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Josh straightened up. “Of course. I’m afraid you’ll need to make the first rule, though. I’m out of practice.”
“Well, for instance, Everett mentioned a while back that the lock on the bathroom door doesn’t work. So until we can have that fixed, I suggest we employ a three-knock strategy.”
“Why three?”
“It would be easy to miss one or two knocks . . .” She spoke to the beat-up coffee table. “If you were in the shower, for example.”
“Well, we wouldn’t want that, certainly.”
She looked up to find his whole body changed with the tilt of his lips. Goose bumps broke out across Clara’s arms despite the balmy June afternoon. Josh had some kind of magnetism she hadn’t noticed before. Even when she went and stood behind the couch, putting a physical barrier between them, her body hummed closer, closer, closer.
“Hey, listen. You don’t need to guard your virtue from me, okay?” Josh dropped the charm like someone shrugging out of a jacket. He must have noticed that the energy between them had shifted from playful to something meatier.
“I’m taken, so you’ve got nothing to worry about. I’m only living here until I can convince my ex-girlfriend to let me move back in. She’s a tough nut, but I’m sure I’ll be able to wear her down in a week or two, and then I’ll be out of your hair for good.” He broke the news in the practiced gentle tone of someone used to getting people’s hopes up and having to let them down easy.
“Oh,” Clara said, and then as she caught his meaning, “No.” She crossed her hands in an X. He had the wrong idea. Obviously. She wanted Everett. Had loved him almost as long as she could remember. She didn’t even know this guy with his ripped jeans and his bedhead. “Of course not. I didn’t think that you’d want to . . .” She waved a hand down her body and stuck out her tongue in disgust.
His eyes followed the path she’d tracked. “Wait a second. I didn’t mean I wouldn’t want to under different circumstances. You’re very . . .” He held his hands out in front of his chest like he was assessing the weight of a pair of overripe melons.
Clara’s eyes went wide.
“Oh God. I can’t believe I did that. I’m sorry. I just meant that you . . . um . . . what’s a respectful way to say . . .” He put his hands back up.
Blood rushed to her face. “I got it.”
“Right. Sorry. Again.” He shook his whole body like a wet dog. “Besides, I thought for sure you and Everett were a thing. The way he talked about you, it definitely sounded like you two had history.”
At the mention of her beloved, the faded bruises on her heart bloomed anew and throbbed. She didn’t know how much to share without seeming pathetic. She and Everett certainly had history, even if the romantic part was one-sided.
Something in the earnest set of Josh’s brows gave Clara the impression he could handle more than the sugarcoated version of her past with Everett—more than the BS stories she’d given her friends and family back east, so they wouldn’t judge her or worry about her rash decision to up and move.
For some reason, she found herself spilling her guts to this unkempt stranger. “Everett and I grew up together. Despite living on different coasts for almost ten years, we’ve kept
in touch with phone calls and visits. I don’t know if you got to know him at all, but he’s this amazing mix of sweet and smart and funny—”
“And he encouraged you to drop everything and move out here only to abandon you the first chance he got?” Josh arched an eyebrow.
Clara took a step back. The truth stung. “That’s not exactly what happened. I know how this looks.” She lowered her voice, embarrassed at how she’d let it climb in volume. “But when Everett called a couple of weeks ago and painted this picture of life in L.A., all sunsets and ocean air and people who don’t have to wear mouth guards at night because they can’t stop stress-grinding their teeth . . .”
A dimple appeared in Josh’s left cheek.
“I know it sounds stupid, but it seemed like a sign or something. This felt like my chance. At love, adventure, happily ever after, the whole Hallmark thing.”
“Let me get this straight. You, a woman who created a laminated move-in checklist, made a huge life-altering decision based on a hazy sign from the universe?”
Clara shrugged. “Haven’t you ever done something stupid to impress someone you liked?”
Josh plopped down on the sofa, propped his feet on the coffee table, and crossed them at the ankles. “No. Never.”
“I think you mean ‘Not yet.’” Clara grabbed the handles of her rolling suitcases. “So which one of these bedrooms is mine?”
chapter two
BY THE NEXT morning, Clara had managed to maroon herself among a sea of her possessions. Having covered the majority of the floor space in her new bedroom, she now stood on the wooden desk chair trying to decide where to begin.
Unpacking was supposed to make her feel better. More settled. She’d read that in a study on how humans adjust to new environments.
But she’d checked half a suitcase with mementos to share with Everett, and now, laid out in all their faded, adolescent glory, the memories took turns punching her in the stomach.
