“I admit, I had a hard time finding it on the doggie food pyramid, and the vet informed me in no uncertain terms that I’m an irresponsible doggie parent if I let him eat them too often. So don’t worry. I am well-informed of my bad parenting.” He dragged a kitchen chair beside the space heater and waved to it.
“Oh.” Bree cracked a smile as she sat on it. “Well, I’m glad to hear you’re admitting it at least.”
“And that’s the first step to recovery, I hear. Sorry—” He leaned over her, reaching for the power button on the space heater squeezed between Bree and the kitchen wall. He clicked it on, then pushed the heat to high. Even without touching her, he could sense her stiffness. Feel his own.
He stood upright. “There. That should just take a couple minutes.”
“What? Not thirty? I was promised thirty.”
He looked up to her face as he moved to the other side of the counter. Heard the playfulness in her tone. Good. She was starting to relax. Even if just barely.
He swiveled around. Pulled open the fridge and ducked his head in. “Okay then. Chili. Moderately decent chili . . .” He plucked a couple of tomatoes from the bottom drawer. Grabbed the jar of minced garlic with the other hand.
“Minced garlic. Wow.” Bree stuffed her hands beneath her legs. “I did not expect you to be a cook.”
He raised a brow. “You mean you haven’t seen me chopping up onions from the kitchen window?”
And for once, she looked abashed. “Well . . .”
He smiled as he set a few cans of black beans on the counter. “You know, while brooding with a steaming cup of coffee at your lips?”
She rose her brow innocently. “Has that ever happened? Surely not—”
“And mouthing words at me? What were those words . . .” He tapped his finger on the counter as he shut the cabinet. “What were they? . . . I. Hate. You?”
“Oh look!” Bree pointed to the cabinet. “It slow-closes now. Isn’t that just lovely?”
The comment, intended to distract, brought the conversation to an abrupt stop. He opened his mouth, tripping to find a good reply, while the thoughts flashed across his mind in bold: She paid so much attention to him that she knew his soft-close cabinet had been broken at one point. And that he’d fixed it. She’d watched him enough through the window to observe the pace at which his cabinet closed.
And had just admitted it.
To him.
He found himself looking for a reply that would make the red creeping up her neck dissipate.
“Well, it’s not anything near the vintage-modern style of your open cabinetry, but I’ll take the compliment,” he said nonchalantly. “By the way, what is with your mismatching appliances? I’m not picky, but a stainless-steel dishwasher with a white fridge . . .”
“You,” Bree retorted, “not picky? Every single room in this house is the same color.”
He laughed. “Yeah, yeah, my gray walls don’t have quite the charm as your wallpapered ones. But at least I don’t have creepy children on the wallpaper of my dining room.”
She smiled as she crossed one leg over the other and laughed in an indignant way. “What they are is adorable. Adorable little kids running down a hill carrying baskets.”
He pulled out the knife and began chopping a tomato. “Creepy little kids chasing a poor old man down a hill while carrying baskets.”
“He’s not an old man.”
“He’s bald.”
“It’s a boy with a baseball cap.”
“He’s a bald old man being harassed by the village children.” He pointed his knife toward the window. “You see it from my angle.”
While the pot of chili simmered, and after much argument, the experiment began. She went back to her house, flicked on the light switch to the dining room, and then came back so they could stand side by side at his window, observing as if they were in an art gallery.
“I still don’t see it,” she said, her fingers pressed to her chin as she squinted from his kitchen window to hers.
“Turn your head,” he said, tilting his head a few inches.
She watched him, then did so herself.
Waited a few moments.
“Nope.”
“Squint a little,” he said.
She squinted, then tilted her head the other direction and squinted again. “Nope. Just an adorable little boy followed by his clan.”
“You’ll see it better from this window,” he said and moved toward the window above the counters. She followed.
They ended up trying every window facing her house. And then, when she had finally conceded to a slightly disturbing image, she dragged him over to her house to see the wallpaper for himself—where he then conceded to it not being as creepy as it seemed from a distance.
Thirty minutes later, Bree sat with bent knees up to her chin as she dragged the last of the crumbly cornbread across the bowl of chili. They’d talked more of his family, her family, how she felt about life since leaving Gatlinburg, how he felt about the Barter bid. It was easy, talking to her. Almost as easy as it had been that first night. And for the first time since moving in, the house started to feel like a home.
She popped the last bit of cornbread into her mouth as she looked at the freshly painted wall.
“Do you think there’s something wrong with me?”
He raised a brow. He spoke around his mouthful of cornbread. “I’m sorry. Is this a trick question?”
Her eyes turned from the wall to him. She made a face. “Really, Chip. Do you think there maybe is something wrong with me, that I can’t find anything that makes me happy? Really happy?”
“You seem to be happy with lots of things. Heck, you look like you’re having the time of your life with that chili.”
Bree, who indeed looked both happy and relaxed, rubbed the last of the crumbs off her T-shirt. “No, I mean beyond the chili—which, for the record, is a solid A-minus. I mean with jobs. And experiences. And life in general. I just feel like sometimes I can’t enjoy the moment as fully as I’m supposed to. I just wonder if maybe something’s wrong with me. Like I just can’t get filled up to the top like everybody else.”
