by Tessa Bailey
But it had been really nice opening the fridge and knowing someone cared. Travis never had that in his life. Sure, when he’d become friends with Stephen, the Castles invited him over for dinner at least twice a week. Those nights had been a godsend when his paper route money ran out, but in the later years, Vivian had started splitting duties with Dominic’s mother. Who’s going to feed the Ford boy tonight? Despite their best intentions, they’d inadvertently made him a charity case.
Nothing remained permanent. For those few nights when he’d had someone’s leftovers in his fridge to come home to, though . . . for once, something had seemed constant. Tangible.
Travis didn’t realize he’d moved into the bedroom until he started pulling on some sweatpants. He threw on a gray World Series champs shirt, leaving it untucked, and stuffed his feet back into his work boots. Trying to shake the inconvenient sense of dread, Travis plucked his tools and a legal pad from where he’d left them near the door and headed for the truck. It would take only ten minutes to measure Georgie’s fireplace and then he could get back to enjoying his night alone.
Travis turned the corner onto Georgie’s block and saw the small brick ranch-style house at the end of the cul-de-sac. The sun was setting, outlining it in a pink glow. He didn’t know how much money Georgie pulled down from her clown gigs, but the Castle influence had probably gotten her the house for a steal. It wasn’t the nicest house on the block, but it was the most colorful. Red and white and yellow flowers were planted along the walkway. Instead of a sprinkler head, she had a giant rotating frog plopped down in the center of her lawn. Flip-flops lay forgotten on the porch, lit up by the glow of the porch light. Homey. Bursting with character like the owner. Someday a bunch of kids would be playing tag in the yard.
It probably wouldn’t happen for another decade, though. At least, right?
A honk jolted Travis and he found himself idling in the middle of the street. Trying to figure out why he’d gone from starving to zero appetite, he pulled forward and let the neighbor pass and turn into his own driveway. But where he would have parallel parked at the curb in front of Georgie’s house, as he’d done at brunch, Travis was surprised to find another truck parked out front. One just like his.
Who did it belong to? A man?
Dale?
Travis’s pulse started kicking at the base of his neck, but he didn’t know why. Georgie had to have friends. Girls she’d gone to school with who still lived in town. The truck probably just belonged to one of them. Toolbox in hand, he passed behind the truck and spotted an I’D RATHER BE REELING IN A BASS bumper sticker and paused. Okay, probably not a girl.
Georgie didn’t have a boyfriend—she’d lamented that very fact to his face. Had she met someone since then? Shouldn’t a new guy have to go through some kind of vetting process? When Travis reached the door, he laughed when he realized he was bracing himself, shoulders squared. For what? Why the hell did he care if Georgie was in there hiding peas under mashed potatoes for someone else?
He blamed the humidity for the sweat popping up at his hairline.
Georgie answered the door . . . only she looked slightly different. As in not the same. As in the haphazard knot stuck through the back of a baseball cap was gone. Chocolate waves stopped just beyond her shoulders. Down. Her hair was down. And shorter, maybe? A big chunk of it had been cut right in front. Bangs. They were called bangs and they didn’t hide her green eyes, like the hat tended to do. Nope, those eyes were right there in the open, big and questioning.
There was something more, though. Her surroundings were soft, the glowing light draping her from head to toe. She stood barefoot with a mug of tea in her hand. With bangs. And frayed jeans shorts with the pockets sticking out beneath the hem. This was not the baggy-jeans-wearing brat or flustered Saturday morning cook with flour in her hair. She was a relaxed and—might as well face it—sexy woman standing in the doorframe of her own home.
“Um. Travis?” She waved a hand in front of his face. “Have you received any blows to the head today? Should I call a doctor?”
What is going on with you? He shook himself. “I’m here to look at the fireplace.”
She took a long sip of tea. “That’s not necessary.”
Damn. She was really pissed. “I forgot. I’m human. Whose truck is that?” He rolled his shoulder. “Is it Dale?”
Was it his imagination or did the blood just drain from her face? “No, Dale is . . . on vacation. It belongs to Pete. My fireplace guy.”
