11. Twisting Him Up
11
TWISTING HIM UP
G arrett jogged back home faster than he’d planned on running today.
But he didn’t expect he’d get a dinner invitation either.
He knew Justine didn’t want to hear anything about the lore of the island, but he couldn’t get it out of his head over the number of times the two of them just ran into each other.
As his mother would say—it was almost like fate.
Did he think he was in love with her?
No. That would be crazy.
But he enjoyed being around her and wasn’t ready to concede to just being friends.
The fact she asked him to dinner gave him some hope she felt the same.
He got back to his house in seven minutes.
“Garrett.”
Shit. It was Vanessa. He hadn’t even seen her in the driveway, but she had mail in her hand, so she must have gone out to get it.
“Hi,” he said, moving up the stairs fast.
“How are you doing?”
“Good,” he said. “Got to run. I’ve got to be somewhere, sorry.”
He unlocked the door fast with his phone and slid inside.
Maybe he felt like a coward always trying to outrun her rather than just saying he wasn’t interested.
But he didn’t want to deal with that awkward conversation. How many times could he tell her no or make up excuses before she got the hint?
He jogged to his room, grabbed a change of clothes, then jumped in the shower.
Ten minutes later he was out the door and didn’t care if Justine thought it was funny that he was there in less than thirty minutes from when they ran into each other.
He parked his SUV and was going to buzz Justine’s place but noticed her coming down the stairs.
“I saw you pull in,” she said.
She held the door open for him. “You took your hair out of the ponytail.”
“It barely fits. I just like it out of my face when I’m walking or exercising. Not that I thought I’d get that sweaty, but I like to see if traffic is coming.”
“Or a friendly face,” he said, laughing.
He’d been hoping she still had it up. He liked her shoulder-length hair pulled back, showing her features more.
She put her hair behind her ears a few times, but usually it was blocking some of her face.
“That too,” she said. “Come in.”
He hadn’t been in her apartment on Sunday. Just picked her up and dropped her off.
It felt like a date to him, but he wouldn’t have pushed it knowing that she only wanted to be friends.
He’d see how tonight went and approach it more. He’d like to know what was going through her mind.
Garrett had come to the island to relax and focus on his work and now he was only thinking of the blonde beauty that was twisting him up inside.
Talk about frustration.
“I should have asked if there was anything I could have brought.”
“With as fast as you got here, I don’t think you would have made it to the store.”
She was laughing when she said that. “I’m hungry,” he said. “Do you buy that?”
“Sure,” she said. “I’ll buy it. I should have asked what you liked, but since you had beef on Thursday and turkey on Sunday, I’m going to assume beef and white meat are good. I’m making chicken stir fry. You can let me know the veggies you won’t eat.”
“I’ll eat just about anything,” he said. He followed her into the kitchen and saw broccoli, carrots, and red peppers. “All those are good.”
“Easy,” she said. “I have others, but that is what I pulled out. It’s what I planned on making tonight, but if you didn’t like it, I could pivot.”
“No reason to do that,” he said. “As long as I don’t have to cook, I’m always happy.”
“Can I get you a drink? I don’t have any alcohol in the house.”
“I rarely drink it during the week unless it’s a bad day. I’ve had fewer bad days here than I’ve had in Boston. Even then, it’s one beer or a few fingers of whiskey.”
She nodded. “I’ve got water and unsweetened iced tea.”
“Tea works,” he said.
She pulled two glasses down and he tried not to let his eyes go to her waist. Her shirt lifted some when she reached for the glasses.
Her leggings were gone and in their place was a pair of jean shorts.
She was a tiny thing. He wasn’t sure he’d ever spent time with someone as small as her.
Definitely dated no one this petite.
She poured them both a glass and handed it over, then turned to cut the vegetables. She had already cubed the chicken in a pan and turned on the stove.
Rice was going in another pan and some sauce in a third.
“Have a seat,” she said.
He sat on the stool at the counter where she was working.
“I feel bad about you doing all the work.”
“Maybe next time you can cook and I’ll sit and watch.”
“You’ve got a deal,” he said. “Did you do anything with your day off?”
“No,” she said. “Just went food shopping and cleaned. Read a little.”
“What do you read?”
“Just about anything. I like romantic suspense or murder mysteries. Anything I can solve.”
