you to love me, 4C. Doesn’t mean I don’t want you to want me.”

  “I’ll try to control myself,” she said, dropping the dirty spoon into the sink and shoving his legs out of the way once more to get a clean one.

  He caught her chin between his thumb and forefinger, nudging her face up toward his. “I’ll ask one more time. Why’d you kiss Trevor?”

  “Why so curious?” she said, her voice coming out a little more breathy than she’d intended.

  “Not curious,” he said, his gaze locked on her mouth. “Jealous. Irrationally, crazy-out-of-my-mind jealous, 4C.”

  Her lips parted in surprise at the admission, and her belly flipped in excitement.

  Josh’s gaze held hers. Searching. Waiting.

  “Oh hell,” she muttered. “That’s why I kissed him. I wanted to make you jealous.”

  The corner of his mouth tilted up. “I know.”

  Josh dipped his head toward hers, his head moving slowly, giving her time to pull back.

  She met him halfway.

  Their mouths collided hungrily, and it was like the Fourth of July and New Year’s Eve all rolled into one. Fireworks. In her mind, her belly, her . . . other parts.

  Her hands lifted to his waist, fingers tangling in the soft fabric in his shirt as his hand slipped to the back of her neck, tugging her closer as his tongue swept into her mouth, his breath minty and coffee and man.

  He eased back slowly and Heather let out a little whimper of dismay, trying to pull him closer once more. Josh gave a little laugh, nipping her bottom lip in his teeth before soothing it with his tongue and releasing her. “There’s someone at your door, 4C.”

  Heather jerked back, the sound of a knock finally breaking through her sexual haze. “Holy crap,” she muttered, glancing at the clock. “How’d that happen so quickly?”

  “Sorry,” he said quietly, smoothing a curl away from her face before hopping down from the counter. “I meant to be gone before they got here.”

  Heather frowned. “What are you talking about? You’re staying for brunch, moron.”

  “I am?” He blinked in surprise.

  Heather felt something soften around her heart at the unexpected vulnerability, and she tried to ignore it. “Of course you are. You helped me shop, helped me cook . . . you have to stay.”

  “I don’t want to intrude,” he said as a louder, more insistent knock sounded at the door.

  She met his eyes. “Yeah, I think we’re way past that. Don’t you?”

  Chapter Eleven

  IT TOOK JOSH ALL of five minutes of watching Heather with her coworkers to realize one thing:

  Heather loved her job far more than he’d ever loved his. Or at least, she loved her coworkers.

  Heather was happy. Radiantly so.

  He wasn’t sure why he was surprised. For some reason, the way she was so tightly wound all the time, he’d just sort of assumed that her stress about her job came from external pressure—a fierce demon on her back that drove her to be more, to be better.

  Seeing her now though, as she animatedly described some hotel lobby she’d toured yesterday, Josh realized that it wasn’t that at all. Her job had its pressures, certainly, but it was pressure Heather put on herself, because she cared so much.

  She fiercely cared about other people’s weddings—about getting them perfect.

  And for a heart-stopping moment, Josh was . . . jealous.

  Jealous that she’d found a calling and a career that seemed to light her up from within.

  “So you’re the noisy neighbor, hmm?” Josh glanced up from the stove, where he’d just dropped a pat of butter into a skillet for the eggs to find Alexis Morgan watching him.

  From the second the group had walked through the door, Josh had understood what Heather had meant when she’d described Alexis as complicated. There was a duality about her. She was beautiful in an old-fashioned, composed sort of way. Wide brown eyes, slim, petite features. But just when you expected her to be quiet and sort of shy, she looked at you, and you were hit with the sense that you would never have any idea what she was thinking or feeling. Ever.

  He and Heather had joked about each other having walls, and they certainly had them, but Alexis Morgan was on a whole other level. Not only did the pretty brunette construct a veritable Great Wall around her, she was aware of it—aware of how other people saw her, because she carefully cultivated what they saw.

  “Noisy neighbor,” Josh said, swirling the pan so that the sizzling butter coated the bottom. “Is that what she calls me?”

  Alexis lifted her champagne flute to her lips and studied him. “She’s mentioned being short on sleep once or twice, courtesy of your band.”

  Josh felt a little stab of guilt. It wasn’t that he’d been completely immune to Heather’s complaints, nor was he selfish enough to think it was his right to play live music at midnight in an apartment building with shared walls.