Now it actually felt as if he’d received a blow to the head. For a few seconds, Travis even stopped breathing. Surely he’d heard her wrong. “Are you kidding me?”
“Nope.” She stepped back into the house, as if preparing to close the door. “You’re off the hook. And I need to get back—”
Travis surprised himself by sticking his boot in the opening. “I said I would be the one to do it.”
“And I said I don’t need you now.”
Travis couldn’t explain why it was so fucking imperative that he be the one to fix Georgie’s fireplace, but it was. Fucking imperative. Some fisherman named Pete wasn’t touching that brick monstrosity when he was perfectly capable of doing the job. The idea of letting her down made him queasy—and he had. Fine. Okay. He could admit this girl had done the impossible by getting him out of bed and out into the world again. She’d actually made him laugh. Filled his refrigerator. Now if she didn’t let him show his gratitude, he was going to be good and pissed.
Admitting to himself that Georgie was responsible for him being in the land of the living again turned over something desperate in his stomach. Without stopping to acknowledge the bad idea, Travis pulled Georgie into a hug, frowning when she didn’t even bother to wrap her free arm around him. Frowning as she fit against him perfectly. Lots of frowning in general. “Hey.” He planted a kiss on the top of her head. “I’m sorry, all right? I should have come by sooner.”
Georgie remained silent, so he squeezed her tighter, noticing she had kind of a smoky peach scent. Is this how she always smelled or was this new, too?
He hesitated for a second before tucking some strands of hair behind her left ear . . . and attempted to ignore the swelling that happened downstairs. Christ. Did his cock just get hard for Georgie? Stephen’s little sister, Georgie? Relax. He’d gone months without sex. That’s the only reason holding Georgie tucked against him was having an effect. Any other time, this kind of contact would be totally platonic. Travis swallowed. “I, uh . . . like your new haircut.”
“Thank you.” Georgie pushed out of his hold, her cheeks red. “You need to go. I have this covered.”
Something akin to panic started to set in. “You’re really serious, aren’t you? You’re not going to forgive me for missing the damn appointment.”
“I forgive you, but I won’t be accepting a rain check.” She backed into the house. “If you’re determined to stay, suit yourself. But I’m not canceling.”
At that, she turned on a heel and vanished into the house. Travis followed, feeling dumbstruck over how this situation had become so important to him. And completely escaped his control. Upon entering the foyer, the first thing he noticed was a collage on the wall beside the coatrack. Georgie sitting in her tree in the Castle backyard, pale legs dangling like a snapshot from his memory. The Castle family crowded around a Thanksgiving turkey. Georgie in a midair leap, holding up the keys to her new house. He started to walk away, when something caught his eye. A picture of him? Yeah. There he was, in his baseball uniform, sitting at the top of the high school bleachers. Stephen sat right beside him, but he wasn’t even looking at the camera, leaving Travis as the main focus.
He strode into the living room with something lodged in his throat.
It lodged even deeper when he saw Pete. He’d been expecting a salty old Long Island man. Instead it was some guy Travis’s age, standing shoulder to shoulder with Georgie so they could look at a sample book. Bald by choice. A beard.
“C
an I see your contractor’s license, please?”
Georgie stomped her foot. “Travis.”
“Her family owns a remodeling company. She knows at least four men that could do this work.” He jerked a chin at Georgie. “This was just a little act of rebellion, but she’s over it now.”
Indignation rippled across Georgie’s features. “I don’t work for Brick & Morty. I’m a private citizen with my own house who knows how to find my own contractor—whose license I already checked, by the way.” He didn’t like the sharp rise in color on her neck. “You wouldn’t even know I’d hired someone if you hadn’t taken it upon yourself to show up. I’m an adult, Travis. I don’t rebel for attention.”
“All right. I hear you,” he shouted back. Shouted? Yeah. There was something on the line here and he couldn’t figure out what. All he knew was he’d considered this girl a pest a week ago and now he didn’t like the idea of her not coming around anymore. He didn’t like the idea of leaving her with this guy, either. At all. “Should you be alone with a strange man in the house?”
