“Everything okay down there?”
Lara knew she had to speak. Shereallyneeded to stop getting lost in the blue of his eyes.
But he was the one to break the eye contact, then the physical contact when he dropped her hand. “Yeah, Mary Lou. Just some trouble with a door.”
Ty didn’t care for that strange…thing. He didn’t even know what to call it. It wasn’t like he’d never noticed his best friend was a woman. An attractive one at that.
He wasn’t blind, and she’d been on top of him.
It was just, he’d learned early on not to dwell on it. Lara was far too important of a friend to mixhormonesup in it. Not once in all these years had either of them been stupid enough to blur any important friendship lines.
That moment, though, had involved some dwelling. And some awareness he really wished he didn’t have, about the shape of Lara’s body…pressed up against his.
Well, get it together,Wagner.
They tromped upstairs together. Mary Lou gave him a few tasks, then her and Lara put their heads together and talked about the museum. Fieldtrip schedules and exhibit maintenance. He replaced lightbulbs that required getting on a ladder, and dusted ledges that required the same.
“Now I’ve got my walking club to get to. If you finish that list, you just have Lara add to it. Plenty to be done around here.”
“Sure thing, Mary Lou.”
“You know, Principal Stolt’s wife is in my walking club. I could ask her about?—”
“No need.” He didn’t explain himself further and she didn’t push. But he knew that was temporary. She’d give him maybe a few days to settle, then Mary Lou was going to start pushing.
Which meant he needed to figure himself out and right quick. He’d stay with them, because of friendship and care, but he wasn’t going to let the Townsend women fix his life for him. That washisjob.
And he wasn’t taking a job coaching baseball, even if therewasan opening. He needed to figure something else out. He was leaving baseball behind. Cold turkey. Besides, what did a washed up failure like him have to offer a bunch of eager kids?
He’d find something else. Something… But his mind was blank as he went through his task list. The problem was, baseball hadalwaysbeen the center of his life, and he’d never given any other interests room to grow.
When he went back inside after cleaning a clog in the gutter of the building, he found Lara behind the counter, giving a family the whole museum spiel. The kids looked bored, but the dad was all in and happily forked over the museum fee before leading his family into the theatre that gave a welcome video.
“Was the gutter cooperative?” she asked him, stepping out from the counter and then crossing the room to a closet.
“I think I got it.”
She opened the closet door which then hid most of her from his vantage point, but when she bent over to dig something out, it pushed her…posteriorinto view, and even with the thick sweater-looking tights, the skirt hugged just a little too close to curves for him not to remember what it felt like to have her land right on top of him.
Which was just…wrong. He needed to remind himself of a few things. “So, how’s the old ball and chain?” He never did like calling Adam by his name. Which wasn’t really fair. Adam was a nice enough guy, far as Ty could tell. Ty couldn’t even hold thejealousy thing against the guy. If Ty had a girlfriend, and she had a guy best friend—one who showed up and slept on her couch bed, even if her grandmother was around—he’d be jealous as hell.
“Oh. Well, I suppose he’s doing okay,” Lara said vaguely.
“Yousuppose? Shouldn’t you know how your boyfriend is doing?”
“I… I guess I didn’t tell you,” Lara said, her head burrowed in the closet so her words were muffled. “We broke up.”
She was rummaging around in a pile of what he determined were costumes. She was decidedlynotlooking at him as she pulled a stack out of the closet.
“When?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she hedged.
But of course she knew, and he wasn’t letting her off the hook. “Lara.”
“A couple months ago, I guess.” She moved past him, carrying the costumes over to the children’s corner and then kneeling down to carefully hang them up on little hangers.
He followed her, a very irritating suspicion itching to the surface. “A couple months ago? Or after he pitched a fit about me staying with you guys the last time I was home?”
