Chapter 3
Felicity’s face pressed against two pectoral muscles that told the story of an epic daily push-up routine.
He smelled like restaurant spices, like the onions and garlic he’d been up early prepping, but there was something musky and oddly familiar beneath it.
Unfortunately, given the loss of balance, her overall-bibbed boobs were pancaked against Nic in a way that did not seem at all appropriate.
Felicity pulled her body away from Nic’s.
The ache of her headache was now mixing with dehydration from weeding for an hour in the heat.
That had to be why she was feeling slightly dizzy and unsettled while looking up at the hulking figure who may or may not have saved her life.
Her hat had flown off to land in the row of tomato plants below the balcony.
Only her top half had made it over the railing.
She probably would have caught herself, right?
God, what if she had died?
Her already spiraling brain spiraled even more. Her asshat stepcousin would get her aunt’s beloved shop, and then he’d turn it into the sports memorabilia store of his dreams, and then Felicity would have to come back from beyond the grave to haunt him, so her death wouldn’t even be a restful—
“Felicity?”
She spluttered a few syllables that bore almost no resemblance to actual words. Shit, she’d forgotten to take her meds this morning.
“Say again? Was that English?” He crossed his arms over a dark area on his T-shirt that (mortifyingly) might have been an imprint from Felicity’s face sweat.
“I said … Never mind. Thanks. For that.” She gestured to the railing, making a little dive motion. “Or whatever.” She coughed once into her elbow and looked anywhere except into his chipped-emerald irises.
“Felicity, are you—”
“I’m fine. I—uh—so … why are you on my balcony?”
“Other than the fact that I had to chivalrously catch you before you fell to a very dramatic death in the garden? For a plant store owner, I guess it would have been rather poetic. Or ironic, as the case may be.”
Felicity’s eyes fixed on the tiny lines at the corner of his mouth that revealed the smirk he was suppressing. She kneeled to right the upended pots. “I probably wouldn’t have died or anything.”
“The prize tomatoes might not have been enough to cushion the headfirst fall,” he said wryly.
He stooped to help her brush spilled soil over the edge of the porch, almost touching her hand as she started to do the same.
Their eyes locked in one more time as he handed her the book Sam had given her this morning.
“What did you…” Felicity trailed off, standing and turning to the door.
On second thought, she didn’t care what he had to say.
The implication of Bruce’s threats washed over her again, reminding her of the new task on her mental to-do list: shower crying.
“Never mind.” She flung open the sliding door and went to the counter to get her meds.
She needed her meds working to sort through emotions and complex business problems.
“Uh—are you moving back out?” Nic was in her apartment, scanning the pile of fifteen boxes in the corner.
“No.” Felicity scowled. Her stark tone discouraged more questions on the subject.
He picked up a book from the stack of novels that Samantha had been dropping off at regular intervals and scanned the back cover. It was a Viking-inspired fantasy, and Felicity had only read a couple of chapters before tossing it aside, like everything else she had tried to read lately.
He set the book back down. “Why’ve you been avoiding me?”
“What do you expect? I hadn’t even met you yet and you were already talking about butting in to an arrangement you don’t understand and evicting my business from a space it’s used for ten years.”
Nic stared blankly. His voice was hoarse when he spoke again. “Okay. So we need to talk about that—”
“And speaking of butting in, I didn’t invite you in here either. You just walk into the apartments of women you barely know without an invitation?” She set down the book and grabbed her pillbox, taking out two pills and guzzling them down with room-temperature water from last night’s glass.
“We were literally having a conversation, and you walked inside.”
“We were not having a conversation. We had a conversation outside. Then I ended it. I would think you could take a hint on that.”
“Bruce is a complete shithead. I don’t want you to think that I’m like him about your store.”
“Like him as in think I’m too incompetent to run it? Or sloppy? And that my aunt was too stubborn to see reason—”
Nic’s voice softened. “I know you overheard the conversation I had with Marshall before he left. About the patio. I’m sorry, but—” He sighed.
“You heard all of that way out of context. I can explain if you’ll just talk to me for a second.
” He leaned on the back of her couch. “I don’t think you’re incompetent at all—”
“What a relief.” Even though the air-conditioning was blasting in the apartment, Felicity’s cheeks were on fire. “I was crying myself to sleep every night worried about it.”
“God, I was … shit … can you just let me say one single thing?” Nic stepped forward.
Not close enough to be intimidating, but certainly close enough that he commanded every bit of her attention.
Now it was as if he knew Felicity’s history and what would trigger her and deliberately left extra inches of space between them.
“Look, I followed you because I wanted to make sure you were okay. Bruce was an asshole back there.”
