At some stage during my “I am woman, hear me grunt and roar as I pulverize this innocent bit of building” Pat and Andre had disappeared. Only Joe and I remained upstairs, as far as I was aware.
“I see,” he said into a phone.
My cell. Shit. I’d told him he could answer it. Sure. Hadn’t exactly been serious, though. Nor had he seemed interested.
He noticed me noticing and held my gaze. The look was loaded. Meaningful. Full of what exactly, I couldn’t say.
“Okay, Valerie,” he said, eyes still on me.
I took a step forward, held out my hand. A swift shake of the head was my sole reply.
“Much appreciated,” he said. “Bye.”
“That was Val?” I asked stupidly.
“Yeah. Your phone kept ringing. Saw it was her so I answered to get her off your back.”
“Oh.”
“Earlier you said I could. This a problem?” He passed me the cell and slid it into the pocket of my now white-and-gray-speckled gritty skirt. So much for looking pretty.
“Ah, no.” I guess.
“Your first boyfriend lied to you, huh?” He canted his head, eyes narrowed on me.
Shit. My mouth opened, closed.
“He cheated on you?”
“Um. Yes.”
“Hurt your feelings?”
“That’s right.”
Slowly, Joe nodded, taking a deep breath at the same time. “And that was the reason you gave for not being willing to forgive me.”
“Lying is a serious offense,” I said, inching back just a little. Not that I was scared. Exactly. Definitely not because I thought he’d hurt me physically. Despite all of my sledgehammer girl-power behavior, I could still be harmed in other ways. A woman needed to protect herself. Right. “It’s a really bad thing.”
“It is. You’re right.” He took a step forward.
I took one back. “So? What’s your point, Joe?”
He stepped forward again. And again I stepped back until my spine hit the jagged remains of the wall. Whatever Valerie had told him, it couldn’t be good. And since when had my best friend decided to work against me with this man? Talk about betrayal.
Joe towered over me, arms relaxed at his sides. His eyes, however, they didn’t seem so chilled.
“How old were you when you had this lying, cheating boyfriend, Alex?” he asked in a disturbingly calm tone. I didn’t trust it one bit.
“Young-ish.”
“Do me a favor, Little Miss Fucking Sunshine? Be exact.”
I was going to kill Valerie. Sledge her with my mighty hammer. Wrap her in plastic and encase her in a wall. Something like that.
“Hmm?” He waited, looming above me with judgey eyes. “How old, Alex?”
“Twelve,” I grumbled.
The man paused, cupped his ear. “Sorry. What was that?”
“Twelve. I was twelve years old when Bradley Moore cheated on me by dating some cow who was friends with his cousin.” I did not sound like a sullen little brat. I sounded like something else, vaguely related to the same. Someone who’d just been busted using a piss-weak excuse to avoid getting involved any further with this man. Not that it had even really worked. “It hurt.”
“I’m sure it did. How long were you dating him?”
“Not quite a week.” I stared straight at his long-sleeve-T-shirt-covered chest. It was dark blue today. The color suited him, brought out the flecks of green in his usually brown eyes.
“Right. This morning you mentioned you have an issue with trying to avoid people,” he said, still talking to me in that annoyingly calm voice, despite the skeptical look. “Do you think that you using this no doubt painful event from when you were twelve would be you trying to avoid intimacy?”
“Maybe.” I shuffled my feet.
“Or maybe there’s a little bit more to it,” he said, just sort of gently suggesting. Shit. “Not to diss your twelve-year-old broken heart.”
“Fine. Yes, there’s more to it. But it’s nothing I’m inclined to get into right now.”
For a while he said nothing, just stared at me.
“Sorry I lied,” I mumbled. “But it was only a little lie.”
Nothing from him.
If only I didn’t feel such a dumbass need to fill the silence. “I didn’t trust you and I needed space.”
“Sure. I can understand that,” he said in a tone of voice I did not trust at all. “How do you feel about me now, though?”
“Conflicted. How do you feel about me?”
“Confused as fuck.”
I huffed out a laugh.
“Alex, I’ve been giving some thought to our problems while you were doing your bit of construction work there.”
“And?”
“And … I think we should trade issues.”
“What?” I asked, jarred by the sudden change in focus.
“I say yes to too many people,” he said. “But you say no to too many people, then wind up alone, missing out on everything.”
My gaze jumped to his face. “Safe from everything too. Don’t forget that.”
“Yeah? Problem is, your safety is bullshit, Alex,” he said, voice firm. Harsh even. “What was it you said to me in that email, that you’re not some delicate little petal? Well, you’re no wallflower either. I’ve seen you in action and you’re more than strong enough to deal with anything that life throws your way. You don’t need to be hiding from anything.”
Huh. That’s what he thought.
“Therefore, I suggest this. You have to start getting out there and saying yes to people.”
“Wha—”
“And I have to start saying no,” he finished. “No more Mr. Nice Guy letting things slide, fitting in with what everyone wants and fuck what I want.”
No words came out. My throat was jammed shut.
“Valerie said you’d planned two weeks off work. You stay here for that time, work with me on this project. Help us out with ideas on design and decoration and such-like.” He looked about the room. “In return, I’ll teach you about building. So when you go back to Seattle and eventually buy your property you’ll know the basics. During that time, we’ll put each other to the test, see if we can’t push each other out of our comfort zones. What do you say?”
“What, so we take turns daring each other to say yes or no?”
“Yeah, basically.”
Holy shit, he was serious. As serious as serious could get. Could I do that? Be that brave? Everything inside me squirmed, saying no, probably not. After all, I’d be effectively putting myself into his hands, but then, he’d also be putting himself into mine. I could easily get it wrong and hurt him. Fuck up his life. God knows I’d failed before. No way was believing in me a safe bet for him.
“What happens if we can’t break our learned behavior and step out of our comfort zones?”
He put his hands on his waist, lips pressed tight together. “Unending shame. Shit like that. I don’t know, we’ll make it up as we go along.”
The man made me curious, that much was for sure. About him, the things we could do together, his life here, everything. Deep, deep down in the subcockles of my soul, I’d regret it if I went home too soon and failed to figure out what might be happening between us. If anything was happening between us. Who the fuck knew?