Then, I was as horrified as any parent might be when she told me a year ago that she and Dex had eloped. I knew he loved her, and I adored Dex, but they were young, and I was even more afraid my little sister’s optimistic and idealistic nature would be crushed by a short, failed marriage.
Our concern for Shaw and Dex was one of the reasons Joe and I had bonded. However, we’d conceded that for two college kids, Shaw and Dex were handling marriage and school fairly well. They had help from Joe. He let them move into the apartment above his garage so they didn’t have rent or utility bills. The strain of financial worry was not a factor in their marriage, which surely helped a lot.
I would have helped, too, if I could, but I was still paying off my student debt.
And Aunt Rachel had moved to Italy as soon as I left for college. She’d left us the house, but it meant I was raising a sixteen-year-old all alone while attending classes and working part time. Once Shaw started college, Rachel had put the house on the market, and I’d had to find an apartment.
I was not a typical twenty-four-year-old.
I was all grown up.
Something passed between Joe and me as we stared into each other’s eyes. Something that made my belly flutter wildly and my skin flush hot. Thankfully, I wasn’t a redhead with pale skin that flared pink at any sign of embarrassment. Both Shaw and I got our unusual coloring from my mother, who had red-gold hair, olive skin, and green eyes. We were her copies, except for our eyes. I had our mother’s eyes while Shaw had the same blue as our father’s. We’d both gotten Mom’s height too. I was five ten, and Shaw was five eight.
Joe suddenly cleared his throat and wrenched his gaze from mine to his son’s. “It’s hard to believe when they’re acting like that, that they’re married.”
I nodded in agreement. Even if I weren’t a forty-year-old woman trapped in a twenty-four-year-old’s body, I wasn’t the type to have fun over a kegger. Give me an excellent book or a movie or a quiet bar somewhere over a college party any day of the week.
“I heard you broke up with Nicole.” Ugh. Why? Why was that the first thing out of my mouth?
Joe flicked me an indecipherable look before taking a sip of his beer. “Yeah. It didn’t work out.”
I wanted to ask why, but he was giving off very definite “I don’t want to talk about this” vibes.
“How are the contracts going for the place in Las Vegas?” I asked instead, referring to the building he wanted to buy to convert into a new garage. It would be his first garage outside of California.
His broad shoulders instantly relaxed at the subject change, and he gestured to his patio lounge chairs near the house where we could chat away from the noise of the music and revelers. When we sat down on the outdoor sofa, I did my best to keep some distance between us. Joe talked about the business for a bit and then reciprocated with, “How’s it going with that idiot at the smoothie company?”
I was stupidly pleased that he remembered my latest job and the VP who had driven me nuts. As a freelance sustainability expert, companies who couldn’t afford to have a full-time employee responsible for sustainability research hired me to develop new workflows to increase productivity while lowering their carbon footprint. I went in, assessed how their company currently ran, supplied a sustainability evaluation, and then advised them about recycling and waste reductions, that sort of thing. I loved my job.
But sometimes, certain employees within a company wanted me to offer miracle suggestions that allowed them to make as few changes as possible. It just didn’t work that way. The vice president of a California smoothie company I’d recently worked for didn’t understand the need for me to be there. Despite my credentials, including a degree in environmental science and business, he’d treated me as if I were an airhead doing a useless, flaky job.
“Oh, I finished up with them two weeks ago. I’m on a new account, working for a national footwear company. The excitement of landing that makes up for the asshole VP who treated me like dirt the entire three months I was there and then added insult to injury by having the audacity to ask me out when I was leaving.”
Joe raised an eyebrow. “This guy sounds clueless.”
“Oh, and does not like rejection,” I replied. “Bitter little man. When I turned him down, he called me a frigid bitch.”
To my surprise, Joe’s face darkened with anger, and his voice was rough as he bit out, “He what?”
I blinked at the dangerous bite to his tone. “It’s cool, Joe. I don’t have to see him again.”
He took a deep pull of his beer, but I could see his grip on the bottle was tight with annoyance.
“It was just a name. I’ve been treated worse. Sexual harassment isn’t a new thing.”
Wrong thing to say.
He cut me a dark look. “You think it’s okay to put up with that shit?”
I reached out to squeeze his arm in reassurance, pretending not to delight in how hard the muscle was beneath my fingers. “No, of course not. And I don’t. Joe, I’m good.” I retreated after his gaze flickered down to where I was touching him. “You know I can handle myself.”
“Doesn’t mean you should have to. This is the problem with being freelance.” He turned toward me, and I could feel a familiar lecture coming on. “You don’t have the protection of a company behind you when you have to deal with these kinds of guys.”
I sighed. “A company might not do anything about it. In fact, they might tell me to suck it up and deal with it. Whereas, I can say, ‘Hey, I don’t put up with bullshit misogyny or sexual harassment. Find another sustainability advisor.’” I grinned, tossing my hair playfully.
His eyes flickered to the movement and then back to me. His tension eased a little. “Anyone does anything to you that crosses the line, I want to know.”
A part of me thrilled at his protectiveness.
The other part of me feared it.
It wasn’t wise to rely on someone to feel safe, loved, and protected. If they went away, by choice or not by choice, they suddenly left you without that sense of home.
And Joe was off-limits.
There was no way I could let myself rely on him. I’d only end up hurt.
“I can take care of myself,” I reiterated, but gave him a small smile so I didn’t sound harsh.
“And what I’m saying is that you don’t need to take care of yourself all the time. You have a family.”
Ugh. That was a bucket of cold water if ever I needed one.
Joe was family.
Looking away, I sipped my beer and decided it wasn’t strong enough after all. “You know, I think I’ll take that whiskey now.”
And that was my last vivid memory from the party.
I got drunk.
I got drunk, and I remembered moving closer to Joe on that couch as we chatted the evening away. But the memories after were vague. Blurry.
Except for the memory of me kissing him.
Joe had gone into the house for something.
I followed.
I kissed him.
I couldn’t remember much about the kiss at all, only that it was probably short because I remembered Joe gently removing me from his person and handing me off to Shaw to sober me up. Thankfully, she didn’t know about the kiss.