"Well, it's far too many questions. To the point of being nosy."
I can't help but laugh, from both her tone and her use of the word 'nosy'. I thought only old people used that word.
"I asked where you went to college. I'd hardly call that being nosy."
"Oh, it's nosy." She points her finger at me. "You know what you are? You're one of those nosy neighbors. The kind that spies on people with binoculars."
I laugh. "I ask a couple questions and now I'm a nosy neighbor?" She doesn't answer. "If I stop asking questions, will you go back to the table?"
She squints her eyes at me. "No questions? You promise?"
"Yes."
"Okay." She limps back toward the deck. I'm behind her and lift her up and over my shoulder.
"Nash! What the hell?"
"You're too freaking slow. Our food's getting cold." I set her down in her chair.
"You're crazy," she mutters. "And I'm only slow because you shot at me."
"You need to stop saying that. If someone hears you, they'll have the cops arrest me."
She picks up her slice of pizza. "Have you ever been to prison?"
I laugh. "Now who's the nosy one? And what happened to the no questions rule?"
"No one said I couldn't ask questions. And asking about your prison record isn't being nosy. It's being safe. I need to know if I have an ex-con living next door."
I can't tell if she's serious or kidding but I answer her anyway.
"No, I have not been to prison. Or to jail."
"I have," she says nonchalantly.
I almost choke on my beer. "You've been to prison?"
"No. Jail." She takes a bite of her pizza.
I stare at her as she takes another bite. "Are you going to explain?"
She finishes chewing, then says, "Freshman year of college I walked around topless to protest the fact that guys can be shirtless in public but girls can't."
"You really want the right to walk around topless?"
"Actually I was drunk at the time and didn't know it was a protest. I had no idea why all these girls were walking around topless. But it looked fun so I whipped my shirt and bra off right as the cops showed up. Got charged with public indecency." She swigs her beer.
I laugh. "So my neighbor's a jailbird."
"Pretty much." She drinks the rest of her beer.
"Well, hey, if you ever want to whip your top off and walk around the yard, feel free. I have no problem with it."
She laughs. "Yeah, I kind of figured that. You are a guy, after all."
True, but I have a feeling the sight of her naked breasts would turn me on more than some other girl's. Her breasts are currently covered in that red t-shirt and I already can't take my eyes off them. I'm trying not to look but it's a v-neck shirt and when she leans across the table to get her drink, I keep catching a glimpse of them and it causes that twitch in my shorts again.
"So how many brothers do you have?" she asks, distracting me from her breasts.
"Three." I take another slice of pizza. "Austin is 20, Bryce is 22, and Jake is 23."
"Wow. Your mom had one right after another."
"My stepmom," I say correcting her.
"Oh. Yeah. Sorry. I forgot."
"It's okay. I considered her my mom. I never thought of her as a stepmom. I don't even know why I said that just now. Maybe because I'm in this house and thinking about my birth mom. Anyway, Barb, my mom, raised me and always treated me like I was her own." I pause. "She was a good woman."
"She's gone?" Callie asks softly.
I nod. "Had a heart attack a few years ago. It was sudden. Surprised all of us. She'd never had heart problems."
"That must've been hard on your dad and your brothers...and you."
"Yeah. It sucked. My dad shut down for a few months. He stayed in the house, wouldn't eat, wouldn't talk to us. I ended up taking over the business until he got through his grief and was able to work again."
"It's hard when you lose someone." She looks down at the table.
"Yeah," I say, shaking my head. "It's part of life but it fucking hurts for the people left behind."
It's so true. Painfully true. It hurt like hell when I lost my mom, but it hurt even more when I lost Becky. At least my mom had fifty years on this earth. Becky only had seventeen.
I glance over and see Callie's head down, her shoulders slumped, and her eyes squeezed shut.
"Callie?" I rub her arm. "Are you okay?"
Her head rises and she wipes her eyes. Was she crying? Shit. Now what did I do? I keep screwing up with her. Saying the wrong thing.
