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“Will do. Although he’s not very good at taking compliments.”
“Something you’ll have to change,” Julie advised. “Just keep telling him how awesome he is, and eventually he’ll have to believe you.”
“You’d think,” Pixie pondered. “But I don’t for a minute believe it’s going to be that easy.”
“I have faith in you, girlfriend.”
Pixie could, once again, tell that Julie was distracted as she yelled. “Put the bag of chips down, Ian! I’ve been cooking for the past hour, and there’ll be no snacking.”
“Okay. You’ve got to go,” Pixie chuckled. “I’ll call you tomorrow night.”
“Right. Before my hubs ruins his supper. Bye, sweetie.”
Julie hung up, and not a moment too soon. Pixie heard tires on the gravel driveway, and sped over to a front window, seeing Doug’s truck pull in.
She didn’t miss the way her heart beat a little faster as she opened the door, waiting for him to alight from his truck.
“All finished?” she called out.
“For now,” Doug stated as his large body slid from of the cab. He looked…all business. Like a man in charge. “SPD is going to send a forensics crew out tomorrow, in daylight, to see if they can find anything we might have missed in the dark.”
Pixie barely refrained from rolling her eyes. “You know it’s probably kids, parking and doing teenage stuff. Right?” she grinned.
“I’m not so sure,” he countered, his face remaining serious. “I can tell, even in the dark, that whoever was there, has been a number of times.”
“Yeah,” Pixie backed up and held the door wide as he walked in. “Teenagers who’ve found the perfect spot.” She put her back to the portal and reached out a hand to almost touch his sleeve before remembering he didn’t want any contact. She slowly lowered her arm after waving her fingers around, dismissively, like that’s what she’d meant to do all along. “But thank you for being on top of it. I appreciate the trouble.”
Doug’s eyes traveled to the digits that had almost touched him, and he swallowed, visibly, then looked away. Had there been some kind of…want in his eyes?
No.That was crazy. It had to be a trick of the light because Doug had never gazed at her with anything other than friendship before.
“So, are you ready to go?” Doug asked, breaking her out of her speculations. “If we hurry, we can stop in Newport for dinner on the way back. There are a few nice restaurants in town, but they roll up the sidewalks at eight, so we’ll need to be quick.”
Pixie didn’t hesitate. She walked across the room, grabbed her coat, then added the pile of papers she’d long ago retrieved from her classroom, balancing both things on her good arm as she returned to Doug’s side. “How do you know about the restaurants in Newport? It’s a little off your beaten path, isn’t it?”
He shifted from foot to foot as he—without a second’s hesitation—took the stack of work from her so she could put on her coat.
“I, uh, actually won’t be living in my apartment much longer.”
It looked like it cost Doug a lot to give her that intel.
“Oh?” She wouldn’t pry. He’d either tell her more, or not.
“Yeah. I…bought a place in Newport a few months ago.”
It looked like he was about to warm to his subject, so Pixie remained quiet.
Sure enough, he elaborated. “I purchased this sweet little cottage on the lake, but it needs work to make it habitable year-round. I’ve been replacing sills, insulating, and researching what it will take to update all the HVAC systems. Once summer rolls around in earnest, I’ll camp out there, and install all new equipment, then hopefully, eventually, put on a small addition as well.”
He actually looked excited. And that was a first.
“That’s wonderful, Doug. I’m so happy for you.”And kind of jealous, she added to herself. Doug was moving on fromapartment life to becoming a homeowner, and she, at thirty-three, still lived with her parents. “When do you think you’ll move in full time?”
“I’m giving up my lease at the end of June, so I’ll have the next two months before I rough it, making it habitable enough for me to live in by next winter if I work my ass off.”
“Ambitious,” she said,followinghim out the door, because,yeah, he went first, scouting the perimeter for what she presumed might be bogymen.
Pixie turned around to close the door, then fit the key in the lock before Doug more or less herded her to her car. “It sounds like you’ll have a busy year,” she continued.
