“We’re on a break,” I bit out, not willing to fully admit that I had mostly just made up my boyfriend out of thin air.
“What’s his name?”
I glanced at my father’s old liquor stash, and the name just came to me. “Jameson.”
He followed the line of my sight, which was unfortunately fixed on a whiskey bottle of the same name. “Jameson. Huh,” he said.
I walked behind him toward the kitchen, where he opened a couple of cabinets. One had peanut butter, jelly, and bread in it. My father’s last trip to the grocery store. When someone dies, even the mundane parts of their lives, like peanut butter, all of the sudden become eerie artifacts.
“Where are the cups?” he asked, turning toward me. Scrunching up his face, he looked uncomfortable as he blew out an exaggeratedly loud breath, indicating how hot he was.
“Bottom right cabinet,” I said, pointing.
He grabbed a glass, and then grimaced again, rubbed a finger on his collarbone. “Damn. I can see why you’ve got on those now,” he said, gesturing toward my tank top and orange and blue short shorts from college. “When I first saw you standing in the door I thought you just liked being scantily clad.”
“Do you mind?”
“If…?”
Not waiting for my response, he then proceeded to take off his tank top, too.
Cocky freaking bastard.
In the process he revealed the washboard abs I’d seen in the ‘selfie incident’ last night.
Something fluttered in my stomach as I wondered what it would be like to run my hands over their ridges. I think he pretended not to take notice of my gawking eyes as he poured himself a drink of water.
“So, how was your night last night? Did you score?” I asked, needing to remind myself of the inappropriateness of my thoughts.
“What do you mean?”
“Your ‘plans.’ The one you were really texting last night, not accidentally like me. I’m assuming you had a date. Did you score?”
“Ohh, right!” He nodded slowly. “My date.”
I pinched my eyes toward him, unable to get a read on what he meant by this.
“What does that look mean? Did you even have a date? Or did you just make that whole thing up?”
He shrugged and dodged the question. “You’re a lot cuter than I thought you would be. For a girl with a reluctance to send selfies.”
You’re a lot cuter than I thought you would be, too.
Although cute was an understatement. He was Calvin Klein model hot.
I refused to acknowledge his attraction, since doing so would give him the upper hand.
Even though I already shot myself in the foot with my stupid boyfriend comment.
“Do you just send out your selfie to every number in your contacts and see who replies?” I asked, trying to deflect away from a conversation about me. “I caught a guy I knew in college doing that when he sent the same picture and message to both me and my roommate.”
He grinned. “Fine. I admit it. I was fucking with you last night.”
My eyes widened.
“So it was just you, Florida Sunshine,” he went on. “You’re one lucky lady.”
I heated on the inside, but my posture stiffened on the outside.
“Do you usually get dates acting like this?”
“What do you mean ‘like this’?”
“Acting like you’re God’s gift to women. A little humility goes a long way, you know.”
“I mean, you want to go on a date with me. Clearly I’m doing something right. And you have a boyfriend. Jameson.”
“That wasn’t a date. That was just a catch-up because I don’t know anyone else in town, Dick.”
“Why wasn’t he at the funeral, by the way?”
“Like I said, we’re on a break,” I repeated. I had to find a way to squeeze out of this boyfriend lie before it got me in trouble.
“I’m confused. Seems to me if I was on a break with someone I liked, even if we were on the ropes, I’d forget our quarrels to be there for them in a time like this.”
He finished drinking the water, then refilled it and handed it to me. An odd gesture, but I was thirty and I accepted it. Why was I acting so weird and awkward? Why couldn’t I just be truthful with this man?
A knot jumped up to my throat as I drank, and I swallowed extra hard.
The reason hit me, and emotion welled up inside my stomach.
I didn’t really have anyone who I could share this part of my life with. No siblings, my mom absolutely tried to pretend this chapter of her life never existed in Black Mountain. My friends sent ‘feel better’ texts but none of them were willing to come up to the frozen tundra of the north with me, heaven forbid in December. I wasn’t used to fully sharing myself with people.
I fought the emotional surge coming through me. I didn’t want to tear up in front of a stranger, who apparently had the ability to zoom in with laser focus on my insecurities.
“Gotta get you some bottled water,” he said as he took the cup back from me.
His chest was sweat glazed as he filled the cup back up with the faucet. Seriously, what was my life right now? The sexiest man I’d ever seen up close—and a virtual stranger—chugging water shirtless in front of me.
“Why’s that?”
“Tap water’s no good here.”
He said the words with menace, almost like an attack on me.
“Why not?” I said, if only because it seemed like he was baiting me to ask why.
“Your father’s mine contaminated the town water supply. You never knew about that?”
My heart jumped, the way he said ‘your father.’ It felt a tad like he was blaming me.
“When was that?”
He finished chugging his drink, then poured me another. Walking to my refrigerator, he laughed when he looked inside.
“Yep. Your Daddy’s got the good stuff in here, as I suspected.” He brought out a jug of filtered water and set it on the counter. “Guess your Daddy never told his daughter about that contamination bit.”
My nostrils flared. I had enough to process this week, and I poked him in the chest. He was being a dick for no reason which was starting to annoy me. And in the wake of my father’s death? I empathized with the fact that he’d had his own tragedies to deal with from his past. And he hadn’t gotten into how they had passed away, which made me wonder. But I wasn’t going to stand for the way he was talking to me right now.
“Look, buddy,” I said. “I don’t know who the fuck you think you’re talking to. I don’t care if we used to ride bikes when we were ten, and I’m sorry that something happened to Louisa and your father. But I will not have you insulting my father one week after he died. Let me grieve.”
My pulse sped, and I cursed the fact that I had to look up at Mr. Tall Eyelashes because he was possibly a good foot taller than me.
He spread his arms out behind him and leaned against the kitchen counter.
“You’re right. My bad.”
“Thank you.”
“But Look, Dino, I went through the same when my father died. He tried to be a good man, but he wasn’t perfect. No one is. I know it’s hard for you right now.”
“So what are you saying then?”