Maybe no excuse was needed. I turned my attention back to Joe, who was watching me with that same intensity that he had at Pile It On Pizza.
“I don’t know how he’ll get in. He doesn’t have a key, but I guess you’ll hear him when he knocks,” I said quietly, so my panic and worry about Brad wouldn’t echo between us.
“Yeah, I’ll hear him if he knocks. Maybe I’ll let him in.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Maybe?”
He shrugged. “Thought he was rude, almost knocking his chair over in his hurry to be with the snow bunny.”
I stared at him. “You didn’t like her?”
He jerked his head back in revulsion at the thought and scrunched up his brow. “Please.”
I don’t know why I took his response as an invitation, but I did. Maybe because it so reflected my opinion of “Cyn.” It made us compadres, in sync, buddies. I lowered myself to the couch. “Why didn’t you like her?”
“‘I’m so sorry to bother you…’” He did a perfect imitation of her breathless delivery that made me want to laugh. “Give me a break,” he said. “If she was really sorry, she wouldn’t have walked over to begin with. A broken disposal isn’t exactly an emergency.”
I found it comforting that I wasn’t the only one who was less than impressed with our neighbor, and I didn’t think he was really expecting me to answer. I moved back into the corner of the couch and brought my feet up to the cushion. My legs weren’t nearly as long as Joe’s, so I couldn’t stretch them out far enough to rest my feet on the coffee table.
“What are you watching?” I asked, deciding I could keep a lookout for Brad here as easily as I could from the deck.
“Law and Order rerun. I think they’re on twenty-four–seven these days.”
I snuggled down more deeply into the cushions. “I love Law and Order, except for the fact that there aren’t nearly enough cute guys on the show.”
“What are you talking about? Lennie was cute.”
I could tell from his grin that he was teasing, but still I felt obligated to defend my position. “Too old. Still, it was sad when Jerry Orbach died.”
“Yeah, I was sorry to hear that. I really liked the way he ended each intro with some wisecrack.” He shook his head. “That Lennie.”
“I was hoping when he left the show that they’d replace him with some really young, sexy detective. I mean, it’s not fair. Jack’s assistants are young, sexy women.”
“The show isn’t about eye candy. It’s got good writing. That’s the real star of the show.”
“So you’d be okay if the next time they replaced Jack’s assistant, she wore orthopedic shoes, and her gray hair in a bun?”
“Hey, let’s not get too carried away here. Don’t need to eliminate the sweets completely…and maybe you have a point about not enough young guys.”
I drew my legs closer to my body, wrapped my arms around them, and placed my chin on my knees. I liked the way that Joe never tried to bully me into anything, the way he’d helped keep things calm earlier when I’d presented my list of rules.
“Is that the reason Sam called you Mr. Law and Order? Because you like this show?”
“Nah, he calls me that because I’m majoring in criminal law.”
“Are you going to be a lawyer?”
“No, I’m thinking more along the lines of FBI, maybe CIA.”
“Wow, that’s pretty ambitious.”
“Well, don’t be too impressed. I still have three and a half years to go. A lot can happen between now and then. I gotta get all the basic coursework out of the way first.”
I could see him working for the FBI or the CIA. He didn’t have the overpowering presence that Brad did, but there was something about him that made me feel really safe, comfortable. He treated me like an equal, like someone whose opinion he valued, like I was interesting.
“Sam’s never talked about you. How did you meet him?”
Not that Sam was in the habit of talking to me about his friends. As a matter of fact, he seldom talked to me about anything.
“We live in the same dorm. My room is across the hall from his.”
“I didn’t see you when I was there for family weekend.”
“I know.”
Something about the way he said it…
“Did you see me?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
As though suddenly embarrassed, he looked at the TV, pointed at the screen. “Angie Harmon. My favorite.”
