“Um, hello? You are? All the time. A lot of people in Stillwater are, actually. Los Angeles is making you cynical, Lu.”
Hmm. I try on her statement for size, but before I have time to decide how I feel about it, she moves on.
“Maybe Nash just likes helping people.” The crosswalk clears, the light turns green, and Stella continues forward. “Heisa doctor. Maybe he has an uncommonly generous personality.”
“Maybe,” I say, bobbing my head because she does have a point. “But the worst of it is that I keeptaking. Your couch. Car rides. His literal medical services in his actual living room. And I have nothing to offer in return. I feel like this… this… parasite. Just sucking up kindness like I’m owed it. I promised myself when I left for Los Angeles that I would stand on my own two feet or die trying.”
Stella shakes her head, lips twitching. “Yeah, about that… I do hate having my best friend sleep on my couch. Total drag. She just hobbles around, promising to be out of my hair in one ridiculous time frame after another. It’s almost like the hardest thing about you right now is your hyper-independence.”
“Hyper-independence,” I echo. “Sounds so much better thancrippling trust issues,don’t you think?”
Stella arches a brow and moves on. “All right then,” she says breezily, one hand on the wheel. “Let’s say Idobuy your whole blushing-from-embarrassment theory. What was with his smolder then?”
“There wasn’t a smolder. Nash is just… intense. He always looks like that.”
At least he always has around me.
“Uh-huh. And I always wake up with flawless eyeliner. Try again.”
Sighing, I turn my attention to the scenery as it slides by—the clapboard shops with their pastel awnings, the bakery with its cheery chalkboard sign promising “the best cinnamon rolls on the coast,” the lighthouse out on the point watching over it all like a patient old friend. Beyond it, the bay shimmers in shades of silver and blue, waves catching the pale March sunlight like sequins on a stage. Seagulls swoop low over the docks, fishermen unloading the day’s catch while the wind carries the briny scent of salt and woodsmoke through the open car window.
Stillwater Bay is nothing like Los Angeles. No blaring horns, no packed rehearsal studios, no one rushing anywhere. The pace here feels… human. After years of running on adrenaline and ambition, the quiet peace of this place seeps into me, softening edges I didn’t even realize had gone sharp.
“You know what’s weird though?” I say to Stella as the thought strikes me. “Nash was down on his knees in front of me. I’m in short shorts. His hands were on my leg. And he didn’t make a single offhandcomment.”
Stella makes a noise in her throat.
“I’m just saying, if it had been a guy our age…” I glance her way because do I really have to finish that sentence?
Her wry smile says I do not. “You wouldn’t have gotten out of there without at least three creepy jokes and an unsolicited DM by nightfall.”
“Exactly. Nash just… didn’t go there.”
“Seems like you’re making my point,” she mutters, mostly to herself. “Maybe he’s offering help because he actually wants to help.”
“Then what was with the smolder?”
She flicks on her turn signal and hits me with a serious side-eye. “Oh, so now there was a smolder?”
“I’m just going with what you said.”
“I don’t know, maybe he’s attracted to you, hence the smolder, but also sees a person in need, hence the offer to help.”
I glance at her. “Either way, the maturity is nice.”
Stella nods her agreement and the conversation shifts. I ask about her event business, Martha’s bridal shower since I opted to stay home because of the accident, anything to steer away from the weird mess happening in my brain. She talks, animated and hilarious as always, but I’m only half-listening.
My mind drifts in traitorous, unwanted directions.
Back to the way Nash looked at me—not justatme, butintome. Like he was assessing not just the ankle, but the wreckage of the rest of me too. His fingerswere steady on my skin, but I’d swear they trembled when our eyes met. Or maybe that was me.
There was something about being in his house, too. For a man so precise, so structured, his place was warm. Lived in. Masculine, yes, but the kind of masculine that lights candles without apology and buys real art for the walls. Attention had been paid.
Guys my age don’t do wall art. Or candles. Or espresso in an actual mug instead of a to-go cup with their name misspelled in black Sharpie.
That kind of grown-man groundedness?
Yeah. It’s hot.
