“I won’t involve you in our family drama. But please don’t tell her I know she’s there,” Jude says and I want to groan. I don’t want to keep anything from her. “I worry she’ll up and leave if she knows we know. I’d rather she’s there with you, someone I trust, than off in some motel or something by herself.”
“Yeah. Okay,” I say because I don’t want to lie to her but I, like Jude, want her to stay at the cottage.
After we say our good-byes and hang up, it takes me about twenty minutes to get back to the Braddock cottage. As soon as I pull in, she comes out of the house, wrapped in what looks like every blanket and jacket in the place. I try not to smirk.
“You forgot to turn the electricity back on before you left for wherever the hell you snuck off to,” she says.
“I didn’t sneak off. I had somewhere I needed to be,” I say calmly. “And I can’t turn the electricity back on. I left you a note on the dining room table.”
She huffs and storms back into the house. I shake my head and walk to my trailer. I’m inside, staring at the meager contents of my kitchen cabinets trying to decide between mac and cheese or spaghetti when she bangs on the trailer door. “Come in!” I call out in the most annoying cheerful singsong voice I can muster.
She swings the door open still wrapped up in her cocoon of blankets. “I need electricity tonight! I’ll freeze to death!”
“Did you read the note?” I ask. “It can’t be turned back on until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest. There are live wires everywhere and nothing is grounded yet.”
“I’ll freeze to death!”
I can’t help but laugh and I try to cover it but she is being such a drama queen. She must realize it too because her face twists up and I realize she’s fighting a smile so I let my laughter out and a second later she joins me. “Okay, that sounds a bit overdramatic but seriously, I have California blood now and I need some kind of heat. Everything is electric. I’m going to be shivering all night.”
“I gave you some options,” I say casually as I lean against the counter by the stove. She looks at me long and hard.
“I can’t stay here,” she says finally. “I mean…you only have one bed.”
I point to the couch. “That pulls out into a double. The mattress isn’t the best so I’ll give you the bed and I’ll take it. It’s one night.”
“Not a good idea,” she says but her voice is weak and when she glances over at the queen bed you can see through the open curtain at the end of the trailer, I can see the longing.
“It’s toasty warm in here thanks to my generator,” I say. “I also have hot water. Lots and lots of it if you want to take a shower.”
“I’ll figure it out,” she says and takes a step out of the trailer. She hesitates before she closes the door. “Thanks anyway.”
I stare at the door after she closes it for a good long minute. I want her to come back. Spending the night with her, even platonically, would be a good thing. But I know, just like she knows, it wouldn’t stay platonic. And that would be a great thing. But she has to want it. She has to be the one to come to me. My cards are on the table. She’s the one who isn’t sure she wants to place a bet on us.
I grab a beer out of the fridge and throw myself down on the couch, flipping open my laptop and cuing up an episode of House Hunters on Netflix. I’m halfway through it, and my beer, when there’s another knock on the door. “Enter!”
I crane my neck toward the door to see Winnie walk back in. Now she’s also got the hood up on a sweatshirt she’s got on under the blankets. I notice she’s wearing my jacket too. I smile. She holds out her hands and there’re two oblong objects in them wrapped in white paper.
“I brought you a lobster roll, in case you’re hungry,” she says. “Consider it payment for letting me hang out in here and warm up.”
I grin and pull myself to a sitting position, moving the laptop to the table. “You don’t have to pay me with anything. But I’ll take it.”
I grab one of the rolls and stand up, motioning for her to take a seat in the breakfast nook. She slips in, not an easy feat with all the blankets. I smile. She does too, sheepishly. “Drink?”
I hold up my mostly empty beer and she nods so I grab two more out of the fridge. She takes hers and glances at the laptop screen. “Is that House Hunters?”
Damn. Busted. “Yep.”
“Oh my God you watch that?” She looks positively blown away. “I love that show. I’ve never met a guy who willingly watches it. Usually they’re forced to by their girlfriend.”
“It’s House Hunters Renovation,” I explain. “I consider it research. Some of them come up with some cool ideas, but a lot of it is what not to do.”
“I believe it,” she says with a nod and starts to unwrap her roll. I’ve already torn the paper off mine and am ripping into it. “And seriously, they always pick the house they can’t afford or the one that has nothing they said they wanted. Like, I need a three-bedroom house with a big yard and two bathrooms, but then they pick the loft condo that’s over budget. People are dumb.”
I swallow the chunk of lobster roll and groan in satisfaction. “Yeah, what always gets me is their jobs and budgets. It’s like ‘Hi, I’m a goat yoga assistant and my husband is a mime instructor and our budget is seven hundred thousand dollars.’ Really? Shit, how much do you charge for those butterfly nets?”
She laughs, but she’s sipping her beer and her hand automatically flies to her face as she struggles not to choke. When she finally swallows, she laughs. “I almost brought that through my nose. Thanks for that!”
“My pleasure.” I wink at her and take another big bite, groaning again.
