“What do you think it stands for?”
“I was asking you.”
Oh, this could be fun. “You up for a little challenge? How about if you’re able to figure it out, I won’t start my workday until seven. But until you can, I get to start as early as I like.”
Nora switched the mat to her other arm as she deliberated. “Okay. You have yourself a bet.” Surprising him, she stepped forward to shake his hand and make the deal legit. Her fingers lowered into his.
“But you only get one guess a day,” he said.
Her grip stilled. “What? You can’t go adding rules now. We already shook on it.”
He held her hand firmly in place so it couldn’t move. “We haven’t shaken yet.” His gaze dropped to their joined grip. “We’re technically just holding hands.”
“Wesoaren’t holding hands.” She whipped her hand up and down in an exaggerated, furious shake. “There. It’s a deal.” Yanking her hand out from his, she leapt back to add more space between them. “Jonathan Patrick.”
“Nope. Not even close.”
Her mouth popped open like a fish. “J—”
“Uh-uh. Only one guess per day. That was your guess.” The corner of his mouth lifted on one side as he added, “So, what kind of music do you like to wake up to in the morning?”
Chapter Nine
Nora wasn’t about to let J.P. have the satisfaction of waking her.
Instead, she set her bedside alarm for a quarter to six, figuring that would give her a good fifteen minutes to get herself together with ample time to be up and out the door before his morning music wakeup call.
Her eyes were still sleep-filled as she poured a mug of coffee in the kitchen and relocated to the front porch. She wanted J.P. to drive by and see her sitting there, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, long before his arrival. She wanted to publically gloat. She’d even practiced her wave and condescending smile. Oh, she was all in.
Yawning, she scrubbed her eyes with a balled up fist. This was early. Too early. It was still dark out, for goodness’ sake. Would he even be able to make her out, sitting in the eerie shadows of her porch like this? She settled her coffee onto the small bistro table next to the rocking chair and then hurried into the house to flick the front lights on. There. Now he couldn’t miss her. She would be spotlighted under that golden glow like an actress giving her best performance.
Returning to her seat, she slipped her fingers into the handle of the mug. The bitter liquid burned her taste buds as she lifted it to her lips and took a sip. She winced. She wasn’t a morning person, which was the entire reason J.P.’s early start time was so frustrating. She often began her days around nine o’clock when her clients were headed off to work and she could clean their homes without disturbing their morning routines.
Plus, it offered her a leisurely start to the day. This getting up and racing into action first thing wasn’t for her, which was likely the reason she found her blinks growing progressively longer, to the point where her eyes stayed shut for several seconds at a time. Her head nodded and her body suddenly slumped forward, like a grandpa dozing off in his favorite recliner. Losing her grip on her awareness and the handle to her mug, she faltered and scalding liquid sloshed over the rim and splattered onto her pant leg, eliciting a sharp yelp.
Nora’s eyes flew open.
Great. Now she’d have to go inside to change out of the soiled pants.
Why couldn’t she keep a grasp on anything lately? Yesterday the cold ice cream, today the hot coffee. Her life seemed to swing from one extreme to the other.
In her bedroom, she tugged her jeans off one leg at a time, getting tangled as she wrestled with the inside-out fabric. With her hands braced on the foot of her bed, she shimmied out of the wet denim, out of breath and nearly out of resolve.
Then two beams of white light filtered through the gauzy drapes covering her window.
J.P.
It had to be him. They rarely got much traffic on this old country road. Certainly none this early. She grabbed a pair of gray sweatpants from the top of the laundry basket and jumped in two legs at a time. Rushing through the house, she yanked them up like a participant in a potato sack race and cinched the waistband tight. With unfettered determination, she burst through the front door, collected her coffee cup, and shot a boisterous wave into the air—all done with clumsy incoordination and hasty zeal.
J.P.’s truck had already lumbered past, missing her theatrical performance completely.
“Ahhh!” Nora groaned so loudly her hair lifted from her forehead.
What an absolute waste of sleep, energy, and sanity.
It was fair to say she had none left. She slammed the mug down.
Then, as the icing on her completely petty cake, the first taunting notes ofNo Sleep Till Brooklynrang through the air.