It was strange. Sitting here in the dark with the dancing firelight and the flickering images from the TV washing over him, it occurred to me that he might be better looking than Brad. Not in the same rugged way that Brad was, of course. Brad was…well, Brad looked tough. Strong. Joe looked…well, he looked tough, too, but in a nicer kind of way. I wasn’t making sense, couldn’t sort out my thoughts.
But I discovered that I enjoyed watching him.
“What color are your eyes?” I asked.
He jerked his head around so fast that I thought I heard his neck pop.
“What?”
“Your eyes. I noticed them earlier, but I couldn’t figure out what color they are.”
I could make out his grin in the shadows.
“Depends on what I’m wearing. If it’s blue, my eyes look blue. If I’m wearing green, they look green. Brown, brown.” He rocked his head from side to side. “The official color on my driver’s license is hazel.”
I wasn’t sure if I’d ever looked that closely at hazel eyes before. They were kind of intriguing. I was tempted to get up and turn on the light so I could get a better look at his, now that I knew what color they were, but it seemed like an odd thing to want to do.
“Your eyes are one clear-cut color,” he said. “Green.”
“You noticed, huh?”
He studied me for a heartbeat before turning his attention back to the show. “Yeah.”
There it was again. Disappointment…or embarrassment.
But that made no sense. We were talking eye color for goodness’ sake.
Joe wore his hair short on the sides and back, a little longer in the front. The strands had a mussed look, the way they might look if a girl had run her fingers through it. Brad’s hair was cropped really short. I wouldn’t be able to tell if the snow bunny next door had touched them. Thank goodness.
Joe had a well-defined jaw that sported a day’s growth of beard. I guess he would use my bathroom in the morning to shave. That sure seemed intimate. There was a bathroom downstairs between the two basement bedrooms, but the bathroom up here had a door that led into the living room and a door that led into my bedroom.
So, yeah, he’d probably be using my bathroom first thing. I needed to make sure I had the door leading into my bedroom closed.
I twisted around and looked at the front door. I heard Joe sigh like he was irritated with me or something.
“What if he tripped coming over here and he’s out there freezing to death?” I asked. “I’ve heard that you don’t know that you’re dying because you start to get all warm and drowsy. You just think you’re going to sleep.”
“Trust me. He’s not out there freezing to death. He didn’t trip on his way back over here.”
“How do you know?”
He gave me a sideways glance. “I just know.”
Okay, so if he hadn’t tripped…maybe there was another reason he hadn’t come knocking on our door. But I so didn’t want to think about that.
“He’s probably staying over there, because he doesn’t have a key and he didn’t want to wake anyone up over here,” I guessed.
“Yeah, I’m sure that’s the reason.”
But he said it like he was sure that wasn’t the reason and he thought I was stupid for thinking it was, that I was stupid for not recognizing that Brad hadn’t come home because Cynthia had given him a reason to stay over there. He wasn’t so different from Sam. I guessed that was why they were friends. I suddenly didn’t like him, his attitude, or his
big bare feet resting on the coffee table. Why was I even here? I had skiing to do in the morning and I needed to be rested for it.
I popped up off the couch. “Well, I’m going to bed. Goodnight.”
He looked at me, studying me again, like he was searching for something. “Don’t let Sam get to you. It’s a guy’s job to torment his sisters.”
I wasn’t sure how we’d switched the topic from Brad to Sam, but I was okay with it. It was so much safer. It didn’t involve my heart.
“It doesn’t sound like you torment your sisters,” I said.
“I always leave the toilet seat up.”
“Then why did you agree to the rule?”
“Maybe I like you more than I like my sisters.”
Chapter 6
The next morning, while I took my shower, I tried really hard not to think about two things:
I never heard Brad come home.
Joe’s parting words before I returned to bed.
And sometimes I found myself thinking harder and longer about Joe’s words than about Brad’s failure to return from next door. I was pretty sure that Joes’s comment had been innocent with no innuendo, but then I’d think about the fact that he seemed embarrassed to have noticed me when I didn’t notice him. Gosh, had he been in the dorm hallway? Had I looked right at him and not noticed him or remembered him?
