Page 24 of Searching for Love

ChapterEight

What in the hell was a guy to do? Avery had knocked him out with that quick kiss the night before and this morning, she was hanging all over another man. He didn’t figure he was spying, since she and the other man in question were standing in the middle of the road across from his place. All he had to do was stand by the window of his apartment and look out to see the couple close together with the morning mist swirling around them.

The fog wasn’t helping him determine who the other man was. At first, he’d thought it was her brother. Then he’d gotten a better look and knew that it wasn’t.

This man was much taller. Broader in the shoulders.

The raincoat that the man had on was doing a great job of hiding his face from Lucas’s view.

What he did see was Avery reach up on her toes, hug the man, and kiss him on the cheek. Then she stood in the middle of the empty road and chatted with him as if they had all the time in the world to do so while the rain continued to fall.

When a car finally did pass by, they stepped aside and waved and continued talking as if not bothered by the rain or the distraction.

Who was it? He squinted slightly and made the mistake of moving a little to get a better view. Avery’s head jerked towards the building, and he watched her eyes lift towards the window.

Afraid that she’d see him spying on them, he jerked back to get out of the window. Unfortunately, he forgot about the row of boxes behind him and started to trip. Reaching out for anything to stop his fall, he grabbed a handful of curtains and yanked down the shower rod that was holding them up.

The entire thing came crashing down on top of him when he landed on his left hip and elbow.

There was no doubt in his mind that Avery and the mystery man would now know he’d been spying on them. His living room lights were on and they could now get a full view of his brightly lit rooms.

Groaning, he decided to lie on the floor for a few moments until Avery let herself in downstairs. Then he’d try to avoid her for the rest of the day so he didn’t die of embarrassment.

Unfortunately, since they were the only two people in the building for the day, that was impossible.

Almost an hour later, he stood back as a truck of furniture was unloaded. His new tables and chairs—new to him at any rate—were hauled into the basement.

Once the crew was done unloading everything, he and Avery started working to finally seal the wood floors.

By the time the sun had set, they had finished with the first coat. He was very thankful that Avery knew what she was doing since he had no clue. It had taken a lot longer than anticipated since several boards had needed repair first.

“What time are you going to get to your cousins’ place tomorrow and when do you want me there?” she asked as she slipped on her rain jacket to go.

“I plan to serve them around five, so I’ll want to get there a couple of hours earlier. Since we can’t walk on the floor until the day after tomorrow, there’s no use in you coming in in the morning. If you want to help out, you can head over to my cousins’ place around three?”

She nodded and smiled. “You don’t need any help shopping for everything?”

He shook his head. “No, I’ve got that handled.” He glanced at the floor one last time and smiled. “It sure looks great.”

“Think of how wonderful it will look after the second coat and the sealer.” She zipped up her coat and pulled on her hood. They could hear the rain coming down even harder outside.

“Are you sure you want to go out in that right now?” He nodded towards the back door, which they had left open while they were working to get fresh air circulating in the room.

She chuckled. “We live in Oregon. This is nothing.” She shifted slightly and glanced towards the door to the stairs that led up to his apartment. “How are you doing up there?”

He held in a groan of disappointment. “Not as good as down here. But I hadn’t planned to do much work on the apartment until after we opened the doors.”

“I could help?” she offered.

He shook his head. “I couldn’t ask you, nor do I want you to see the mess that I’m living in right now.” He chuckled. “You’ll have to trust me that I’m a neat freak.”

Suddenly she got a funny smile on her lips. “Did you hang up your curtains again?”

He groaned and closed his eyes.

“Just so we’re clear, that was my friend Brook’s husband, Ryder, I ran into this morning. He and Brook just got back from a month-long trip to India.” She touched his arm lightly. “I have a lot of guy friends around town. None of which I’d like to kiss again.” She turned and quickly darted out into the rain.

Well, shit, he thought as he locked up and headed upstairs. He had felt tired enough to fall into bed, but now he was full of energy as he thought about the possibility of kissing Avery again. So instead of showering and falling face first into bed, he spent the next two hours working on his apartment.