“You live here?” He parks his hip against the open gate and nods at the house behind me.
“No, I just like sitting on the front steps of strangers’ houses.” I tuck my hair behind my ears, wipe the sweat off my nose. “What are you doing around here?”
He shoots me an easy grin. “I know how it looks.”
Does he? And that would be…?
I laugh. “Like you’re stalking me?”
It slowly dawns on me, even with my sunbaked brain, that I’d never seen him before today. The coincidence of meeting him twice in the same afternoon is kind of strange.
“Well…” His grin widens. He turns and points down the street, at Mr. Collins’s small brown house. “I’m your new neighbor.”
Seriously? I realize I’m gaping and shut my mouth before a fly wanders in. “That’s, um… that’s nice.”
“Nice? That’s all I get?”
Even I can figure out when a guy is flirting with me, and he certainly is. His tone is light and teasing, that grin he’s wearing lighting up his eyes.
You could do worse, a smug little voice in my mind quips, because he is cute. And anyway, what’s the harm in flirting with a handsome guy?
Not like there’s anyone else in my life. I’m eighteen, but I’ve never had a boyfriend. Not unless you count Cameron when we were eight, who drew hearts on my notebooks and held my hand during break.
And how sad is it that I think that’s the sweetest thing a guy has ever done for me?
Sad, Octavia. Real sad and embarrassing.
“Waiting for someone? A boyfriend?” He looks at the street as if expecting a car to arrive and a guy to come and sweep me off my feet.
Wait, is he a mind reader?
No, Tati. A guy flirting with you would be interested in knowing about any competition.
Ah. There’s none.
“I’m just waiting for my sister to stop hogging the bathroom.” I wave vaguely at the house behind me. “It’s too warm to wait inside.”
“Yeah.” He rocks on his heels. “Definitely cooler out here.”
He’s well-dressed in a pair of dark jeans and a gray T-shirt that fits him perfectly. Good quality clothes, and a pair of shiny new black loafers, that somehow don’t look too nerdy or over the top, but classy.
Yeah, he sure is handsome, and it feels good to be hit on by him. Besides, let’s face it, Matt Hansen’s cold and generally rude behavior hasn’t helped my shaky confidence any.
It occurs to me it’s my turn to say something, to keep the conversation going, but for some reason now all I can think of is Matt Hansen, his strong arm around my waist, preventing me from falling on my face inside the drugstore, and my heart trips.
“Well, I’ll be going, then,” he says, and I glance up, not realizing I’d looked away. He’s smiling, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Leave you to your thoughts.”
“No, I…” Crap, why am I wasting the chance to talk with a hot guy who is being so nice to me? “I’m sorry. It was great meeting you.”
His eyes flash. He takes the path in two strides and lifts my hand to his mouth. “Pleasure is all mine,” he purrs and brushes his lips over my overheated skin.
My mouth falls open. Nobody has ever done this to me before. It’s like a scene right out of a movie.
And again I have no words.
“My name’s Adam. Adam Cash. At your service.”
Charming. That’s what he is. Very charming. He could seem ridiculous, or pretentious doing this stuff, but I can’t help a smile.
He does look a bit smug as he releases my hand and steps back, but I guess he’s earned it. I’m still smiling when he waves and walks down the street, in the direction of the house he pointed out before.
And then I jerk when Gigi says from behind me, “Who’s that hunk?”
Chapter Five
Matt
When I skipped town with my kids, I didn’t factor in the sad fact I can’t cook to save my life. Didn’t factor anything in, in fact. Didn’t think. Couldn’t. I just had to go.
In any case, we made it this far, and I’ll be damned before I let us die of starvation. I took stock of the situation on the first day, and made a sort of plan. It wasn’t a complicated one.
My cooking skills being close to nil, I thought I’d rely on takeout and delivery. Loads of people do that, right?
Only problem with choosing a town based on its small size and lack of fame is that there are no takeout or delivery places except for the pizzeria, and we’ve already had pizza four times this week.
Good thing is that Cole doesn’t seem fed up with it yet. However, Mary has already declared she can’t see another slice of it ever in her life.
What do you know, my daughter is a goddamn diva.
As for myself, I couldn’t care less what I put in my mouth. Pizza, steak, salad, bread, mud. It all tastes like ashes.
But since Mary had a ragey fit earlier on today about the pizza leftovers I took out of the fridge, and since I still haven’t figured out how to get into her good graces, a problem that for some reason keeps penetrating through the dark fog in my mind with an urgency most things in my life lately don’t seem to have, well…
Here we are, in one of the town’s two diners—the one with the Christmas lights in the windows, as Mary demanded, not the other, boring one—sitting around a table and waiting for our order.
Mary asked for a burger and fries.
Cole asked for pizza.
It almost made me smile.
Almost, because sitting here, in this cluttered, dim space with the voices and laughter of other customers and the smell of food in the air, even the Christmas lights on the window that enchanted my little daughter—they remind me of her.
Emma.
Mary probably doesn’t remember the diner we used to go to for dinner sometimes back when. She can’t be remembering any of it. She was too young.
Those damn Christmas lights.
I shouldn’t have let Mary convince me to choose this diner. My vision is going blurry and my throat tight, and my heart is booming way too fast and loud in my chest.
And then I see her.
The nanny. The girl I didn’t hire.
Octavia.
She’s just entered the diner with three more people, laughing and talking loudly, her dark hair gleaming like polished wood in the dim lights, her smile bright. I don’t even see her companions. She burns like a flame.
I turn away and keep my head low as they move inside and take a table not far from ours. Cole is fussing with a teddy bear he’s dragged along, and Mary is sipping at her pop with an air of intense concentration. I notice for the first time tonight that she’s tied a red ribbon in her hair. The knot is crooked, and her hair is tangled.
Fuck.
I’m hit with remorse so sharp I hiss. I don’t think of shit like that. Brushing my daughter’s hair, tying ribbons in it. Making sure her red dress is clean and ironed. That Cole’s face is clean and his hands not grubby when he stuffs his thumb into his mouth.
Does he always do that? Should I make sure he stops? Will he get crooked teeth?
Does he even have a pacifier somewhere?
I can’t do this.
I have to do this.