“This is Dr. Sean. He was here helping with Hunter’s friend.”
Jameson nodded with his jaw clenched and kept his eyes on the two. It seemed I wasn’t the only one picking up on the connection between them. Although Jameson didn’t exactly look happy about it. “Hunter and Sabrina, we could use your help with cake stacking.”
“Sure thing.” I rounded the chair I’d been sitting in, happy to be out of the flirting firing line.
“Mom, Teresa’s upstairs. Are you heading up for a shower and taking her to do the pizza? Or should I order it instead?”
“Go ahead in with Hunter and his friend. I’ll walk Sean out and go get my shower.” Her gaze didn’t leave Dr. Sean’s face, and his was locked onto hers too.
“Mom—”
Hunter grabbed Jameson and walked him back into the kitchen.
I followed and peered through the closing door in time to see Dr. Sean leaning in closer to Rachel. Well at least someone had a guy not afraid to show her he was into her.
Turning, I bumped into Hunter’s back. I shimmied to the side, trying not to think of the tingles that radiated through me from the simple touch and how he’d been watching me throughout Dr. Sean’s checkup.
The kitchen was filled with way too many bodies and a ridiculous amount of equipment.
Cables and power strips crisscrossed the floor in a trip hazardous maze. “Where did all this come from?”
“Hunter.” Everyone answered in unison like the question should be obvious.
That seemed to be his forte. Hunter was the man who could get his hands on anything—including me.
Jameson pushed his glasses up and turned to everyone like a Sunday night quarterback prepping his team for the big game.
“We have five sheet cakes, five round cakes and what feels like three gallons of chocolate and vanilla icing. We need to stack the cakes, so we need everyone’s help here.” He locked eyes with everyone individually. “Stack. Ice. Carve. Ice. Decorate. Are we ready?”
All heads nodded, and he gave more instructions. I tried to keep up. As much as I appreciated not being shoved to the sidelines out in the living room, I was terrified of being the one who dropped all the guys’ hard work on the floor and ruined Teresa’s birthday.
A chilled sheet cake was laid across my outstretched arms.
Hunter stood beside me, balancing a double stack of circle cakes in each hand.
I talked out of the side of my mouth. “He takes his cake seriously.”
The whir of machines and a mini-conference happening in the corner meant Hunter and I were the only ones on our side of the assembly island.
Hunter chuckled. “He does. When it comes to Teresa, he’s serious about everything.”
“Is his dad…gone?” There hadn’t been any word of him stopping by, and he certainly wasn’t crammed into the corner in the kitchen.
“Right before Teresa was born. It was a freak accident with a downed power line. After that, he stepped up for his mom and Teresa.”
Metal on metal clashed and clanked.
“It’s great he was there for them.”
“It’s great they had each other.” His lips dipped in a sad smile.
My heart ached for teenaged Hunter, who’d lost his mom and his dad in such a short period of time. There had been no siblings to share that emotional load. And just like that, Hunter had once again jammed his foot into the door I’d been slamming shut in my heart. Between the doctor’s house call and seeing him here with his friends, how could I not feel something for him?
Maybe I needed to have Dr. Sean look at my head again.
Get it together, Sabrina. No one said I was buying matching heart necklaces for us to share. Plus, Cat would kill me if I went halfsies on one with anyone else. I could like him. It didn’t mean I had to be in a relationship with him. It didn’t mean we couldn’t go to our beds at the end of the night after some insanely hot sex. Maybe this was the perfect situation to get me over the post-Seth slump.
I could bang a hot guy who’d already seen me in my pajamas with bedhead before I’d brushed my teeth. In less than two months, I’d move out and move on in more ways than one.
Why not let myself indulge? The way he looked at me wasn’t uninterested. I hadn’t been a pity fuck. If he had issues with intimacy and getting close to people, well, welcome to the party.
It was the perfect situation. Perfectly perfect. Better than perfect.
Standing beside him, our arms brushed against each other as we held our cakes in place while Jameson and Leo rushed around us, sizing up the shape and hammering in skewers and dowels into the growing mountain of cake.
After a team effort to stack, balance, and keep the cakes from falling over, we stepped back to evaluate the progress.
I tilted my head to the side and noticed everyone else was as well.
August, the one with the black hair and manicured scruff, tilted his head. “Is anyone else noting a little bit of a”—he held out his hands and shifted them so they were no longer level with one another—“lean.”
Jameson crouched down. “Damn it. We need more cake.”
Leo slapped down his offset spatula. “Who is eating all this cake once we’re finished?”
Zara caught my eye from across the room and jerked her head toward the kitchen door.
I didn’t need to be told twice to escape whatever impending cake-splosion might be coming.
“We should probably get them some liquid reinforcements. They’ve been at it for hours already.” Zara walked farther into the house to a door, and cooler air blew through the gaps around it. She opened it and flicked on the light.
It was a garage, albeit neater than any I’d been in before. A set of bikes were hung up along the wall near the front. Plastic boxes with block lettering written across them were neatly stacked on shelves. Christmas decorations had been pulled out, including a large box labeled TREE.
There were seats toward the back, a carpet thrown down in the middle, and a desk with a blackened computer monitor.
“Jameson’s hangout. Leo and August used to hide out here all the time when they were younger. Sometimes he works from here if his mom needs him to watch Teresa.”
Clanking and clattering from the kitchen could be heard all the way out here.
Zara opened the fridge beside the door and pulled out a couple of bottles of beer and a container filled with ice from the freezer. She walked to a large cabinet and pulled open the doors revealing a hidden bar set up. Grabbing a few glasses, she scanned the shelves before pulling a few bottles down.
There were bar tools I’d never seen before and even a small sink tucked into the handcrafted cabinet. “Do you think they had this back when they were growing up?”
She laughed. “Probably not as nice as this. More like a couple bottles of warm beer and a stolen bottle of Bailey’s.” While it might’ve been where the guys hung out when they were younger, it was clearly a man space now, minus the family stuff near the front of the garage.
“Looks like Jameson certainly enjoys his cocktails.”
“I think he likes to make them for everyone. He always wants to be prepared.”
I certainly got that vibe from him. Hunter was the guy who could acquire anything. Jameson felt more like the one who had his bag stuffed to the gills for any eventuality you might run into. He’d probably been an Eagle Scout.