"I'm fine. That story just made me sad." She smiles a little. "It sounds like you really loved your mom, I mean, your stepmom. I'm sorry you lost her."
I let go of her arm and take a deep breath. For some reason I feel the need to tell her this. I have no idea why. It's just one of those things you feel in your gut. Like she needs to know this. Or maybe I just need to say it. It's been so long since I talked about it, and Marissa never let me. She said it was morbid and depressing and that I was living in the past. But sometimes I need to talk about it. Like now.
"I lost someone else," I say, picking up the beer bottle cap and tapping it on the plastic table.
"You did?" she asks cautiously.
"Yeah," I say, swallowing past the lump in my throat. Maybe I shouldn't talk about this. It's still so hard. I don't know why. Shit, it's been years. I should be able to talk about this without choking up.
"Who was it?" Callie asks, leaning forward, her attention focused on me.
I hesitate, but then just tell her. "Her name was Becky. We went to school together. We were in the same grade. We were best friends. She was beautiful. Bright blond hair, light blue eyes, and the sweetest smile. All the guys wanted to date her, but not me. I didn't see her that way. She was more like a sister to me. Freshman year of high school, we went out on a date just to see if there was anything there, but there wasn't. We kissed and it didn't feel right. We both dated other people in high school but we remained best friends. Until the day of the accident. When she was taken from me."
"What happened?" Callie asks, her eyes filled with sadness.
I don't want to tell her this. I did, but now I don't. It's still too hard. The pain and regret I feel for that day is still there, more than I care to admit. And I'm not ready to share that with someone else.
"You don't want to talk about it," she says, laying her hand on mine. "I understand."
And for whatever reason, I feel like she really does understand. Is it because she lost someone too? Or is just because she's a good person? Caring. Empathetic. Qualities I'd wished Marissa had, but that just wasn't her.
I feel Callie's hand move softly over mine. "I'm sorry. I really am."
The way she says it, and the way she's touching my hand, it makes me think she's experienced this herself. Maybe not losing her best friend, but losing someone she loves. But I'm not going to ask her. For one, I'm not allowed to ask questions, and two, loss is something personal that people only talk about when they're ready to. It took me years to talk about what happened to Becky, and when I told Marissa, she didn't understand. She'd never lost anyone, and told me I should be over it by now. And maybe I would be if I didn't carry around so much guilt.
"It was a long time ago," I say. "But sometimes it's still hard, you know?"
She doesn't answer, but her eyes are on mine and it's almost like they're telling me something. I wait for her to share whatever that is, but she doesn't.
Her hand is still on my mine so I flip my hand over so that my palm is against hers. Her eyes go to our hands and I line my fingers up between hers and close my hand. It was a sneaky attempt to hold her hand and I'm not sure why I did it because I had no intention of holding her hand tonight. But it wasn't something I thought about before I did it. It was more of an instinctual response. One of those things you do when you feel some kind of connection with someone that you can't really explain or
put into words. I felt that just now with Callie so when her hand touched mine, I had the urge to hold onto it.
"You're holding my hand," she says, her lips creeping up.
"I am," I say, matter-of-factly.
Her eyes return to mine. "Why are you holding my hand?"
"You have nice hands." I rub the top of it with my thumb.
"That's why you're holding it? Because I have nice hands?"
"You got a problem with that?"
"I guess it's okay. Although your hands aren't the greatest." She tries to hide her smile.
"You're making fun of my hands?" I hold up the other one that's not connected with hers. "I do construction for a living. I work with my hands. I'm surprised they look as good as they do."
She takes the hand I was holding up and inspects my nails. "You need a manicure." She tries to be serious, but then laughs.
"I'm not getting a freaking manicure. I'm not one of those metrosexual guys or whatever the hell they call them. The guys who walk around with purses? You see them downtown Chicago."
