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He bites off his next words, and it makes me feel like shit.He was about to offer to help but is scared I’ll be a dick about it.Which, admittedly, I was about to be.Then I think about Liv’s earnestness as she tries to convince me I’m something other than what I’ve been, and it makes me want to be that guy she thinks she sees.
“Would you maybe have time to research models so I know what to buy?”I ask.“You’re better at that kind of stuff than I am.”
He rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling as he does it.“You’re perfectly capable of researching shit like that,” he says.“But yes, I’d like to help out.”
“You already did.”
“With something other than my organs and my bank account.”He shifts uncomfortably in the passenger seat.“I want to feel normal again.”
“Did any of this have to do with your breakup?”I miss the Wyatt who used to tell me things like that.
He’s silent for so long that I assume he’s chosen to ignore me.But finally, he says, “Yes.And no.It was a fucked-up situation that spiraled, and I don’t wanna talk about it yet.”
“Okay,” I say easily.“I’m here though.”
“Thanks.”
“And hey, if you can find that damn black cat CuddlePuff, that would be amazing.Apparently, it’s rarer than Bigfoot.”
He pulls out his phone and taps out a note.“I’ll see what I can do.”But I hear the quiet thread of happiness in his voice that I’m letting him help.
The silence in the car for the rest of the drive isn’t nearly as strained, and when we pull up at Reese’s new place, she meets us at the door with folded arms and a pinched mouth.
“Upstairs.First door on the right.Don’t break anything.”
Then she flounces to the kitchen table and ignores us while we move furniture for her like a pair of helper monkeys.
“Dude, what did youdo?”I mutter as we head out to grab the last of our load.“Cheat on her?”
He stops short, forcing me to slam to a halt too because he’s in front of me as we carry the footboard.
“Oh god.”I look at him aghast.“Youcheated?”
“No!We were”—his eyes dart through the open front door, and his voice drops to an urgent whisper—“we were broken up!She’d returned the ring!”
I set the footboard on the ground.“So she was bluffing?”
“Apparently.But she’d already rented this place when she did it, so…”
“Nah.Bullshit.”I pick up my end of the heavy oak panel again.“You’re in the clear.I absolve you.”
“Thanks, buddy.”
It’s not my imagination that Wyatt’s walking a little straighter as we haul in the last piece, like he set down a ninety-pound dumbbell of guilt.
Once everything’s in place in Reese’s bedroom, we tromp back downstairs, and I hover in the open front door letting in the cold air while Wyatt pauses in front of the woman he’d planned to spend his life with.She’s dressed in a prissy, silky shirt and black pants and heels, and it occurs to me that this might be how Liv dresses at her job.But the women are night and day different.Liv’s professional and classy and curious and smart and every good thing in this world.Reese is professional and smart and the kind of uptight I might’ve thought Liv was before I got to know her.
It is, however, the most overlap Wyatt and I have ever had in women.
“Well, thanks, I guess.Have a nice life,” Reese says to Wyatt, her voice even colder than the wind at my back.Then that piercing blue-eyed gaze turns on me.“Still dancing, Jonesy?I’ll have to catch a show sometime.”
“I wouldn’t take your money if you paid me to.”
Wyatt shoves me out the door with a grunt and slams it behind him.I risk a glance at his face, worried that he’s about to turn his mad in my direction, but instead, he’s fighting a smile.
“I wouldn’t take your money if you paid me to?”he repeats in disbelief.
I shake my head and clap him on the back.“Fuck off.Let’s go get a beer.”