Geez, what an insult to him if that was the case. But he wasn’t forgettable, so maybe he’d seen me from a distance—while I was walking with Sam and my parents across campus or something.
And he liked me more than he liked his sisters because that’s just the way guys were. I mean, honestly, Sam liked Allie and Leah more than he liked me. He’d talked to them almost nonstop at the Pile It On, and he never talked to me that much.
So Joe’s was a typical guy statement. It didn’t mean anything.
I had myself convinced that’s the way it was by the time I walked into the living room, dressed in jeans and a sweater. The drapes were drawn, so the room was in shadows.
I peered over at the couch. Joe was sprawled on it, a quilt draped over him, a pillow beneath his head, his bare feet hanging off one end. I resisted the urge to tug the quilt down and cover up those feet. They had to be cold, and he had to be uncomfortable. It didn’t seem fair that he’d have to sleep there for three weeks. Maybe the guys would rotate sharing the beds.
But that was their problem. I wasn’t giving up my bed. Not even for a guy who liked me more than he liked his sisters.
I crept into the kitchen and turned on the light. I walked to the sink, reached over it, and opened the blinds. Through the window, I could see Cynthia’s condo. I realized that I could have just come in here last night and kept an eye out instead of trying to get to the deck. Not that I still wouldn’t have had to walk by Joe, but I could have made the excuse of needing a drink of water. Coming up with a reason for wanting to go out to the deck at midnight had proven a bit of a problem—not that I’d gotten far enough to make an excuse. Besides, Joe had pretty much guessed my intentions. I had a feeling that he wasn’t quite as clueless as Sam.
I went to the refrigerator and took out a carton of eggs and a package of bacon. I would start cooking breakfast. I needed to focus on anything except the real reason that Brad hadn’t returned—the very real possibility that he’d slept with Cynthia. So who was being clueless now?
I set everything on the counter and took a couple of pans out of the cabinet. Brad wasn’t my boyfriend, so he had the right to do whatever he wanted with whomever he wanted. But I didn’t like the idea that he might have. And if he had, then should I give up on us completely?
Only there was no us, not really. So the question was, did I want an us with Brad if he had slept with “Cyn”?
“You broke the rules.”
With a tiny screech, I spun around. Joe was lounging in the doorway, his shoulder pressed against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest, his biceps clearly visible. In the light of the kitchen I could read the T-shirt that I’d been unable to read the night before in the dark. It read, THESE GUNS DON’T COME WITH SAFETIES.
Ah, man! He had an amazing set of guns, which were also more visible in the light. He definitely worked out.
“What?” I snapped. If I’d said more than one word, I would have stammered. He had me totally rattled. Did Brad’s arms look that strong? I crazily wondered what it might feel like to be held in Joe’s arms, to look into those hazel eyes at close range.
“According to the rules, the guys are supposed to shower first,” Joe said. “I wonder what punishment I should administer to you.”
His gaze slowly roamed over me, stealing my breath as it went.
“Punishment?” I squeaked.
“It was decided yesterday that I would be the enforcer of the rules.”
“Only for Sam.”
“You sure?”
I nodded jerkily. “Besides, I didn’t know anyone was already up.”
And actually he hadn’t been when I’d walked by.
“No big deal, Freckles.”
“Why’d you call me that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because you remind me of Kate on Lost.”
That was a major compliment. Kate was strong and confident, repeatedly kicking guys’ butts. I hardly ever did that. I thought about telling him, but what the heck. Let him have his fantasy.
“Who’s your favorite character on the show?” he asked.
I took a minute to respond to his change in direction.
“I liked Jack in the beginning, but Sawyer really grew on me.”
“Yeah, I’ve always heard girls go for the bad boys. I guess that’s the reason Brad has such a following.”
