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She focuses on the sudsy water in the sink. “Because I know what it’s like to lose.”
“Lose what?”
“You, Cal,” she says more angrily. Her dark eyes shoot to me. “You and Jake. Aunt Becca when she passed away. And I actually did try to start a small cooking business. When I imagined myself a chef, I decided to make ready-to-eat meals for the elderly. Cook more interesting foods for them than those awful frozen meal services, but it tanked. I wasn’t good at the marketing, and the planning got away from me. I lost a ton of cash in the process. So, yeah. I like things easy. The path of least resistance. Change scares me as an adult, because change in my life has always been bad.”
Well, fuck. I grab Jo by the shoulders and pull her into my chest. “I’m sorry my disappearance hurt so much.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“I know, but I’m still sorry. And starting that business was brave, even if it didn’t work out.”
“Maybe.” She sags deeper into me, squeezing her arms around my waist. “But change still scares me. Including the changes between us.”
A surge of guilt floods me.
Acting hot and cold with Jo has hurt her, and I need to do better. Whatever happens from here on out, I can’t continue sabotaging our friendship. I’ll help reunite her with Jake. Undo the damage I caused between them. But I’ll also do this—hug my best friend when she’s sad. Answer her tough questions and ask my own. Be each other’s support.
Maybe I’ll get past my attraction to her in the process. I mean, I’m hugging her, holding her tight to my body, not even getting worked up. Just enjoying her lightning-storm scent, the tenderness of being with my closest friend.
She gives me a tighter squeeze, then slinks out of my grip and adjusts her white T-shirt. “Going forward, don’t worry about me for food while I’m here. This was hugely appreciated, but I mostly eat at the bar.”
“Ownership perks.”
“There have to be some,” she says, no longer sounding comforted. She returns to the dishes, giving me her back. “Did I tell you I still have our Cool List?”
“Seriously?”
“It was luckily in my desk drawer and didn’t get ruined by the flood. Figured, since you lost all your old stuff when you went into witness protection, I’d bring it over. A memento from the old days.”
My gaze snaps to my bedroom door, to the closet edge I can see from this angle. I have a shoebox full of our mementos, but I don’t mention it. An uneasy feeling has me tugging the back of my hair. “Yeah, we had to leave Windfall quickly. Didn’t get to take much. I’d love to see the list, though.”
“It’s in an envelope in the top left drawer in my room. If you grab it, I’ll finish up here.”
My room.Not sure I’ll get used to the idea of living with Jolene. Or to having someone back in my life who forces me to open up about tough topics.
I head to the guest room, happy to have some space between us. Don’t fully understand why I didn’t tell her about my shoebox of memories.
Two steps inside, I nearly trip over an empty bag and curse.
Jo wasn’t joking about being a one-person hurricane. A messy pile of clothes covers part of the bed, half the dresser drawers are hanging open, cowboy boots and shoes are strewn by the wall, and her toiletry bag is partly spilled on top of the dresser.
“Give me patience,” I mutter to myself and step over the bag that nearly sent me sprawling.
Since most dresser drawers are open, it’s not hard to spot the envelope in the top one. It’s beside her stack of T-shirts, but a tease of light green pokes out from the middle, looking incredibly familiar. Unable to resist checking, I lift the other shirts, and yeah. It’s the green shirt with the leprechaun on it that I bought for her sixteenth birthday, because she was born on St. Patrick’s Day. Whenever she wore it, she insisted on speaking in an Irish accent, cracking me up.
The fact that she still has it sends a wave of sentimentality through me.
Breathing through my deluge of memories, I pull out the envelope and close the top drawer. And nearly swallow my tongue.
Vibrator.
There’s a pink pleasure device in the second drawer, tucked in with lacy underwear. Heat suffuses my face, my chest,my groin. Why the hell does she need a vibrator for a temporary living arrangement? Does she use it that regularly? Does she plan to use it while she’shere? In the room right beside me? Will I hear thesoundsshe makes?
And hell, now I’m imagining her spread out on the striped gray duvet, wearing one of these lacy nothings, pushing the fabric aside, rubbing that pink pleasure toy all over her wet pussy while…
Mayday. SOS. Someone,please, bleach my overstimulated brain.
That compassionate hug was important and special, and I value my friendship with Jolene more than I can say, but I was not built for this. Maybe a different guy could handle living with an off-limits woman he finds unbearably attractive. I’m no longer sure I’m that strong of a man.