“Oh.” He shrugged. “Well, I don’t believe anything in this life can fully satisfy. Not in the way we were designed to feel.”
“But why can everybody else be content and not me? Look at you. You seem perfectly content having this house that you’re always working on.”
He nodded. “That’s true. To the extent that I can be, I am.”
“And your job. You are passionate about your job. It’s obvious. Just like Birdie’s passionate about theatre. And my best friend was passionate about her job and now about parenting all of her kids. Everyone around me seems to have found something that makes them want to get up in the morning. But me?” Bree tossed her crumpled paper towel on the table. “I’ve tried so many jobs at this point, Chip. I feel like at some point I have to admit that maybe it’s not the job’s fault. It’s me. There’s gotta be something wrong. With me.”
She pressed her lips together as she looked at him, and it was clear in her eyes that this topic was important to her. It meant something. To give a flippant reply that she was perfectly normal, that everybody felt this way sometimes, couldn’t do it justice.
And really, he wanted to do it justice.
“Well. Let me think.” He set down his spoon.
Thought for a moment before choosing his next words.
“You’re a lot of things, Bree, but I’ve never looked at you and thought impossible to satisfy was one of them. Hardheaded, yes. Stubborn. To. A. Fault.”
She frowned. Crossed her arms over her knees.
He put up a hand. “But also spontaneous. Adventurous. Fun. Your loyalty to your friends and family is inspiring. You have a gift in seeing the outsider and drawing them in. You are the person people want to be around.” He grinned. “Even I fall into that category. Even if it’s been for the pleasure of driving you crazy.”
&nbs
p; He thought he saw her blushing as she drew her knees up until they covered her chin. “But I don’t love a job. Any job. And I’ve tried—”
He shrugged. “So unlike half of the population, you love yourself too much to settle for fifty hours a week doing something that doesn’t spark you. You value your time more than possessions. I think that takes bravery.”
She shook her head. “But more than jobs. It’s hobbies. A lifetime of ridiculous hobbies. And even with guys—”
“So you keep moving on because you haven’t found the one who makes you want to stop.” He smiled slightly, then felt the heat creep up the back of his own neck. “I know a little bit about that struggle. It’s not the end of the world to wait for the right person.”
He paused for a beat, then put out his hands. “Look, everybody longs to capture that picture-perfect moment when their hearts are bursting with joy around friends and family and achievements and whatever else, and then live in that frozen, perfect snapshot forever. Well, it doesn’t happen here. But I think the fact we long for that means it’s going to happen somewhere else. Otherwise, why would we all want it so bad?
“So maybe you need to lower your expectations a little bit on what you think this life ‘should’ look like 24/7. Maybe you need to recognize that there is no way the job you pick or people you’re with are going to be easy and fun all the time. Or”—he shrugged as he picked up his plate, then hers—“maybe you just haven’t found the right job, or hobby, or person, and need to keep looking. Or, and this is what I’d bet on, maybe you need to do a little of both.”
He paused before he took a step toward the counter with plates in hand. “You tell me, Bree. What do you want most? Right now. What’s one thing you think you want most right now?”
He felt a flurry in his chest as he said the words.
In that moment, looking at Bree sitting on that chair with her knees pressed to her chin, he knew what his answer would be.
And it was startling.
“What do I want most, right at this moment?” she repeated, her evergreen eyes on his.
He saw the perfect crease between her brows.
Fought the desire to reach forward and smooth it.
What would he do if she said you? What madness would he have stumbled upon if the woman who had brought him such mirthful misery over the last month said his name?
She exhaled softly. “Nana’s house.”
Chip felt his own chest deflate. He pushed aside the ridiculous thought, and even more, the ridiculous disappointment that came with her answer. The house. Of course. She wanted the house.
She shrugged. “I know. It’s not much. It’s not even a passionate, life-or-death desire. But right now, I just want Nana’s house. I want to own these memories. I want Anna to see Nana’s house and to love it. I want to preserve all of the good things that happened there.”
He nodded. “I get it.” He patted the counter. “I want this house too.” He set the plates in the sink and started up the water. “So get the house.”
“Yeah. It’s not that easy.”
“Is anything worthwhile ever easy?”
Chip picked up the scrubber. Started scrubbing down the plates.
Bree stood. Took the paper towel and started sweeping off the crumbs from the table.
When she finished, she tossed the paper towel in the open trash can. Shifted her weight uncertainly. “Well, hey, this has been . . . really nice. Thanks for the meal. And the company.”
He dropped the scrubber and fully turned, realizing he wasn’t quite ready for her to leave. “Oh. Oh sure. I’ll walk you to the door.”
She gave an appreciative smile as she pushed both chairs in and followed him.
He opened the door and stepped onto the porch.
For a few moments they stood there, saying nothing. The moon hung over the house above them, stars twinkling as they’d twinkled for the millions before them. The billions around them. But at this moment, the display seemed only for them.
He jutted his thumb toward her house. “I’d say ‘drive safe’ but . . . I figure you can manage pretty well.”