"There's nothing wrong with those guys." She sits back but keeps her hand in mine. "And by the way, it's not a purse. It's called a man bag. Or a murse. And a lot of guys get manicures. They're not just for women. It even has the word 'man' in it. And cure." She pauses, then smiles. "It's a cure for manly hands. Get it?" She laughs at her own joke.
I scoot my chair over and lean in close to her face. Her smile drops, her breath quickens, and her eyes fix on mine. She thinks I'm going to kiss her, but I'm not.
Instead I say, "I don't want a man bag. Or a murse. Or a manicure." I look directly in her eyes. "I'm a man's man. I like red meat. Football. A cold beer. Hard liquor. Pounding nails into walls. And women who challenge me."
She's looking at me with lust in her eyes, and God, I feel it too. The intense need to rip off her clothes and do her right here on this table. How the hell did this happen? How did we go from having a conversation to wanting to have sex? I'm not even trying to date this girl, and I definitely wasn't planning to have sex with her.
I'm here to do a job. Fix the house. That's it. Plain and simple. But suddenly it feels more complicated than that.
Chapter Seven
Callie
My heart is pounding and there's a throbbing, aching need building inside me. It's been a long time since I've felt like this. Like I wanted to rip a guy's clothes off and have wild, steamy hot sex without worrying about the consequences. I've only felt this way when I've been drunk, but I'm not drunk now. I had one beer and feel completely sober.
Why am I reacting this way? Sure, Nash is hot, but lots of guys are hot, although not as hot as Nash. The guys I dated in college weren't. Not even close. And they were small in comparison. Guys of average height, average build, who rarely went to the gym. Nash is big. Tall. Wide. Muscular. I'm guessing those muscles don't come from the gym, but from his job, spending all day doing physical labor that works every part of his body.
Lifting. Pounding. Damn, I'm getting turned on again. I need to stop this. But he's looking at me and I can't look away. His eyes are intense, filled with the same burning desire I'm feeling right now.
How did this happen? We were just talking and then...then he got close to me and I could smell his masculine scent and feel the heat from his body and he made that speech about being a man's man and suddenly I had this urge to rip his clothes off.
I feel him squeeze my hand, then he slowly backs away and lets go of my hand. We hold gazes for a moment before I finally glance away.
"I think I'm done with the pizza," I say looking down at my two half-eaten slices. I always take two slices of pizza, even if I can't eat them both. Even numbers are better than odd.
"Let's have dessert." He takes my plate and puts it in the trash can he has sitting on the deck. "Do you still have the pie?"
"Oh, yeah. I forgot to bring it over. I'll go get it."
"It'll take you forever to get there and back. I'll just run over and get it." He holds his hand out. "You got a key?"
"You can just go in. I left it open."
"You left your house unlocked? What the hell? You want criminals to just walk right in?"
"I left the back door open, not the front. I can see it from here. I'd see if someone went in."
He lets out a frustrated sigh. "From now on, you lock your doors. Even when you're over here."
"Yeah, fine," I say, just so he'll let it go. "The fridge is on your left when you walk in. The pie is on the top shelf." As he's walking off, I yell, "And don't be snooping in my house!"
I'm letting him go in my house. No one ever goes in my house. But he's already been in there and he doesn't know about my past so he can't confront me about why it still looks the way they left it.
When Nash told me about his stepmom and then about Becky, I almost told him what happened to my family. I could feel his loss, his pain, his sadness, so I thought there might be a chance he'd understand what I'm going through. But then I came to my senses and realized he doesn't need to know. I just met him and he's leaving in a few months, so why tell him something so personal?
Nash and I aren't going to be friends. He'll be spending all his time on this house and I'll be doing whatever I have to do to get through each day. I'm surprised I made it through this dinner without having a panic attack. Normally, when I veer from my schedule, the memories come flooding back. Images of Ben running up to give me one of his monkey hugs, my mom and me making cookies at Christmas, Greg showing me how to change a tire. It's like a constant video playing in my head, torturing me. And if it's not the memories, it's the questions. The 'why' questions that suck the air from my lungs and stab at my chest.