  But he had enjoyed the sparring that had come with it. Hell, for all he knew, without his loud music, they might still just be two strangers who exchanged pleasantries at the mailbox the way he did with the rest of the building.

  Not neighbors who kissed every bit as well as they fought.

  His gaze flicked over to where Heather was refilling everyone’s glasses, laughing as the blond wedding planner—Brooke—told some story about her latest client who was insistent on bacon cake.

  No, he definitely didn’t want to be strangers with her. He never felt quite so alive as when he was bickering with her, and these days, being alive was everything. Which was probably why he’d offered to help her with brunch this morning the instant he saw her flustered and overwhelmed. If only his mother could see him now, he thought ironically.

  “You like her,” Alexis said with the slightest smile.

  Josh reached for the bowl of eggs he’d whisked earlier. She was a straight shooter. He liked that.

  But he could be a straight shooter, too.

  “I do like Heather. And you like your accountant. Logan, is it?”

  Alexis’s eyes narrowed. “Of course I like him. We’re friends.”

  “Sure,” Josh said with an easy smile. “That’s what I meant.”

  It’s actually not at all what he’d meant, and from the way her eyes stayed narrowed on him, Alexis knew it.

  She might think she and her accountant were just friends, but the other man had his gaze trained on her every time she wasn’t looking. Josh knew a man in want, and Logan Harris was downright hungry when it came to Alexis.

  Luckily, Josh was saved from having to respond to that by Logan ambling over to the kitchen as he dumped the eggs into the skillet and dug around in Heather’s drawer for a spatula.

  “You cook?” Logan said to Josh, his British accent doing nothing to hide his surprise.

  “I know, I don’t look the part,” Josh said, spreading his arms to the side and glancing down at his gray Henley and jeans. “But my mother was determined I’d be able to feed myself in college and beyond, so she taught me the basics. Eggs. Chicken parmesan. That sort of thing.”

  “So what do you do, Josh?” Logan asked.

  “I’m a musician,” he said. And since he didn’t particularly feel like talking about that, he shifted focus back to the other man. “You’re an accountant, yeah?”

  “Yep. Boring, right?” Logan said in a good-naturedly self-deprecating manner, taking a sip of his drink.

  “No, actually,” Josh said slowly as he dragged the spatula through the eggs. “I used to . . . I like numbers.”

  “Yeah?” Logan asked, his eyes lighting up.

  “And, I’m out,” Alexis said brightly, wandering a
way to join the other women, who were interrogating Brooke’s boyfriend, Seth, about some new hotel his company was opening in the Bahamas.

  “I get it, you know,” Logan said quietly. “I play the piano.”

  Josh’s head snapped up, seeing from the quiet understanding in the other man’s eyes that he did, in fact, get it. Which was pretty unusual: It was something that very few people in his circle seemed to understand, that music and numbers were inextricably linked. That mathematics were the very foundation of music, if you just paid attention. It was the same reason why Josh’s mind always flitted to complex number problems when he was playing, and why he was never found without his earbuds in while he’d been working back when he was a hedge fund manager.

  “So who do you work for?” Josh asked, dumping cheese into the nearly done eggs.

  “Myself.”

  Josh’s interest went from mildly curious to rabid. “Really?”

  Logan shrugged. “I always thought I’d work for a big firm back in London, but I don’t want someone else calling the shots. Running my own business isn’t easy, especially in Manhattan, but it’s worth the freedom and not having to answer to anyone.”

  “Huh.” Josh flicked off the burner, but instead of calling to Heather to see how she wanted to serve up the eggs, he stayed perfectly still, lost in thought.

  It was strange, but he’d never really thought about doing his own thing. For him, his work in finance had always meant the corporate world. The suits and the corner office and the life that never felt entirely like your own.

  “It’s okay to miss it,” Logan said quietly.

  Josh gave a harsh laugh. “With all due respect, dude, because you seem like a decent guy . . . you don’t know me.”

  Logan ignored this, studying Josh with quiet brown eyes. For a man who was wearing honest-to-God tweed right now, there was a sharp shrewdness to his gaze.

  “Who’d you work for?” Logan asked. “Before you tried the musician thing.”

  “Sullivan and Manning,” Josh said, referring to his old firm.

  Logan whistled. “Big time.”

  Josh didn’t acknowledge this. He didn’t have to. Sullivan and Manning was synonymous with big money. Their clients were some of the richest in the world. As a result, their employees were some of the richest in the city. But no amount of money could help you out when fate picked you as one of her victims, as she’d done to Josh.