by Noelle Adams
Heather frowned, trying to place him. Jace was good-looking, although not as good-looking as Chris, and he looked both easy-going and intelligent. “Sure,” she said slowly. “It’s good to see you.”
“She doesn’t remember you,” Chris said with a wry smile.
“You probably remember me with glasses,” Jace said, not looking remotely offended. “I was on the chess team.”
“Oh, yeah!” She smiled, pleased that she could now place the man in her memory. “You used to always hang out with Isabella Warren.”
“Evidently, he still does,” Chris put in.
Since this sounded rather snide, Heather ignored it. She came closer, still smiling at Jace. “You look great. I never would have recognized you.”
“Thanks,” Jace said.
At the same time, Chris muttered, “He doesn’t look that great.”
This comment made Jace laugh and Heather frown. She didn’t know why the man always had to be so rude.
She was about to say something else friendly—to Jace, not to Chris—when she noticed that the eyes of both of the men weren’t exactly staying up on her face. She glanced down at herself and was startled to see that her nipples were tight and poking out visibly through the thin fabric of her tank top.
Okay. That was a little too much for mixed company. She was relieved to see the belted sweater she’d worn to work this morning flung across a stool at the granite bar. She stepped over to grab it, covering up the object of their distraction.
“I need to take Lucy out before bed,” she said, snapping her fingers. “Lucy.”
The dog lifted her head from Chris’s lap and gave her a look of quiet indignation.
“Lucy, come!” Heather snapped, with more authority. She wasn’t going to have her dog switching loyalties to someone like Chris.
This time, the dog heaved herself up and jumped down from the ugly orange recliner.
The recliner named Flo.
“I better be getting home,” Jace said, getting up and leaning over to pet Lucy. “It was good to see both of you. I’ll see you around.” He smiled at her. “I’ll walk you down.”
Heather smiled back, studiously ignoring the fact that Chris was glowering.
She called for Lucy once more, and they walked out to the hallway. As they were passing Estelle Berry’s door, it flew opened.
The woman must spend half the day looking out her peephole.
“Isn’t one young man enough for you?” she demanded, still wearing those same pink sponge rollers. Heather had never seen her without them.
“What?”
Estelle gave Jace a disapproving look.
“Oh, he’s not mine either,” Heather said quickly. “He was just visiting. He lives downstairs.”
“I should hope so. I understand modern arrangements, but a threesome would be going too far.”
Heather and Jace exchanged amused glances as Estelle slammed her door shut.
They walked downstairs, trying not to laugh. Then she waved goodbye to Jace before she stepped outside. It was still warm out—too warm for the sweater. But she really didn’t want to show the world her nipples.
Lucy was usually good about doing her business quickly, since she preferred to be inside than outside. But today she ran around in circles.
Heather watched her, starting to get worried when the circles continued. The dog only did that when she had an upset stomach.
Sure enough, when Lucy finally started going, it wasn’t a pleasant sight.
“Oh no! You poor thing. Did you eat something you shouldn’t have?” Heather tried to think back to what Lucy had eaten today, but she hadn’t gotten anything but her dog-food and the few treats she was allowed.
Unless Chris had stuffed the dog full of junk food.
Lucy took a long time getting everything out, and she kept trying even after there was nothing left.
“Are you okay now?” Heather asked the little dog, when Lucy came over and stared up at her pitifully. “Are you ready to go in?”
Lucy wagged her tail just slightly. Then she turned around and started running circles again.
Heather sighed. The poor little thing.
“What’s wrong with her?” a voice came from behind her.
She jerked slightly before she realized that it was just Chris. He was still dressed in the jeans and T-shirt he’d been wearing all day, and he was looking at Lucy with curiosity rather than sympathy.
“I thought you got lost out here or something,” he added.
“She has digestive issues,” Heather said. “She has a very sensitive system.”
“Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me.”
“There’s no reason to be mean about it. She’s a sweet little girl, and she’s sick.” Heather slanted him a quick look. “You didn’t feed her people-food or anything, did you?”
He arched his eyebrows. “I didn’t feed her anything, but she stole a piece of my bacon this morning.”
“No wonder she’s sick! How did she steal it?”
“She jumped right up onto a chair and then onto the table, and she snatched it off my plate.” He sounded like he still resented the thievery.
“Well, you need to be careful not to leave chairs positioned so she can jump onto the table. She gets sick when she eats people food.”
“I can see that.” He gave her a quick look. “Don’t give me that look. It’s not my fault she’s a little thief. She can blame her own greediness for her suffering now.”
Despite herself, she wanted to smile at his dry, clever tone.
They stood together in the dark as Lucy made her circles on the grass. After a few minutes, Chris asked, “How long have you had her?”
“Four years.” Heather sighed. “It feels like I’ve had her forever.”
“She seems quite attached to you.”
“She is. And I just love her. It’s so nice to have someone who is always loyal, who is always so happy to see you.”
“That shouldn’t be so unusual for you.”
