Seeing they were all seriously expecting him to answer, he ran his hand through his damp hair and said, “Her name’s Roxy, and…you know what? I don’t want to jinx it. Things are still, uh, developing between us.”
Luke’s brow wrinkled. “Wait—does she not feel the same way about you?”
Callan reflected on his conversations with Roxy over the past week where he’d attempted to bring up the idea of a committed relationship. Each time, she deflected him or brushed him off.
“I don’t know,” he said at last.
His teammates exchanged glances that had him wishing he hadn’t said anything. Adam once again reached out and patted Callan on the shoulder.
“Look, Murph. We know you. If this woman’s twisted you up, she’s probably a strong-willed, capable female,” he said. “It just sounds like she’s gotta work her way around to your way of thinking. She’ll get there eventually. You just need to follow her lead.”
Adam might be right, Callan mused as he headed home later. Roxy liked to be in control of her own decisions. Maybe he just needed to have some patience and show her how good it could be between the two of them. He didn’t mind following her lead.
Hell, he finally admitted. He’d follow her anywhere she was willing to take him.
Chapter Nineteen
“Got our three o’clock oil change with rotation pulling into bay three, Rox,” her brother, Gordon, called out to her from the depths of the auto shop. “High mileage.”
“I’ll get the invoice started,” she called back.
She was sitting in the shop’s small office covering for Hazel, who had taken her afternoon break. A window connected the office to the shop where the servicing took place, making communication with the techs easier. Roxy didn’t mind the sounds of the machinery, tools, and loud conversation that took place in the shop any more than she minded the odor of oil and transmission fluid, scents she had grown up around from the time she could walk.
She turned to Hazel’s ancient PC and started inputting the high mileage oil change and tire rotation for Mrs. Donna Isherwood, the customer scheduled for three o’clock. Thanks to her sister-in-law’s efficient setup, the task took her less than a minute.
Once that was done, she returned to filing the receipts from the previous day. Even though everything was handled electronically these days, Gordon insisted on keeping an old school paper backup just like their father had done when he was running the shop. Nothing Hazel said would convince him otherwise.
That was fine with Roxy. It kept her busy, which helped her feel less guilty for leaning on her brother and sister-in-law for the work.
She had casually mentioned at their family dinner a few nights ago that she had some availability if anyone needed any help, and Gordon immediately mentioned that Hazel could use a hand catching up on her filing. Everyone knew that wasn’t actually true, but Roxy appreciated them allowing her to save face. Even with the few hours she was putting in at the shop, she was still well short of her rent goal. Keeping her gas tank full so she could attend her client appointments and handle all of her home tours and showings was making a serious dent in any income she managed to bring in.
“Phew,” Hazel said as she returned from her break. “Sorry I’m a little late getting back, Rox. Mrs. Isherwood caught me leaving the break room. She’s such a sweet lady, but she’s a talker.”
Roxy smiled. “You weren’t even gone thirty minutes. I’ve got you covered. You deserve the downtime.”
“So do you, honey.” Hazel paused by the office’s only chair where Roxy was sitting and placed a hand on her shoulder. “You haven’t been getting much sleep, have you?”
“Is it that obvious?”
Roxy leaned down to look into the shiny surface of Hazel’s black acrylic file separator. Even in the slightly warped surface, she saw the weariness on her face. She had been putting in long hours trying to push through a closing before the end of the month on top of her ongoing sales and marketing efforts. One of the clients she’d been nudging through the home buying process for nearly three months had decided to make an offer on a listing. It was a lowball offer that Roxy had zero hope of the seller accepting, but it was progress. She also had a couple of strong leads whose signed agent agreements she was waiting on, so she had been preparing to jump into working with them as soon as they signed.
But what had really started impacting her sleep was the loss of another potential lead to Bentley Kamps. It was one of the two leads Darcy had given her, one she thought she had developed a good rapport with. They’d had multiple meetings and discussions about what the clients wanted, and Roxy had been sure they were on the same page.
Yet they signed with Bentley. Well, not directly with Bentley this time, but with one of the agents in his brokerage. That was close enough that it had her wanting to pull her hair out in frustration.
“Ugh.” She rubbed her hands over her cheeks in hopes it would generate a little color. “I’ve been working late trying to make some things happen for my clients. It takes so much elbow grease just to close one sale.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
Roxy got to her feet. “Yeah. You can sit down. You’re the pregnant one.”
“Yeah, she is,” Gordon said as he strolled by the window. “How about a kiss before you sit your preggo self back down, Sexy Woman?”
Hazel giggled and leaned over the desk to give Gordon a quick kiss. When they parted, they shared a smile that communicated so much more than words. Then Gordon winked at her and headed back to the truck he was servicing.
Their love for each other seemed so easy. So effortless. It was the same between all of Roxy’s siblings and their spouses, just as it was with her parents and grandparents.
Every so often, she wondered what it would be like to have that kind of connection with someone. The type of connection that didn’t require telling that person what she wanted or needed for them to understand it.
She wasn’t a romantic when it came to relationships, though. They took hard work, which was one of the reasons she avoided them.
She had enough to deal with trying to get her flailing career off the ground, she thought as she packed up her bag an hour later and said her goodbyes to her family before heading out. Even now, she was on her way to meet Callan to tour a couple of new listings. She wanted to stop by her apartment to try to do something about her appearance first.
It wasn’t surprising that her thoughts about relationships and Callan overlapped. He had dropped many hints since he first mentioned his desire to be more committed in every aspect of his life. She knew he would be open to taking things to the next level with her if she gave any hint that she’d be open to it.
So she hadn’t.
The more he talked about it, though, the less the idea generated her usual sense of alarm and the more it made her do some serious thinking about her approach to relationships. Was she really avoiding taking things further with Callan because of her job? Or was that just a handy excuse?
She had always worn her single and carefree status like a badge. Maybe she was holding onto her independence now out of habit and an unwillingness to carve out a place in her life for a deeper relationship.