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“Go ahead. Nicole won’t sue.” She’d be mad as hell, but her fury would be aimed at Griffin, not Lucas. Griffin followed him out the door, then just to be mean, added, “She’ll turn your wife on you.”
“Oh, man.” Lucas looked back at him. “That’s cold.”
“Women are dangerous people, cousin,” Griffin said, looking over his shoulder at the empty room behind him.
“You can say that again, cuz,” Lucas was saying, walking toward the gate in the fence and Nicole’s house beyond. “But what would we do without them?”
“That’s the question,” Griffin murmured.
Too bad he didn’t have an answer.
Seven
The following day, Connor was at preschool, and Nicole was back at Sandy’s place with a question about that week’s billing. Not that she’d had a chance to ask it yet.
“So how’s the kitchen coming along?” Sandy asked.
“I’m not sure.” Nicole flipped through her friend’s business file, looking for one page in particular. “I haven’t actually seen it since the first day Lucas had his crew in.”
“What?” Sandy peeled the paper off her lemon cupcake and took a bite. As she chewed, she asked, “Are you nuts? It’s your kitchen. How can you not be curious about what they’re doing in there?”
Nicole found the paper she was looking for and slid it across the table to Sandy. “I was there when they were using sledgehammers to take out my grandmother’s cupboards and the ceiling. I saw a gigantic hole in the floor and looked straight down at the dirt.” She shuddered. “Way more than I wanted to see, so no thanks. I don’t want to see any more destruction in there.”
“But it’s construction now. They’re fixing it all up.”
“And it’ll be great when they’re finished. Meanwhile, Griffin’s keeping an eye on what they’re doing and he tells me it looks terrific.”
“A guy?” Sandy shook her head as if she was hearing things. “You’re taking a guy’s word for what your remodel looks like?”
“Griffin’s there every day. He’s been working with the crew and—” And it was too hard to keep up the pretense of disinterest around others, Nicole thought.
Just yesterday, sniping at Griffin in front of Lucas had started as part of their game, but had gone off on a tangent that had felt all too real. And she didn’t want real at the moment. She wanted her fantasy to continue.
When Lucas was gone, she and Griffin hadn’t talked at all about the pseudo-argument, but she knew he was still thinking about it, just as she was. She couldn’t help it if he thought she was being stubborn. Nicole took care of her own bills. She stood on her own two feet. She wasn’t about to start looking around for a man to sweep in and rescue her.
Even if the fire had been his fault.
Sandy tapped her fingernails against the tabletop. “This makes no sense to me...unless this isn’t about avoiding your kitchen at all.”
Nicole glanced at her. “What else would it be?”
“You said Griffin’s over there every day. Maybe you’re trying to avoid him.”
She laughed. “I’m living with him, Sandy. Hard to avoid.”
“Uh-huh.”
“What?”
“Oh, nothing. Just that you haven’t touched your double-fudge cupcake. Every time you say the name Griffin you look away. And you look like a woman who’s been having regular sex.”
This time her laugh sounded nervous, even to herself. “Excuse me?”
“Oh, come on. I know that wow-am-I-a-lucky-woman look.” She winked. “I see it every time I look in the mirror.”
“You’re way too perceptive.”
“It’s a gift.”
“You should return it,” Nicole told her, grabbing up her cupcake for a deliberate bite. Flavor exploded in her mouth and she nearly groaned. Sandy might be irritating, but she was a hell of a good baker.
“Okay,” her friend demanded, “so give me details. You never did tell me how the night of magic orgasms went.”
“Why should I?”
“Because it was my idea for you to have this fling.”