Heather turned her head to look at his face. “What do you mean?”
“I just mean everyone seems to like you. You’re always making cookies—for everyone who isn’t me. Isn’t everyone happy to see you when you show up?”
She kind of liked that he thought that about her. “I don’t know. I don’t really think so. Not so it feels as completely genuine as Lucy is.”
“I don’t believe that. You have family and tons of friends. You’re not going to convince me that your dog is all you have going for you.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. I have my dad, of course. He’s never once let me down. But he’s pretty much the only family I have.”
“Your mom is still alive, isn’t she?” His voice was different now—softer, almost gentle. Like he was really interested.
“Yeah. She is. But she got remarried when I was ten. You knew that, didn’t you?”
“Sure, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still be close to her.”
“I guess. But I’m not. It was like she had a whole new life, and I can’t really be part of it. She calls occasionally, and I might see her once a year, but it’s really just…a gesture. She wanted to move on. When she left my dad, she left me too.”
It was a pain that had never fully gone away, and Heather’s voice cracked slightly on the last words. She gave Chris a quick look, but he was watching her quietly, no mockery or judgment on his face. “At least she’s still alive,” she added. “I’ve got nothing to complain about.”
“Maybe,” he murmured, his eyes never leaving her face. “But at least I know my mom never left me. She always chose me.”
Heather swallowed hard, swept with a wave of emotion and deep understanding. It was like Chris had reached in and touched inside of her, connecting them in a way she’d never experienced before. She swayed forward, caught up in the softness of his brown eyes and the way he looked in the shifting shadows of the night.
Chris seemed to lean toward h
er too, but then an unexpected noise jarred them apart.
The sound came from below them, and it was long and stretched and high-pitched.
“What was that?” Chris asked, staring down in the direction of the sound.
Lucy wagged her tail at him.
Trying not to laugh, Heather reached down and picked up her dog. “She had a little gas. Don’t laugh at her.”
Despite her admonishment, Chris burst into a warm, low laughter. “I thought you couldn’t hear dogs do that. Just smell it.”
Heather couldn’t help but chuckle too as she carried Lucy back inside. “Well, Little Miss Lucy has always been exceptional.”
They returned to their apartment, and soon went their own ways to their bedrooms.
Heather was relieved that the strangely intense moment between them had been interrupted.
She couldn’t let herself fall for Chris, despite the way he occasionally drew her toward him.
She needed a man who would commit, and she knew from hard experience that man would never be Chris.
***
The next morning, as she was walking into the office, someone called out a greeting to her from down the block.
She paused as a man approached. She recognized him almost immediately. He was Randy, whom she’d dated briefly in high school. He’d always been kind of wild in his teenaged years. He’d ridden a motorcycle and not followed many rules. So Heather was surprised to see him look so well-dressed and respectable now.
They chatted for a few minutes, catching up on what the other was doing. He was still living in town, and he worked in his family’s restaurant across the street.
When he asked her if she was busy on Saturday night, Heather told him she’d love to have dinner with him.
She wasn’t super-excited about him, but she liked him and there was no reason not to go out with him.
It would be good to take her mind off of Chris anyway.
As if her thoughts had conjured him, she saw Chris striding from his car into the office, looking big and handsome and bad-tempered.
She didn’t know why he would be so bad-tempered, but he didn’t greet her or even nod as he passed.
She didn’t care. She had a date with Randy on Saturday, and she was going to go back to ignoring Chris for the duration of their roommate arrangement.
Things would be a lot safer that way.
Four
Contrary to popular belief—and by that he meant Heather’s opinion—Chris was a hard worker who took his job and responsibilities seriously. And that meant putting his social life aside while trying to get this business with Tom to a place where everyone was comfortable. Just because the business was solid didn’t mean that he and Heather were going to be able to slide into their positions without any effort.
At least, that was the way he viewed it.
Clearly, Heather did not.
Eating a bowl of popcorn, Chris was doing his best to focus on the running chatter on ESPN and not on the fact that Heather was fluttering around getting ready for a date.
A date!
Seriously, what the hell?
She’d been relatively aloof for days, and although he couldn’t really speak for her, he knew he’d been busy supervising one job site while stopping in and observing three others. His days had been long and challenging, while sitting in an air-conditioned office clearly left one time to make dates with guys who practically trip over themselves to get your attention.
Damn Randy.
The blow dryer was on, and he could hear Heather humming. With a growl, he picked up the remote and made the TV louder. He was just about the throw the remote when he looked down and saw Lucy staring up at him. Her tail was wagging, and he could almost swear her expression was sympathetic—like she knew he was annoyed about Heather going out while he was stuck at home with no one to hang out with.
Great, now I’m the dog-whisperer. With a huff, he put the bowl of popcorn down on the coffee table along with the remote. Just as he as getting situated again, Lucy jumped into his lap—all five pounds of her.
