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“No champagne,” he says. “I have red wine, beer, water, and juice boxes.”
“I didn’t peg you for a juice-box man.” I tease.
He shrugs and gives me a sexy smirk. “I bought them for Jasmine, but I won’t lie—I drink them sometimes. I like grape juice.”
“Grape juice sounds perfect.”
He walks over to the fridge and takes out a couple dark purple juice boxes, opening the straw wrappers for each one and sticking them in the tiny foil hole. It’s something I do for Nolan a couple times a day, and it’s cute to see Pike doing it.
Passing me a juice box, he picks the other one up.
“To moving forward,” he says, raising his box in the air.
“To moving forward,” I echo.
We tap our juice boxes together and each take a sip. Our eyes lock. I feel an energy pulsing in the air that I can’t place, but it feels a lot like attraction. I’ve only been divorced for three hours, which is obviously too soon.
“So.” I set my juice box down and square my shoulders. “Ready to get started? I’ll need you to show me the whole house, and I’ll take some measurements. Then we can sit down and talk about what you’d like to do.”
“I must be maturing, because look at me, resisting the urge to crack a joke here,” Pike says with a grin.
“Oh, you mean the measurement thing?” I shake my head. “Boys never seem to get too old to make penis jokes.”
He winks at me. “You probably want to see my bedroom first, right?”
“Let’s start with a peek out back,” I say, looking away from him in an effort to lie to myself about how charming I find him. “I think I see a pool.”
“Yeah, Mom and Kylie were adamant about a pool.”
“Is Kylie your sister?” I ask, walking over to a set of French doors between the open kitchen and living room.
“Yeah. And the pool does get a lot of use when they visit in the summer.”
I turn to look at him. “Do they still live in Kansas City?”
“Yes, ma’am. The real KC—in Kansas.”
Pike’s backyard area looks like a picture from a magazine. There’s a large, sparkling pool, and a big covered patio with an outdoor kitchen and lots of seating, professional landscaping, and a white privacy fence surrounding it all.
“This is amazing,” I say.
“Thanks. You should come over and swim when it’s warm enough.”
I love swimming. Nolan and I spend as many summers as we can at the public pool with friends. He’s as much of a fan as I am, and even though he’s young, he takes to the water like a fish.
It’s probably time to tell Pike I have a son, but I don’t know how to bring it up. It’s not that I don’t trust him, but a small part of me still feels protective of Nolan, especially given the news that will break soon about his father.
“Okay, we can go back inside,” I say. “I just wanted a quick look out here, but we’re not actually adding any art out here, right?”
Pike shrugs. “Not unless you can find me a sweet life-size sculpture of dogs playing poker.”
I bust out laughing at the image. “I don’t think so. I’m hoping to start my portfolio with photos of what we do with your house. Is that okay?”
“Sure.” Pike closes the French doors behind us and leads the way to a small room off the living room . “This room here could be an office, but I don’t need an office so it’s my sports memorabilia room.”
I look inside the room and see several display cases, which are basically bookshelves with glass shelves and glass doors. One cabinet is filled with baseballs and another has around a dozen hockey pucks. Another cabinet, I see as I step closer, has baseball cards.
I walk over to look through the baseballs and smile sheepishly as I see the Roger Maris baseball displayed proudly in front. I cringe inwardly, and when I look at Pike, he’s giving me a knowing smile.
“What’s in the boxes?” I ask, pointing at the boxes lined up along a wall on the other side of the room.
“More sports stuff. My mom ordered the display cabinets, but it’s not enough to hold everything. I have jerseys, sweaters, and a couple hockey sticks I’d love to display in here.”
“Wow.” I look around the room, which has the same beautiful floors as the rest of the house. “I think this room could be amazing. You could do an entire wall of custom built-ins with spot lighting and add a leather sofa and a couple oversized leather chairs. What would you think about a small built-in bar area? Oh, and another full wall could have waist-high shelving units, some with wood doors and others with glass, and you could display all your framed stuff above them.”