“He’s not a strange man. I performed at his daughter’s birthday party.”
“Oh.” Travis cleared his throat. “You’re married.”
Pete shook his head and held up an empty ring finger, as if to say, Sorry, sucker. “Single dad.” He propped the clipboard on his hip. “And if it were my daughter, I’d be more worried about leaving her alone with Two Bats.”
Hot acid bubbled up in Travis’s stomach. “You sure you want to go there, pal?”
Pete took a step in his direction, but Georgie waylaid him with a hand on his arm. Since Travis could write a five-fucking-volume guide to sex, he easily recognized the rekindled interest in Bald Pete’s eyes when Georgie touched him. “Could you excuse us, Travis?”
He crossed his arms. “I’m good right here.”
Calculation danced across her face a second before she marched up to Travis, crooking her finger like she had a secret. Keeping his attention locked on Pete, Travis leaned down so she could whisper in his ear.
“Dale is my vibrator.”
Travis choked. Had he heard that right? Her smug smile told him he had. The innocent memory of Georgie lying on his bed and mumbling that she needed Dale took on a whole new meaning. Before he could stop himself, his sick mind conjured those frayed shorts being tugged down her legs, her right hand guiding a shuddering device between her thighs. Her head tossing back, mouth forming an O. A little mewling sound left Imaginary Georgie’s mouth . . . and his own hand took control of the shaking toy. “I’ll be outside.”
She dropped back on her heels. “That’s what I thought.”
He walked out of the house in a daze. Since when did a woman talking about sex in any capacity throw him off his game? Nothing caught him off guard when it came to the pleasures of the flesh. He’d seen, done, and heard it all. Not when it came to Georgie, though. She’d been frozen in time in his mind as a gangly preteen. That wasn’t her now, obviously. And that image he’d held of her for so long was beginning to thaw. Rapidly. She was a woman now who . . . masturbated. A woman who didn’t wait around for whatever scrap of attention her brother and his best friend decided to throw her. That message had come through loud and clear tonight.
A minute later, Travis climbed into his truck and watched Georgie and Pete through the front window of her house. Watched her slowly warm back up after their tiff and start to get excited about the design, nodding and beaming as Pete gestured to the old brick fireplace. Travis knew a man’s body language when he was asking a woman out. Pete had it. In response, she shoved her hands in her pockets, probably stuttering through an answer.
Goddammit. This was none of his business. She didn’t want him here. Why couldn’t he turn the key in the ignition and drive home?
Instead of doing the logical thing, he waited for Pete to leave the house, sharing prolonged eye contact with the man through his windshield. Had Georgie said yes to their date? The man betrayed nothing with his blank expression, except for surprise that Travis was still standing—or sitting, rather—guard outside the house.
Join the club.
Chapter Eight
In a testament to her unusual life choices, neither Bethany nor Rosie blinked when Georgie walked into their first Just Us League meeting in full clown makeup. There hadn’t been time to change or wash her face after the seven-year-old’s birthday party. Baby wipes might have been just the remedy, but frankly she didn’t mind hiding behind the mask today.
Talk about a one-two punch.
The birthday party had started off fine. Wild squealing mayhem, sure, but that was par for the course. Toward the middle of the festivities, however, she’d started to feel like one of the kids. At one point, the hostess had patted her on the head and handed her punch in a Dixie cup. Georgie totally understood her being hired to entertain the kids, but lately she’d become so much more aware of the division between herself and the other adults. While they all stood off to one side sipping sangria and swapping handyman recommendations, she was relegated to eating half-slices of pizza at the kids’ table. The parents didn’t mean any harm—they were lovely people.
They just looked at her and saw a clown. Only a clown. Not a businesswoman.
Or even a fellow grown-up.
Right on the heels of Travis invading her fireplace appointment and needling her sorest sore spot, even the laughter of children hadn’t soothed her troubled soul.
This was just a little act of rebellion, but she’s over it now.
