“Okay, I respect your boundaries, and we both decided that we weren’t interested in each other, so you don’t have anything to worry about. Friends, right?”
“Friends?” The way her voice dipped made it sound like she was disappointed, but she straightened and nodded. “Right, friends who need to meet.”
“Then if it isn’t all business, can we at least have a brunch meeting? I was just about to cook for Dustin and me.”
“It depends.”
“On what?” he asked.
“Are you going to be wearing clothes?”
Chapter Eight
Julie sat at the wooden table with two boxes for chairs, fanning herself. It was definitely a bachelor pad. The air conditioning was blowing from a wall unit, but that didn’t soothe her possible summer moment. Her mother hadn’t gone through the change until she was in her sixties. Certainly at forty-nine, Julie wasn’t really facing that now. The hot flash felt different than some of the others she’d had. The ones where she stood at her freezer with the door open, feeling like someone lit a match of kindling inside her body and doused it with kerosine and it only escaped through her pores.
After a few minutes, the heat subsided. Julie could hear Trevor upstairs, and Dustin had to be in another room around the corner on some sort of call since she heard multiple voices, but she thought it sounded like they were coming from a computer.
The aircon cut on again, and she managed to cool off and peer out the window to make sure Houdini wasn’t scurrying about. Hopefully he’d gone to Mannie’s place, which was most likely what had happened. That’s what he usually did when he was pitching a fit from lack of attention. She should’ve checked there first, but for some reason she figured Houdini might come back for a second round of rusty treasures.
She watched the waves crest in the ocean. There were probably fifteen-knot winds out today. Great sailing weather if Trevor managed to get his boat running. If he didn’t, then that would end his desire to start a big destination site. Her emotions were conflicted between wanting to see him succeed and wanting him to fail at the same time.
Trevor passed by, this time in a T-shirt and shorts. Heat surged through her, and she realized it wasn’t a hot flash but a hot guy flash. She forced her hand not to fan at her face, but the image of him standing with nothing on awoke something in her she thought was grown over with cobwebs and Bengay. Okay, she’d only used Bengay once, after she had hurt her neck.
“Eggs, toast, fruit, pancakes?” Trevor retrieved a skillet. “I know how to make an egg-white scramble if you prefer.”
“Waste the yolk?” She blinked at him. “I mean, that’s fine if that’s the way you prefer them.”
“Me? No. I just thought… Never mind.” He placed the pan on the stove and took some eggs from the refrigerator.
“Stop thinking all women are the same.” She decided it was safe enough now that he was wearing clothing that she could be within six feet of him, so she went into the kitchen. “She did a number on you, didn’t she?”
He cracked some eggs into a bowl and used a small fork to beat them into submission, but she guessed he was taking out his regrets on those poor yolks. “Listen, I owe you an apology.”
“For what? “ she asked. “Wanting to turn my town into a tourist trap? Scaring Houdini? Strutting around naked in front of me?”
“Hey, that wasn’t my fault. It’s my property, lady.” He played it off, but she could tell he was embarrassed by the way he looked away and kept stirring the eggs way after they’d submitted to any cooking he had planned for them. He finally poured some milk into the bowl, stirred a few more times, and then dropped a bit of butter into the pan with a loud sizzle. “No, for what I said last night about being divorced. I didn’t know—well, that, you know.”
“What? That I’m a widow?” She said it aloud as if she were sharing a vacation she’d been on instead of an entire life she’d lived with a man. “No need.”
“I didn’t know.” He stopped stirring and turned to look at her. His too-long hair fell over his forehead, and it looked disheveled, out of place, and oh-so-sexy.
“Why would you?” She needed something to do to keep her gaze away from the man by her side, so she rummaged through the cabinets, but he took her hand to tug her to stand and face him.
“Seriously. I never meant to belittle your grief. I tend to tease a lot, and that might be taken the wrong way. Comparing my divorce to your loss is unspeakable of me.”
She took in a stuttered breath, attempting to settle into the man’s touch. It was only her hand, a friendly gesture, but she’d worried for so long what it would feel like to have another man touch her besides Joe. To her surprise and shame, it didn’t feel awkward or wrong. She wasn’t sure how to accept the heat radiating up her arm or the way her pulse quickened, but she didn’t want to pull away either.
“Forgive me?”
His words pulled her from her distraction and back to their conversation. “Why do we need to compare grief at all? We each have suffered in our own ways. We shouldn’t compare what we’ve lost, just be there for each other.” She swallowed hard. Her mind spun with possibilities with a man for the first time since she was a teenager. It was dizzying. “As friends, I mean.”
“I’d like that.” The butter popped, thankfully drawing Trevor’s attention back to the pan long enough that she could escape his touch and her thoughts.
“I’ll get the toast going.” She opened three cupboards before he pointed his spatula toward the last one near the refrigerator.
“Something smells good out here.” Dustin entered
