“It’s really hot…”
“Hmm?”
“In the house today,” he clarified.
I realized he was referring to the AC—which was indeed broken. I hadn’t had a chance to tell him yet since I’d only discovered it after I got back from taking Harper to the airport.
“Yeah. The AC is broken again.” I handed him back the beer and rubbed my eyes. “I don’t know. Maybe you’re right. Maybe we should sell this place.” My shoulders sank in defeat.
Levi gave me a surprisingly empathetic look. “Let’s not have this discussion now, okay? I’ll get someone in to fix the AC tomorrow. I know a guy.” He sighed and took another sip of his beer.
If we weren’t going to be arguing about The Palm Inn, there was only one thing left to talk about. I needed to get what I wanted to say over with.
I cleared my throat. “About what you overheard…”
“Yeah.” He smirked. “That was completely crazy.”
My heart skipped a beat.
“I mean, peach cobbler? Chocolate cake would be way more appropriate for that scenario, don’t you think?”
The fact that he made light of it gave me momentary relief.
“It’s fine, Presley. You don’t have to say anything about it. I know you were drunk.”
“Yeah, but that’s no excuse to drag you into my crazy, drunken…” I stopped short of finishing the sentence.
Unfortunately, he finished it for me.
“Fantasies?”
“It was more like delusions.”
“So there was no part of you that actually meant any of it?” His eyes seared into mine.
I dodged his question altogether. “People don’t really know what they’re saying when they’re drunk.”
“You didn’t seem all that drunk when I ran into you after, though.”
Right. Of course. Because I wasn’t that drunk.
“Okay, well, it was inappropriate regardless of how drunk I was.”
“You know, sometimes the truth comes out when we’re intoxicated…”
He was really trying to get me to admit to something here. I needed to nip this in the bud.
“Look, Levi, you’re a very attractive man—you know that. We’ve been around each other a lot lately. You were fresh in my head. So my drunken mind latched onto you during that little to-do list game. But it wasn’t more than that.” I paused. “It’s been a very long time since I’ve been with a man, as you already know. And I got carried away. You were the target of it. I’m sorry.”
Levi’s eyes narrowed. “Are you seriously apologizing? You didn’t do anything wrong. There’s no crime against a drunken fantasy.”
I no longer tried to dispute his use of the word fantasy. “Maybe there’s no crime against it, but there should be when the target is your ex’s brother.”
For a moment, you could have heard a pin drop.
“Well, Tanner didn’t overhear anything, did he? So no harm done. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”
Is he sending me a message?
“How long has it been exactly?” he asked after a moment.
Playing with some lint on my shorts, I said, “How long for what?”
“I know you said you slept with one guy after Tanner. How long ago was that?”
I swallowed. “About…eighteen months ago.”
“Damn.” Levi nodded. “Alright.” He chuckled. “You look so uncomfortable right now, by the way.”
“I am. I’m still embarrassed about last night.”
“Embarrassed? Why? For having fun with your friend and fooling around?”
“Yeah, but it was at your expense.”
“You think I was insulted?” He shook his head. “No, Presley.” He handed me back the almost-empty beer. “You’re not the only one who’s sexually frustrated. And I haven’t been innocent either. I just haven’t said what I’m thinking out loud. Even worse, I acted like a dick to you the other day because I was freaking jealous over you going out with the coach. That’s worse than your drunken stuff, because I wasn’t even intoxicated. That was all me acting like a jealous bastard.”
Chills ran down my spine as I finished off the beer. “So…you were jealous?”
“Yeah. So who’s out of line now?” He expelled a long breath. “Speaking of Jeremy, what’s the latest there?”
“He asked me out again. I’m supposed to be going to a concert with him next weekend.”
He nodded slowly. “How do you feel about him?”
“I don’t know. He’s really nice, but I’m on the fence.”
“You’re on the fence with him. And on the face with me. I think I win.”
I burst into laughter. “You’re bad.”
“But you’re laughing.”
“Yes, I am.”
“I have a confession,” he said, taking the empty beer bottle from me and placing it on the ground next to his feet.
I wiped my eyes. “What?”
“I didn’t really have anywhere to go the past few days. I just felt like I needed to get out of town to think. I basically put myself in a time out after my behavior with you. That night, when you were rubbing my knee… Well, that didn’t help.”
Batting my lashes, I asked, “Were you able to clear your head?”
“Any head-clearing I might have done went out the fucking window when I came back to that conversation.” He stood up. “Speaking of which, I’ll be right back.”
Uh-oh. What’s going on?
He returned a minute later with an aluminum tray and two forks.
My mouth dropped. “That’s not what I think it is…”
“My mother made it. I asked her to, and I went and picked it up this afternoon.”
I covered my face. “Oh no. I can’t believe you asked Shelby to do that.”
“Relax. It’s not like she knew the context.”
“I know, but it just seems wrong. What the hell did you tell her? The reason for your sudden craving for peach cobbler?”
He took the plastic top off the tray. “I told her you’d been dying for it. Dying.”
“You suck.”
“I do—and lick. And sometimes I do this thing where—”
“Stop!”
We both broke out into laughter again. And when it finally died down, we dug into the peach cobbler. It was delicious, but I couldn’t get my mind out of the gutter. I’d probably never be able to eat this dessert again without thinking about Levi.
***
The following morning, a loud knock woke me up.
I groggily answered the front door. “Can I help you?”
A portly man holding a clipboard stood across from me. “Yeah, Mr. Miller called me in to replace the AC system. I got my crew with me to do the installation.”
“Don’t you mean repair?”
He looked back at his truck. “No. I mean replace. We’re putting in a whole new system. Normally I wouldn’t be able to do it on such short notice, but Mr. Miller made it worth our while.”