She gave a soft laugh and wrapped her arms around herself. “Thanks again. Chip. This was really . . . nice.”
He opened his mouth to give a casual, frivolous reply, then stopped. Because this wasn’t casual. Nothing about this conversation, or this night, was trivial. Even her calling him by name, just then, wasn’t casual. All of it meant something.
Maybe even a whole lot of something.
“You’re welcome, Bree. And I agree. We should . . . do it again,” he said, looking straight into her eyes.
And then she did something he didn’t expect. In fact, she did something that, five hours before, he would’ve bet his house and business on never happening.
She hugged him.
He felt the squeeze of her arms around his torso, her face pressed against his collarbone. Her hair tickled his nose and rubbed against his five-o’clock shadow. The air suddenly smelled a little more like strawberries. For the first time ever, he felt the impulse to rest his cheek there, to feel her soft hair against his rough jaw. But before he had the chance to wrap his arms around her, she pulled back.
A flicker of movement came to his right, and his eyes followed the source to the glow of Mrs. Lewis’s living-room window. He saw the woman’s face peeking from behind the curtain.
Bree bounced on her toes, looking more than a little embarrassed by her spontaneous display of affection. “Right. Well, I’m going to head back now. Thanks.”
He nodded, trying with all his might to keep the smirk from running up his cheeks. “Sounds like a good plan if you want to keep those legs of yours from freezing off before your audition next week.”
Her embarrassed expression dropped immediately. She lifted her brow. “Okay. I can concede to kitchen stalking. But how did you know?”
One side of Chip’s face lifted in a smile. “To defeat your enemy, you have to know them. And believe me, Bree, I know you better than the back of my hand.”
Bree released a sliver of a smile. “Well, all I can say is, that game plan is mutual.”
She hesitated, then ducked her head and hopped down the stairs.
The gravel crunched beneath her shoes as she crossed over his driveway and onto hers.
“Hey, Chip,” Bree called once she reached her porch steps.
“Yeah?”
“For the record, I hope you get the job next week too.”
* * *
It didn’t take but two minutes back inside his kitchen to make Chip drop the plates into the drying rack and snatch his keys off the counter.
He drove straight to Ashleigh’s house without calling. No text. No heads-up to set her mind spinning.
Oh, the transformation on Ashleigh’s face as she opened the door was painful. It took only seconds for the initial look of pleasant surprise to shift to a crease of concern above her sky-blue eyes.
But he had to say it to her. Because he had been right in what he’d said to Bree.
You need to keep on moving until you find the one who makes you want to stop.
And he had never quite stopped for Ashleigh, though she had waited patiently at the door for him all those nights while he worked, had waited patiently for him every step of the way.
She wasn’t meant for him, but for someone who appreciated her much, much more. Who didn’t just know she was wonderful but felt it.
That was not how Ashleigh saw it, and she made this painfully, tearfully clear over the next two hours. After he explained to her the reasons they should break it off—she insisted on hearing each one—the full force of Ashleigh’s oratorical skills came out as she paced and talked, wearing down a line on her Persian rug.
Several times key phrases such as “time I invested in you” and “waste all that work” came up, but he didn’t interrupt. Eventually she ran out of words, and he ran out of apologies, and she did the only thing a respectable southern belle like he
rself would do: wrap herself around his neck with one hard, final hug, peck him on the cheek, straighten her blouse, and tell him she appreciated the strength he demonstrated in talking freely with her.
Honestly, she was going to make a terrific senator’s wife.
Back at home, Chip lay on his back in the quiet of his room, the same milky moon watching him from the window. Quietly he lowered his hand and rubbed Russell’s ear.
Russell inched his head up and leaned into Chip’s palm, then dropped down again on his paws.
For several minutes, he lay there in the quiet, thinking about the bid and the Monday morning meeting he’d finally secured with a bank to talk about a credit line. Thinking about his crew and the ongoing schedule changes and needs. Thinking about the bathroom wall he had meant to paint that evening. Thinking about the strange way a man had to keep living in this world, making plans and goals and priorities, knowing how fleeting it all was. Thinking about Jake. Thinking about Bree.
Chip pushed his sleeping bag off and planted his bare feet on the cold hardwood. Russell lifted his head while Chip went over to the new dresser, where a legal pad lay open in the center next to a Sharpie. He uncapped it. Wrote the message.
SLEEP WELL
As he settled back down on the mattress, his eyes didn’t stray from her large, dark window.
He watched the window as the minutes on his watch ticked on and the milky moon rose higher in the sky.
Eventually Russell fell asleep.
Chip’s own eyes started to take longer and longer blinks.
And then, from one moment when his eyes closed to the next when they opened again, her response was there.
YOU TOO
Chapter 17
Bree
“What did you do?”
Bree opened her eyes slowly, blinking as light flooded her retinas. Slowly, she registered the hands on the hips of wildly flared bell-bottoms. The keys, with attached donut keychain, clutched in one hand. Her gaze lifted as she watched Evie’s chest rise with an impatient breath. By the time her eyes lifted to Evie’s face, she didn’t expect any less than the heavy purple-lipstick frown.
The Cul-de-Sac War Page 20