Belatedly, he realized he had two options. He could ask Cait if she wanted to go upstairs and hang out in the bathroom with him while he diagnosed his sister’s toilet, or he could leave her downstairs. With his nosy older sister.
He hadn’t really thought this through very well.
“Can I get you something to drink, Cait?” His sister gave him an innocent smile. “It never takes Gavin long to fix things.”
It sure as hell wouldn’t tonight, he thought as he practically ran up her stairs. Not even five minutes later, he’d reattached the lift chain and went downstairs to find Henry and the kids in front of the TV and Jill and Cait nowhere to be seen.
They’d be in the kitchen, he thought. His mom and sister always retreated to the kitchen to drink coffee or wine disguised in coffee cups, which fooled nobody. He would have been tempted to linger outside the arched doorway to the kitchen and eavesdrop, but Bella was watching him. If he stood there doing nothing, she’d start asking him questions and he’d be caught, so he forced himself to move.
“That wasreallyfast,” Jill said, and then she pressed her lips together to keep from laughing. He could see in her eyes that she knew he’d been nervous about leaving the two of them alone.
“If the whole firefighting thing doesn’t work out for you,” Cait said, “you could be a plumber. Maybe don’t charge by the hour, though.”
“You guys are funny. All fixed, so you ready to go, Cait?”
Cait knew, too, and he had no doubt she would give him a bunch of shit when they got back to his truck.
“I can heat you up some leftover chili if you want to stay,” Jill said.
“Thanks, but we have plans. Oh, and your lift chain came unattached and I can’t even guess how.”
His sister smiled. “All I heard wasblah blah call me if it happens again blah blah, but thanks for fixing it.”
He walked over and kissed her on the cheek, and then gave Cait an expectant look. She smiled and then set her half-empty glass of water on the counter.
“It was nice to meet you, Jill.”
“You, too. I’ll be in touch about that thing we talked about.”
Gavin frowned, but Cait just smiled and preceded him into the living room. After saying goodbye to Henry and the kids, they walked in silence back to his truck.
He made it maybe an eighth of a mile before he cracked. “Whatthingdid you and Jill talk about?”
She burst out laughing and it was a few seconds before she could answer. “There’s no thing, Gavin. God, you’re easy.”
“You have a mean streak.”
“It wasn’t me. It was your sister. I just went along with it.”
“What did you guys talk about?” He tried to ask the question casually, but he was pretty sure she wouldn’t be fooled.
“You.”
He snorted. “Obviously. But what?”
“You were barely gone long enough for her to get me a glass of water. I only drank half of it.” When he glanced over at her, she shrugged. “She asked me if I was the woman in the Snapchat picture.”
“She’sseen it?” It had to be Grant. He was the only one of the guys who’d spent enough time with his family to send them things like that.
“I told her no and pretended to be pissed off.”
He whipped his head around to look at her and almost side-swiped a parked car. “Jesus, Cait, why would you do that?”
But she was laughing again, and he was tempted to downgrade their dinner plans to a fast food drive-through. “You really are easy to wind up. And you say it’s easy to pushmybuttons.”
“So she hasn’t seen the picture?” Maybe he wouldn’t have to kick his best friend’s ass, after all.
“Oh, she’s seen it. But when she asked if it was me, I said yes. Then she called you a creeper.” She gave him an angelic smile that he knew was totally fake. “I didn’t tell her you have the picture framed in your bedroom.”