I'm feeling it now as I sit here alone on this deck. That anxious, sick feeling that always comes before the images start flashing in my head. Shit. I knew I shouldn't have come over here. Always stick to the schedule. The counting. They're the only things that stop the memories.
I scoot my chair back but it gets caught on the deck floorboards and I fall back, along with the chair.
"Callie?" I hear Nash's voice then see him take the stairs in two giant steps. "What happened?" He sets the pie on the table as I push off the ground.
"Your chair tried to kill me," I say, annoyed and embarrassed. He must think I'm a total klutz. Every time he's around I'm tripping and falling.
He helps me up, trying not to laugh. "My chair tried to kill you? Seriously?"
"Well, obviously. Didn't you see what it did to me?"
He puts the chair upright and stands back, looking at it. "It does look dangerous. Those beady eyes. Those sharp teeth."
I swat at him. "Yeah. Fine. Laugh at me. But I'm telling you, it's possessed."
"Here. Try this one." He slides one of the other chairs over.
"No." I yank my chair up behind me and sit down. "I have to show this one who's boss."
He smiles. "You okay? Did you get hurt at all?"
"No questions, remember? Just forget it ever happened." I scoot up to the table. "Do you have anything to cut the pie?"
"I found this in your drawer." He pulls a pie cutter out of his back pocket and hands it to me. "My grandma had one of these. I think it's for pie."
"Yeah, it's for both cutting and serving." I cut through the center of the pie. "Why were you going through my drawers? I told you not to snoop."
"I needed something to cut the pie." He sits down next to me, watching as I cut the pie into eight even slices. "So you have a cat?"
I stop cutting and look at him. "No questions. You promised."
He leans back in his chair. "So you have a cat."
"You already asked me that." I grab a paper plate and slide a piece of pie onto it.
"The first time I asked you. The second time was a declarative statement."
I roll my eyes. "Oh, God, not this again. You and your declarative statements."
"They can be useful when you're banned from asking questions." He grabs some forks
and sets one next to me. "So...you have a cat."
"Unfortunately, yes." I serve myself some pie, cutting the single slice in two. Even numbers, never odd.
"Why unfortun—" He catches himself and says, "You don't like the cat. Or you don't like cats in general."
I shrug. "I have no problem with cats. But this one hates me, so we don't get along."
"I'm sure he doesn't hate you." Nash takes a bite of the pie, his bite being a third of the pie. I've noticed he takes huge bites.
"He hates me," I say, resigned to the fact. "He stays in one of the bedrooms and never comes out except to eat. And even then, he ignores me. I feed him. I clean his litter box. And I get nothing in return. I say his name and he pretends he didn't hear me."
"Maybe he's deaf."
"He's not deaf. If he hears a dog bark or a loud truck, his ears perk up. So I know he's not deaf. He's just snubbing me."
"He seemed friendly when I was over there." Nash finishes his pie and holds his plate out for more. I serve him another piece. "He meowed at me and rubbed up against my leg."
My jaw drops. "No freaking way."
"Yeah. Came right up to me as I walked through the door."
I huff. "He's never once done that to me."
Nash chuckles. "Well, I don't know what to tell you. Maybe he's mad at you about something."
I pick up my fork. "Stupid Cat."
"What's his—" He stops before he asks a question. "I assume he has a name."
"Cat." I take a bite of the pie, letting the chocolate cream linger in my mouth.
"Yeah. The cat," Nash says. "His name is..."
"I just told you."
"No, you didn't."
"Yes. I did." I swirl my fork in the whipped cream, then dip it in the chocolate mixture and lick it off the fork.
"Callie, just tell me the cat's name."
"Cat." I turn to Nash. "That's his name. Cat. Okay? Now can we talk about something else?"
"Your cat's name is Cat?"
I sigh. "That was a question. But yes, his name is Cat."
"That's not a very original name."
"I didn't name him." I hold my hand up. "And don't ask who did. No more questions. Or questions concealed as declarative statements."
Next to Me Page 7