I had a vision of Brad surrounded by maniacal, screaming women. I hoped Joe wasn’t putting me in that category. It was insulting.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I mean wherever we go, girls are attracted to him. Like the snow bunny last night.”
The reminder of our neighbor—and my failure to hold Brad’s attention—hurt. “I didn’t hear him come in.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“So he was really quiet when he came home?” I was pitiful. My voice sounded so hopeful and fearful at the same time. Like I was putting off facing the truth—Brad had done more than fix a stupid garbage disposal.
Joe just shook his head.
“Maybe he knocked—”
“I left the door unlocked.”
As if on cue, I heard the front door open. My stomach tightened and my heart started pounding.
“Hey, Joe!” It was Brad. I’d recognize his voice anywhere and the way it shimmered through me. “Good news, man. Cyn is going to hang around with us on the slopes today.”
His good news was my bad news.
Brad came around the corner, into the kitchen, and stopped short at the sight of me. I figured I probably looked the way our snowman would come summer: melting, melting, melting. Why couldn’t he be as excited about me as he was about Cynthia?
He gave me a broad grin that for the span of a heartbeat offered me hope that maybe…
“Hey, Allie.”
And the hope was gone, buried beneath an avalanche of disappointment. He was never going to get together with me. He didn’t even remember my freaking name!
“She’s Kate,” Joe said quietly.
Brad shook a finger at me like I was the one who got my name wrong. “That’s right. Kate is the sister, Allie is the friend. Sam talked about them so much on the drive here, I got them confused. No big deal. I’m off to take a shower. I’ll catch you guys later.”
I stood there mute and devastated. Sam talked about me and Allie? Why would he do that? Why did I care? It was probably all bad. My brother must have turned him against me, revealing the most embarrassing moments of my childhood.
“Hey, Kate, don’t let him get to you. He’s not good with names.” Joe’s voice held pity and he was so wrong. Brad didn’t have any trouble at
all remembering Cyn.
I hated Joe at that moment. He knew, knew I liked Brad. I was wearing my heart on my sleeve. Something Aunt Sue always said, but I’d never really understood what it meant until now. It meant everyone—except stupid, dumb Brad—knew that I liked him.
I sprung into action and started to walk past Joe. He grabbed my arm. “Kate—”
“I have to go.”
“Where are you going?”
“To Aunt Sue’s for our morning meditation session.”
He gave me a grin like he thought that was all I needed to make my world right again. “Thought the girls were supposed to cook breakfast.”
I had to get out of there. Pronto. The last thing I wanted him to see were the tears burning the back of my eyes as they moved to the front and rolled over onto my cheeks. “Later.”
I sounded like I was choking on those very tears. I broke away from his hold and grabbed my jacket from the coat rack by the door. I was stuffing my arms into the sleeves when I heard Sam announce, “Hey, Kate, I want my eggs over easy and my bacon crisp.”
I hadn’t seen him come into the living room, but I wasn’t going to look back at him. He’d know something was wrong. Or maybe he wouldn’t. Like I said, he was pretty clueless most of the time.
“Leave her alone, Sam,” Joe said.
I was on the front porch, zipping my jacket, the door slammed shut behind me before Sam could say something else equally stupid. My brother was such an idiot.
Then I was running, running hard, down the hill, toward the village, toward Aunt Sue’s, toward a haven away from the embarrassment I’d just suffered.
Joe knew what I felt for Brad. I’d seen it in his hazel eyes.
And he knew what Brad felt for me.
Absolutely nothing.
“Clear your mind and focus on your breathing, Katie,” Aunt Sue said. “Release the negative energy.”
I was sitting on an exercise mat on the carpeted floor in Aunt Sue’s apartment, my back straight, my hands limp in my lap, my eyes closed.
In a panic I’d arrived at her apartment above the bookstore and pounded on her door. When she opened it, I’d rushed inside and burst into tears. Not so much because Brad had broken my heart. He hadn’t. Not really. I mean, to break something you have to touch it, right? And he hadn’t touched my heart yet.