“To talk.” She was telling herself, not him.
He led the way down red-tiled steps to the basement, but here, too, every inch seemed to be living space. The rec room had a bar and a ping-pong table, both already in use. Tom led her through a second boxy room, a sewing niche it appeared, and opened a closed door, only to find two carrot-headed cousins playing a video game in another paneled, carpeted room.
Tom bribed them to leave with two ten-dollar bills.
“My,” she said as the boys darted for the door. “You do have a way with kids.”
“Money talks.” He laughed.
“You have an entertaining family.”
“Please...” He rolled his eyes.
“No, I mean it.” She sat on a threadbare couch, pretending to study the old neon signs hanging on knotty-pine walls.
“They’re wacky.”
“They seem completely normal to me.”
“Oh, just wait, you haven’t heard all the stories yet.”
He said it as if she’d be sticking around, and that pulled her in two different directions. The Jude that wanted to hang out with Tom and his family and the Jude who knew it was better for her personal development to play the field right now. Which was why she’d said yes when Dirk asked her to go bowling, but she was already wishing she hadn’t committed.
“Somehow I get the impression there’s not many skeletons in your family’s closet,” she said.
“We do tend to let it all hang out.”
“My kind of folk.”
Their eyes met and her heart did a swoony little dance that left her thinking, Good thing I said yes to Dirk. Gotta do something to break Tom’s spell.
That said, once she’d played the field awhile, she wouldn’t mind finding someone to settle down with—eventually. Especially if he was as cute as Tom. Although, eventually Mr. Right didn’t have to have unruly dark hair that invited finger-combing or brown eyes that turned her knees to water, but she did love Brunswick’s legs.
She could see the swell of muscle in his calf when he rested one ankle on his other knee, and his thighs looked strong and firm in jeans that fit like a second skin. And when he reached over to touch her knee, she melted like chocolate in the sun.
“Listen,” he said. “I should warn you about Dirk.”
Hmm, was that jealousy she heard in his voice? “Warn? He’s not a good guy? I thought he was your friend.”
“He is, but you gotta accept people as they are, right?”
“What are you trying to say?” she mumbled, her gaze fixed on his broad fingers resting on her knee. Underneath her leggings, little flames spread heat up her thigh.
“I don’t want you to go out with Dirk.”
“Because he’s a bad person?”
“No,” Tom said. “Because…”
Jude ticked the lock on their fused gazes, drilling down to the core of the man through his pupils. “Because what?”
He gulped.
Was Tom about to say he didn’t want her to date his buddy because he wanted to date her? Jude held her breath, crossed her fingers, and waited. Hoped.
He squirmed.
“Well?”
“Dirk’s a player. That doesn’t make him a bad guy; it’s just who he is.”
“And you’re not a player?” She wrinkled her forehead.
“No.”
“You’re thirty and have never been married.”
“So?”
“Some people might say that’s an indication that you can’t commit.”
“What people?” He narrowed his eyes and lowered his grin, but she could see amusement dancing at the corners of his mouth.
“Your aunts and your mother. You forget, you left me alone with them for all of ten minutes. Now I know everything about you.”
He looked unnerved by that comment. “I’m just saying, around Dirk, guard your heart.”
“Maybe he should guard his.” Jude tossed her head. “I’m getting in touch with my wild side, remember?”
Tom’s mouth completely flattened, and his pupils rounded in what looked a lot like dismay. He was sooo jealous of Dirk, but she had a feeling the jealousy went beyond Dirk’s interest in her. Hmm. What was that all about?
“Maybe he should,” Tom said.
Maybe I should guard my heart, Jude thought. With you. “Tell me what’s going on between you and Dirk?”
Tom took his hand back and settled deeper into his seat. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m beginning to feel like a yo-yo between you two. As if I’m being used to settle some old score.”
His eyelids flew all the way open. “Um…”
“Your reaction says it all. So what’s the deal? I don’t mind if you’re using me to work something out with your buddy; I just need to know that.”
He moistened his lips, chuffed out a breath, and said, “Dirk stole my first real girlfriend during our sophomore year of college.”
“A decade ago?”
He dipped his head and when he spoke, he sounded chagrinned. “We were roommates. He knew I was head over heels for Amanda.”
“And you’ve never forgiven him?”
“We’re very competitive with each other.”
“I’m listening.”
“Some people might say our competitiveness borders on a sickness.”
“What people?”
“My aunts and mother.” He grinned.
“You do understand by warning me off Dirk and his competitiveness that you’re warning me off you as well.”
Tom sighed. “Yeah, I get that.”
“But you’d rather Dirk not have me, than for you to have me.”
“No, wait. What?” He scratched his head and looked totally confused.
“Look,” she said. “If you want me to help you get back at Dirk so you can move on from your heartbreak, I will.”
“You will?”
She shrugged. “It’s time you let go of ancient history, Tom. You’re stuck in the past. You’ve got to move on. Believe me, that’s why I wanted you to help me not be so nice. I don’t want to end up like you.”
“Wh-what?” Tom stammered.
“Jaxon might have broken my heart, but I don’t want to spend the next decade resenting him the way you resent Dirk. It’s time you let Amanda go.”
“I’ve let her go.”
“No, you haven’t. If you had, you wouldn’t be so obsessed with your buddy.”
“Maybe.”
“What happened to Amanda?” she asked, honestly curious.
“Dirk dumped her like a hot potato as soon as he’d won her away from me. She’s married now to a good guy who treats her right. They live in Colorado and have three boys. We exchange Christmas cards. I’m happy for her.”
He didn’t seem to be pining for his lost love at all and that was encouraging. He’d managed to act like a mature adult with Amanda, even if he hadn’t gotten there with Dirk. The issue did seem to be his rivalry with his friend.
“Why are you still friends with him?” she asked. “After the way he treated you?”
Tom shrugged. “He’s fun. He has good taste in microbreweries, and I can beat him at basketball.”