Felicity’s head tilted in subtle, measuring surprise.
“Well, that was nice of you.” Her overall strap had fallen down her arm, exposing a slightly indecent amount of boob where her tank top had come down in her almost-fall.
But despite the unintentional peep show, Nic kept his gaze on her face.
Impressive. She yanked the strap back into place.
“I also think that you should consider giving the patio space to C’est la Vache because it’s for the good of the neighborhood.”
And there it was. The reason why he was being “nice.” Men always had an ulterior motive.
“Out.” She pointed at the door.
“Think about this rationally. Marshall won’t even ask, because his father’s emotional connection to your aunt makes it hard for anyone in his family to think objectively about the situation, but I—”
“A woman is asking you to leave her apartment.” Felicity fixed her eyes on the door.
As if he realized the full implication of this statement, he immediately backed out.
“I’m sorry,” he said from the balcony. “I know your three families don’t want to step on each other’s toes, but you have to admit your little outside storage area isn’t going to bring in as many customers as my restaurant will.
As far as keeping Bruce from taking over, I have to do a little more research, but I think—”
“First of all, bucko, it—”
“Bucko?” He snorted.
“Shithead better?”
He shrugged. “Fair.”
“It’s not an outside ‘storage’ area.” She put air quotes around the word.
“It’s a big part of how I get people to come into the store.
I built that goddamned patio with my brother ten years ago.
I may have only owned the shop since May, but I used to work it half of every summer growing up, and you know how many people used to come into her plant store without a reason? ”
“Um…”
“In the warmer months, we get a ton of business demonstrating how beautiful and welcoming an outdoor space can be. In the winter, we have to store some of our larger outdoor pot inventory out there because everything growing that won’t winterize comes inside.”
“So you admit, then, that in the winter you barely use the space and clutter it up with extra inventory?”
She gritted her teeth. “Like restaurants use outdoor space during the insane Kansas winters?”
“Actually, you’d be surprised what restaurants in cold-weather cities are doing with propane heaters and plastic tents and pods.
Firepits. Pergolas. There are a lot of options here, especially with how the architecture of the old school shields the courtyard area from the elements.
” Nic had reverted to his I-know-everything-and-you-know-nothing tone.
“Are you done?” Felicity pursed her lips.
“Are you going to let us use half of the patio?” His hands spread in a question.
Felicity marched up to the sliding glass door and gripped the handle. “What do you think, shithead?” Then she slammed it in his face.
Unfortunately, it was not as soundproof as she would like.
His voice was muffled but still perfectly intelligible. “The easement agreement Marshall’s dad made with your aunt was done in a different time. People want outdoor seating. Nothing about the arrangement is enforceable. Especially if both parties don’t fulfill their financial obligations.”
That absolute jerkface.
Felicity closed the curtains but shouted through them. “Enforceable? What, are you some kind of lawyer now?”
His voice got louder. “The agreement between your aunt and Marshall’s dad is not legally binding, and you know it. We could force you to split the space with us, but then it wouldn’t be as usable for either of us. Why can’t you admit I might have a point?”
Without bothering to respond, Felicity stalked to her bathroom to peel off her clothes and check that still-pressing item off her to-do list. As she stood naked in front of her mirror, examining the curves and softness that had come back after a few months of basic self-care, like eating regularly and being outside, she smiled.
She touched the spot on her nose that was slightly crooked.
Dylan said no one else would notice, but she could still feel exactly where it had fractured.
A low rumble from the living room indicated that Nic might still be yelling at her sliding door. She felt a small amount of satisfaction in wondering how long he’d be out there before realizing she wasn’t listening anymore.
Felicity dragged her finger over the dirt streaks across her right breast. Had it smeared when she’d been pressed up against him? The thought sent an odd thrill through her.
It wasn’t that she was never sexually attracted to men—it was rather that most men, like Nic, were assholes.
Their assholery tended to quash that I-need-to-fuck-you-six-ways-to-Sunday ache in Felicity’s nether regions; thus, she’d mainly dated women since she accidentally fell head over heels in college for a man who ghosted her.
Technically, she’d dated no one in the last few years.
And it had been a long time since she had found herself having fantasies that involved a dick, so this was both inconvenient and confusing. The green eyes made it so much worse.
A flush had spread across her freckled cheeks that wasn’t related to the outside heat or the sunshine.
“Goddamn it,” she muttered.
After the stressful conversation with Bruce, her eyes had been burning dangerously. However, now, after feeling her body pressed up against Nic’s … a very different part of her felt warmer than it had in weeks.
Maybe she should be switching to a different kind of shower activity.