Teeth grinding, Georgie hopped up onto a stool beside Rosie. She wasn’t sure she’d ever felt as helpless as Travis made her feel—and that was saying something. She’d been an idiot to think he could see her as a friend. An equal. Good thing she’d revealed Dale’s true identity and given herself an excuse to avoid Travis until the day she died. Oh my God. Had she actually done that? Knowing Travis would prefer not to see his best friend’s little sister as a sexual object, she’d thrown it in his face, banking on the awkwardness sending him running.
On second thought, maybe she’d revealed the secret so he would be forced to treat her like an adult. One who schedules her own fireplace work, dammit. Too bad she hadn’t unmasked Dale before he’d made her feel the size of a thimble.
“You look pretty depressed for someone dressed like a clown,” Bethany remarked from her lean against the kitchen island. “Did the party mother give out Super Soakers and pin a target to your back again?”
“No. And we don’t talk about the Great Drenching of 2017.”
“Right,” Bethany drawled, pushing away from the kitchen island. She went to the freezer and took out a chilled bottle of tequila and three frosty little shot glasses, setting them down on the polished granite with a flourish. “I was going to propose we make it a tradition to open every Just Us League meeting with a shot of Patrón, but I didn’t realize it would be so necessary. You both look like the bachelorette who didn’t get a rose.”
Georgie sent a glance in Rosie’s direction, noting that the other woman did, in fact, seem kind of . . . frozen. Graceful though she was, Rosie’s arms were crossed loosely at her middle, her shoulders in an uncharacteristic hunch. The only one of the three women who appeared upbeat was Bethany. Nothing new there, though. Bethany embodied the term “upbeat,” whether discussing a five-hundred-dollar scratch-off win or a cheating ex-boyfriend. Positive or negative, her poise never slipped, especially in her element. And her sleek, sophisticated all-white kitchen was most definitely Bethany’s element.
“I second this tequila proposal,” Georgie mumbled. “Pour generously.”
“But of course,” Bethany said, uncapping the bottle and sliding golden liquid into the icy shot glasses. “Bottoms up, ladies of the league. We have much to discuss.”
Rosie, Bethany, and Georgie clinked glasses, each having various reactions to the liquid bite as it went down. Bethany smiled, Georgie grimaced, and Rosie gave a hoarse cough.
“So,” Rosie c
roaked. “What other traditions did you have in mind, Beth?”
A smile tickled the edge of Georgie’s mouth. “You’ve got it all planned out already, don’t you?”
“Only a loose framework.” Bethany held up the bottle one more time and both women wordlessly slid the glasses back in her direction. “Let’s start by sharing one good thing—and one bad thing—that happened to us this week. I’ll start, since it’s my brilliant idea.” She shook back her blond hair. “Good thing: I finally told Stephen I want to head my own flip.”
Rosie reached across the island and patted Bethany’s hand. “Good for you.”
“Bad thing: he told me no.”
Georgie made a sad game-show noise. “I bet he didn’t even give you a reason.” She dropped her voice several octaves. “Reasons are beneath Stephen Castle.”
“Not one fucking reason. Unless you count caveman grunts.”
“I’m sorry.” Rosie twisted her shot glass on the island. “What now?”
Bethany took her second drink. “Now I consider . . . pursuing my goal outside of the Brick & Morty fold.”
Rosie’s jaw dropped, mimicking Georgie’s. “Competing against the family business?” She blew out a breath. “Everyone in town knows Brick & Morty rules the Port Jeff real estate scene. You’re a brave woman.”
“I think you mean crazy,” Georgie said. “Beth. Are you really ready to look Dad in the eye and see the shock of betrayal? The business is everything to him. To the whole family. Quitting or pursuing another line of work is one thing, competing is another.”
“Yeah, well.” Bethany shrugged. “Maybe when they dismiss me so easily, I feel betrayed.” She shifted in her heels. “You know?”
“Yes,” Georgie rushed to say, something hot twisting in her chest. “Actually I know exactly what you mean. I’ve been dismissed more times than a software update reminder.”