He left before she could say anything else and that was fine, since all she could think to say was “good.” And seeing him around would be anything but.
As she sat down, Lauren tried to shake off the nerves that being so close to him seemed to have set to quivering, only to find herself pinned by Paige’s all-too-observant stare. She should have made the time to pack a lunch this morning.
“Coffee?”
Lauren pressed a hand to her stomach, cursing the butterflies. “I think I’ll have decaf.”
“They have that effect on women.”
“Coffees?”
“Kowalskis.”
Uh-oh. The last thing Lauren needed was the population of Whitford thinking she had a thing for Ryan. “Hectic morning. Nick didn’t want to get out of the house and then things at the office were crazy. I’ve already had more than my fair share of the high-test stuff.”
“Mmm-hmm. What are you eating?”
“Grilled cheese on wheat, I guess. With coleslaw instead of fries.”
“So, the regular, in other words.” Paige rolled her eyes and went to give the order to the cook, but she was gone only a few seconds. “Weren’t your ex and Ryan best friends back in high school?”
It was to be expected, Lauren told herself. The woman was marrying a Kowalski, so it was natural people would fill her in on the family details. “Yeah, they were.”
They weren’t anymore. There hadn’t been a fight between the guys, but Dean seemed to think Ryan had gone off to become a big shot and forgotten where he came from. There was some resentment on Dean’s part, but it was misplaced. Lauren had never told her ex-husband about Ryan’s visit, even though it had been a serious betrayal of the guys’ friendship. Ryan had gone away, and every week, then month, and finally year he was gone made it easier to justify not telling Dean.
“And?”
She’d almost forgotten Paige was standing there, no doubt waiting to hear the rest of the story. “And Ryan got his degree and moved to Mass and that was that.”
“Oh, come on. It’s me!” Paige bent down and rested her forearms on the counter so they were at the same height. “Mitch thinks there’s some kind of history between you two.”
“Nope, sorry.” It wasn’t exactly a lie, but it wasn’t exactly the truth, either. It was time to change the subject. “Speaking of Mitch, when are you guys getting married?”
Paige’s face lit up and, almost by reflex, she put out her left hand to admire the sparkling ring on her finger. “It hasn’t even been two weeks since he asked me.”
“From what I’ve heard, Mitch is in a hurry and you’ll be lucky if he doesn’t have you kidnapped and put on a plane to Vegas.”
“We want to get married at the lodge, but we don’t want to do it during the sledding season and he doesn’t want to wait until spring.”
“That doesn’t leave you a lot of time.”
“We’re thinking about Columbus Day weekend,” Paige said. “It falls early this year, so maybe we’ll still have some fall foliage.”
“It’s also not quite three weeks away.”
“We don’t want anything fancy. He’s going to call everybody when he gets home and see if we can make it work. As long as his aunt Mary and uncle Leo can make it from New Hampshire, and his brother Sean and his wife, we’ll probably go for it. But he’d like his sister to fly in from New Mexico, too.”
“I haven’t seen Liz in ages.”
“I guess nobody has, except when Sean got out of the army. They had a party for him at Ryan’s.”
And back to Ryan again. Thankfully the bell dinged and Paige left to pick up Lauren’s grilled cheese sandwich, because Lauren could feel the heat creeping into her face. She was going to have to come up with a way to stop doing that or wear more makeup or something. She couldn’t blush every time somebody mentioned the man’s name.
To make matters worse, it wasn’t some leftover attraction to a young Ryan, which was more nostalgia than anything. It’s not as if she’d been lusting after him while running around with his best friend. She’d loved Dean and, while she found Ryan attractive, it wasn’t until later her subconscious mind had given him the starring role in her sexual fantasies. Probably because he was safely far away so fantasy couldn’t intrude on reality.
But right now, grown-up Lauren’s body, which hadn’t been up against a naked man’s in way too long, seemed to think the very grown-up Ryan was just the man for the job.
Paige set Lauren’s lunch in front of her, then untied her apron. “I hate to run out on you, but I have an appointment to look at a house.”
Lauren had been so wrapped up in trying not to think about Ryan Kowalski, she hadn’t even noticed that Ava, the second-shift waitress, had shown up. “I have to inhale this and get back anyway. When I step out for lunch, it’s like Hurricane Gary passed over my desk during the half hour I was gone.”