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When she’d brought up that long list of things that needed to be fixed, I knew I couldn’t say no. I would have just offered to do it all for her, free of charge, but I had a feeling she would have never agreed to that kind of deal. She was far too stubborn for that.
Call it guilt. Call it atonement.
Whatever it was, I had to do this one small thing for her.
It would by no means make up for what she had lost, but by the end of this ridiculous bargain, at least she’d have a safe house to live in or sell.
But in my haste to say yes, I really hadn’t thought any of it through.
And now, we were going to a dinner party.
Fuck my life. Again.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice still soft and hesitant. “I don’t know what came over me. I—” She cleared her throat, as if she were trying to stir up a bit of confidence. “I should have asked you first. I completely understand if you don’t want to go. I don’t expect you to want to spend time with me any more than necessary.”
“That’s not—shit.” I let out a frustrated breath. She thought I didn’t like her?
I flopped down on her sofa, angry with myself for the confusion I had caused. The action apparently surprised her because she stared at me like I was some sort of zoo animal.
Yeah, well, you freak me out, too.
“It’s not you…” I tried to find the words, but this woman seemed to make every last one of them fall out of my head simultaneously. “I hate Molly’s husband.”
Her eyebrows rose, and her lips pressed together until, finally, a laugh erupted. “You what?”
“Jake, her husband,” I began to explain. “I can’t stand the guy.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why?”
“Why don’t you like him?” she asked, taking a seat in the chair across from me. She tucked her legs under her, fitting into the chair like a puzzle piece. “There has to be a reason.”
“There’s no reason,” I lied. There were lots of reasons. I could make a whole fucking list. “I just don’t like him.”
She cocked her head. “That doesn’t even seem fair. If there isn’t a reason, how do you even know if you don’t like him?”
“I…”Fuck. I really didn’t want to answer that. “He doesn’t like me either.”
A smirk tugged at the corner of her lips. “Kind of childish, if you ask me.”
“I didn’t.” I glared at her.
Her grin widened.
Seriously, stop staring.
“So, what’d you discover? About my house? Is it going to cost me a fortune to fix everything?”
The way she had changed the subject felt like whiplash.
“What? Wait, that’s it? No more talking about the dinner thing?”
She shrugged. “I’m not sure what there is to talk about. I already said we’d go. Do you want to back out?”
I gave her a look that said that was exactly what I wanted to do.
She gave me an exasperated sigh. “Look, I’m sorry I overstepped. I didn’t know you had such a long, complicated history with Jake,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I wasn’t really thinking when I asked her. It just sort of came out. I didn’t realize that would mean we would have to?—”