“Hey,” he grumbled and was ready to toss her down, but she looked up at him and then licked his hand. The last thing Chris needed right now was this stupid little dog. She was ridiculous to look at. Unable to help himself, he picked her up and sort of weighed her in his hand and…yup. She was ridiculous to feel too. Carefully, he put her back on the floor. “Go away.”
For a minute, he was afraid that she was going to stay there and stare, but Heather turned off the blow dryer, and the dog seemed to practically skip away to go see her mistress. He snorted with disgust. “Whatever.”
Glancing over his shoulder—and the good thing about Flo was how she was big enough to hide behind—he watched as Heather moved from the bathroom to her bedroom. She was dressed in some sort of florally dress. Her hair was curled, and she looked much nicer than she did on a work day. That wasn’t saying that she didn’t look nice during the week, but she was definitely putting in some serious effort here for the date.
Chris looked down at himself and frowned. It was six o’clock on a Saturday night, and he was in a pair of sweats and a T-shirt—a stained T-shirt at that—and seriously considering eating peanut butter right out of the jar for dinner because he was too worn out to cook. Or order takeout. Not a good sign. Especially, considering that his roommate was all dolled up and dressed to kill.
Okay, stop obsessing on that, he admonished himself. With a sound that was suspiciously like an eighty-year-old man, he rose from his beloved chair and went to his room to change. Not that he was going to go anywhere, but so that he might be motivated to eat something that required more of an effort than twisting off the lid and dipping a spoon in.
Yikes.
Five minutes later, he had changed into jeans and a clean T-shirt and walked back into the living room.
“Hey, um, would you mind feeding Lucy tonight?” Heather asked. She was moving her things from one purse to another and didn’t really look up at him.
“Yeah. Sure.”
“And she’ll need to go out a time or two. You know…after she eats. If you don’t mind.”
He was aware of the dog’s schedule. He knew that Heather fed Lucy around seven each night, then took her out at eight, and then again before they went to bed. So…
“Wait…how long are you planning on being out?” he asked and almost cringed at how much he sounded like an over-protective parent.
Heather looked up at him in surprise. “Excuse me?’
“I’m just saying, if you expect me to babysit the damn dog—”
“I’m not asking you to babysit,” she said with a bit of exasperation. “She eats like a quarter of a cup of food, and you have to just walk down the stairs and watch her for five minutes while she does her business. That hardly constitutes babysitting.”
Chris shrugged. “Time out of my night.”
She gave him an ironic look. “Seriously?”
“Did you even think for a minute that I might have plans?” he asked, and before she could answer he went on. “What would you do with little miss fur ball if I wasn’t here to look out for her?”
Heather sighed loudly. “You know what? Never mind. I’ll feed her now, and I’ll take her for a walk, and then I’ll put her in my room so you won’t have to deal with her.”
Stepping back, Chris watched as she made her way to the kitchen while muttering under her breath about how childish he was and how ridiculous this entire situation was. Well…he completely agreed. On all of it.
Not that he was going to admit it out loud.
With a shrug, he walked across the room and scooped up his keys. He didn’t think it would be possible for him to keep playing nice right now, and he certainly didn’t want to be here when Randy showed up to pick her up. So he’d go and grab some takeout and drive around and just…not be here.
Without a word to her, he turned and left.
***
In the back of his mind, Ch
ris seriously hoped he’d run into someone he knew and then he’d have plans for the night too. Not a date, but just not sitting home alone.
No such luck. Within thirty minutes, he was parked back in front of the building and feeling more and more annoyed about it. Grabbing his bag of Chinese food, he stalked from his truck and was walking up the front path when he stopped in his tracks. Heather and Randy were coming out the door, and he cursed. If only he had taken five more minutes.
They were engrossed in conversation and turned to the right, so they hadn’t even seen him. And he wasn’t sure if he was relieved or pissed.
With another curse, he opted to be pissed and quickly went inside.
He was almost to his door when he heard a noise he was coming to dread, almost as much as every other aspect of his current life—Estelle’s door opening.
“Young man,” she said, sounding a little more normal than usual. “Can you help me?”
Well, damn. There was no way he was going to say no to her. Plastering a smile on his face, he turned toward her. “Sure, Estelle. What can I do for you?”
She looked down both sides of the hallway before speaking. “You need to come closer. It’s…it’s private.”
Oh dear Lord.
He stepped closer and prayed he was going to come out of this unscathed. Looking at Estelle, he noticed she didn’t have her pink curlers in her hair. For the first time, he could see that it was a light gray and styled. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m having a gentleman friend come over for dinner, and I need to move some things around, but I can’t. They’re too heavy. Can you help me?”
“You…you have a…”
“A date?” she finished for him and then gave him a girlish smile. “I do. But he’ll be here any minute, and I wanted to move the sofa a bit, and my kitchen table. Can you help me?”
“Why are you moving furniture for a date?” he asked, totally confused.
Estelle gave him an indignant look. “I don’t believe that’s any of your concern. Maybe things are easier if some of the furniture is closer together, or maybe I need a little room to spread out. Really, Christopher, it’s none of your business. Are you going to help me or not?”