He laughed. “Have you ever read Emma French?”
“I have,” she said. “One of my go-to authors for romantic suspense. I don’t read a lot of them, but I like her style. Steve Spencer is on my list, but I’m sure everyone has read him. Lots of others. Do you read Emma French?”
There was no way he could say Steve Spencer was Emma’s mother. The world thought Steve was a man and Melissa French wanted to keep it that way, but the family knew the truth.
“I’ve read Steve Spencer, but not Emma French. She’s a cousin though.”
“What?” she asked. “Seriously?”
“Her mother was a Bond before she became a French. Edward’s side of the family. So many generations removed, but she lives on the island.”
“I might go fan girl crazy if I saw her.”
He laughed. He wouldn’t say he could introduce them.
Or that maybe there’d be some family event coming up and he’d like to take her.
That would be pushing it.
“You could run into her on the island, though she’s a bit of a hermit and doesn’t leave her house much,” he said. “At least from what I’ve heard. I don’t talk to her all that much. Just what I hear through the family grapevine.”
“Guess you’ve got a lot of interesting things going on in your family.”
“I do,” he said. “But you don’t want to hear some of it.”
She laughed but said nothing else. Just continued to chop vegetables and monitor everything going on at once.
“Sorry if I’m being quiet. Just making sure I don’t cut myself.”
“I could fix it if you did,” he said. “Or get someone fast who could if it needed more than a bandage.”
She laughed. “I could do that myself.”
“Can I ask why you went to be a pharmacist? You said your father was a surgeon and your sister is in her residency doing the same.”
She laughed softly. “I don’t like blood all that much. I’m a daddy’s girl. Was one,” she said.
He reached his hand over and laid it on hers quickly. “You’ll always be one.”
“I will,” she said. “But I just couldn’t do it. Blood from a cut doesn’t bother me, but the thought of bones and muscles and blah.” She gagged and stopped talking. “See, can’t do it. Jordan wasn’t bothered by it. I’m glad the two of them had that bond. I had others with my father. We were similar in personalities.”
“So he was a quiet but confident surgeon?” he asked.
“He was,” she said. “I’m quiet and confident in my job, but not much else.”
“I think you are selling yourself short. You did just ask me to dinner. Or was that another one of those things trying to get out of your comfort zone?”
“Would you be offended if I said that I talked to Jordan today and she was giving me a hard time about going to dinner with you so quickly? She insists I don’t do anything with a guy until I’ve talked to them for weeks.”
Interesting.
Something he’d store away for another time.
“We have known each other a few weeks. And we’ve talked. That has to count, right?”
“Technically,” she said. “Then when I saw you, I got this idea in my head that I could prove her wrong.”
He frowned. The sound in the room was his ego deflating pretty rapidly.
“That is the only reason you asked?”
She had turned her back on him to stir the chicken and add some seasonings when he asked that.
This time she whipped back around. “No,” she said. “Not at all. I don’t know. I’m making a mess out of this. I told Jordan that I feel comfortable around you and I can’t say that about a lot of men. It’s been years since I’ve been in a relationship.”
“Years,” he said, lifting an eyebrow.
“I’ve dated,” she said. “Just haven’t had good luck with someone I was willing to do more than that with. How about you?”
“I had a serious relationship.”
“How serious?” she asked. “Or you don’t have to answer it.”
“About a year together. We didn’t live together but had talked about those things. Let’s say that she didn’t care for my job or the time I spent doing it.”
Nor gave him the support he could have used.
“Got it,” she said. “She had to know going in.”
“You can tell someone all the things in the world, but they have to experience it before they can make that decision.”
He hated wasting his time with that and figured that Justine was the same way.
Not a horrible thing.
“I agree,” she said. “It just sucks to put time into something and find out you tried to say it all along.”
He nodded his head.
“So, this thing with us?” His hand was going back and forth. “This is our third meal together. Still friends all you want or do I have to pass some more tests?”
She held his stare. “I don’t test people.”
“I’m trying to joke and it came out poorly.”
“I get it,” she said. “For me, I’m not here long.”
“Understood,” he said. “Neither am I. Or I could be. Or you could be. We don’t know what tomorrow is going to bring.”
“As my sister said,” she said. “So how about we say it’s more than friends, but what else it is, we have to figure out.”
“I’ll take that,” he said, smiling.