“That wasn’t a negotiation.” Oh, look, Gavin was still there.Hooray.
“Then what was it?” She walked in to one price. Left with another. That was the definition of a negotiation.
Gavin put his hands at his waist. “A bloodbath.”
“Because I won?”
“Molly?” He glanced to the floor, then back up. “I know…” He cleared his throat. “I do consider you a friend.”
“I think that’s the second nicest thing you’ve ever said to me,” she said, squeezing his biceps through his button up dress shirt, and then immediately regretting it because, actually, he had nice biceps and she probably shouldn’t touch them.
“What was the first?” he asked.
Um…the only other time he’d said something nice to her? “When you said I looked pretty at the wedding.”
Why did she blush when she said that? It wasn’t like he told her he wanted to rip off her dress and ravage her in her cotton panties. But something about the way his eyes traced over her made her suddenly very aware of her cut-off shorts and ratty T-shirt.
Whatever was going on with her nerve endings today needed to knock it off.
“You did,” he said. She could’ve sworn he added, under his breath, “You do.”
But she was probably misunderstanding after all the money talk with the mechanic. Money talk had a tendency to make a girl light-headed.
“That’s why it was a nice thing to say.” She did not squeeze his biceps this time. Didn’t even touch him.Go me!
“Right.” He didn’t look away. “Look. If a friend needs a loan or a—”
She held up her hand. “I’m going to stop you right there.”
Before he put his foot in his mouth by offering her money when she had money. Just not enough money for a down payment, stunt camp,anda car overhaul.
“Why does this have to be difficult?” he asked. “Friends help friends.”
They weren’t quite that type of friends. Maybe they’d get there in the next two decades, especially since he’d saved her kid’s life with the whole diving in after him thing.
She gulped.Not thinking about that right now.
What mattered was that they were still getting into the tolerating each other stage of things.
He wanted to know why this was so difficult? Because she could do it her damn self. She didn’t need a bailout. Never had. Never would.
She’d already come up with a solution on her own. A patch to get her through until she could buy all the things—stunt camp for her kid who never asked for anything, and a new radiator for the car that asked for everything. And a nice two-story house near her current duplex so she could still check in on Agnes regularly.
Sometimes she actually felt like she was getting ahead with the whole mom thing, and then something like this happened to put her back in her place.
But the one thing that would make her feel like even more of a failure would be to take money from Gavin. Or anyone, for that matter.
But especially from Gavin.
Chapter Seven
“Being a mom makes you tired, but it’s a kind of tired even sleep can’t fix.” —Andrea, Texas, United States
Molly
“Agnes?” Molly asked, knocking lightly as she opened the door.
They were well past the whole knock-before-you-enter thing, but Molly still tried to give a little heads up when she visited her favorite neighbor-landlady.
