Chapter 3
THREE
YOU GOOGLED ME, DIDN’T YOU?
H olden
I wake up and reach for my phone on the coffee table, groaning when I see the time. I’m up an hour before my alarm, with a sore shoulder and a kink in my neck from what I’m pretty sure was one of the worst sleeps of my life, on a couch that I’m too tall for in a room without blackout blinds. I unfold myself from the couch, shading my eyes against the sunlight that’s already pouring into the room, then fold the blanket and set it on top of my pillow. Walking quietly up the stairs, I pause outside of my closed bedroom door. Briar must still be sleeping.
I go to the guest bathroom for a shower, immediately noticing her things cluttering the countertop. This girl is messy. Very messy. A hairbrush, her toothpaste, makeup, a curling iron, plus a collection of bottles and cannisters of all different sizes. What the hell does she even use all this stuff for? How many beauty products does one person need?
Shaking my head, I take off my clothes and then step under the scalding spray of water, hoping it will help wake me up. I’m usually a morning person, but today my mood is as bad as the disaster all over my bathroom. I can’t stand clutter. My head hurts. Daisy is going to owe me big time for this.
I’m brushing my teeth when the smell of coffee wafts through the air. Briar? She must be up. I throw on my clothes and head downstairs, ready to tell her to clean up her crap.
I enter the kitchen, immediately regretting it.
My once-pristine countertops are buried under a chaotic spread of ingredients—flour dusted across the granite, a sticky puddle of batter near the stove, and an upturned carton of eggs teetering dangerously close to the edge of the counter. The smell of something sweet fills the air.
And there’s Briar, standing at the stove in one of my old T-shirts—because apparently, she has already decided my wardrobe is fair game— humming to herself as she flips pancakes.
I stand in the entryway and stare, my pulse racing so fast I wonder if it could cause a heart attack. Briar looks gorgeous. She isn’t wearing a stitch of makeup, and her hair is piled on top of her head in a knot showcasing the slope of her neck. She’s wearing a pair of shorts that leave little to the imagination. Probably dangerous if I stare much longer. She’s hot as fuck, the perfect example of the girl next door.
Too bad I’ve sworn off women.
Too bad I’m annoyed with her.
I tear my gaze away from her legs and instead look around my kitchen. It looks like a bomb went off. The mess in the bathroom is nothing compared to this. I chew on my lip to stop myself from snapping, feeling my lack of sleep and aching back. I should be grateful. Really, I should. She’s only my temporary roommate, a favor to friends, and yet here she is, making me breakfast like she’d done it a hundred times before.
“Morning,” I manage to say, fighting my instinct to grab a cloth and start cleaning.
Briar turns, jumping like I startled her. Her green eyes are brighter than emeralds. She’s so pretty, I almost forget about the destruction she unleashed on my kitchen.
“Oh my gosh, you scared me,” she says, a pair of tongs in her hand. She smiles at me in a way that can only be described as magnetic. I can’t tear my eyes off her. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”
“I woke up early. I couldn’t sleep,” I say, then immediately feel bad when the happiness on her face fades. “Just a lot going on at the office this week. It’s not because of the couch,” I add quickly, not wanting her to feel guilty about taking my bed.
“Oh.” Briar turns her attention back to the stove. “Web design, right?”
I raise a brow. “You googled me, didn’t you?”
“I did not, you big goof. I remembered. Did you forget we used to hang out last year?”
“We’ve met before?” I tease, walking past her to the sink to pour myself a glass of water.
She laughs. “Don’t pretend like you haven’t missed me while I was gone.”
After downing the water, I start to fill the sink with hot water so I can tackle this mess.
“What are you doing?” I feel her small hands on my shoulders, gently pushing me away from the sink. “I’ve got it. This will take me five minutes to clean later. Go sit down.”
Five minutes? I look around the disaster zone. Is she kidding? With the state that my kitchen is in, this will take her five hours. I must side-eye her without realizing it, because she crosses her arms over her chest and shoots me a look. "The breakfast will be worth it. Now, can I pour you a cup of coffee?”
“I can get it myself, Busy Bee.”
Her head tilts to the side. “Holden, would you just sit down and let me handle this? Or is that difficult for you? You know, when other people want to do things for you? It kills you to give up control, doesn’t it?”
“No.”
“Yes, it does.”
“No, it doesn’t. And why are we arguing over this?”
“Don’t worry, I’m just giving you a hard time.” She hands me a cup of coffee and points me in the direction of my table. I sit reluctantly and take a sip of the brew, watching as she moves around the kitchen with ease. It’s as if she’s lived here all her life. I would have thought she’d feel out of place, uncomfortable even, given the fact that she’s been here for less than 24 hours. But she’s just… graceful. I should probably hate that she’s here, in my space, making a mess of things. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t love seeing my house in this state—I swear I can feel my right eye twitching—but I’m not angry.
But it is going to take some getting used to, living with someone again. Especially someone like Briar. I like my privacy. And fuck, I need to figure out how I’m going to live with her when she’s dressed like that. Maybe I should ask her to wear a sweater and sweatpants—extra baggy ones—when she’s lounging around the house.
“I took a chance that maybe you’d eat breakfast,” she says as I watch her slide the bacon from the pan onto a plate lined with paper towel. “Do you always go into the office this early?” she asks over her shoulder. She pours pancake batter into yet another pan on the stove then sets the bowl on the counter. A trickle of the pale-yellow batter drips over the edge, pooling on the counter.
“No, it’s a busy week at work. I have a presentation tomorrow with a new client we’ve been trying to land.”
“Ah, you need to be on your game. I’m sure you will be if you’re as thorough at your job as you are at keeping your house tidy.”
When I don’t respond, Briar turns to face me, and I’m sure she catches the look of annoyance on my face.
“I’m not judging you, Holden. Just stating the facts. You’re a neat freak.”
“And you are not.”
Briar slides a heaping plate of pancakes, bacon and strawberries across the table to me and smiles.
“Wow, thanks,” I tell her, looking down at my plate. The pancakes look perfect—shockingly so, considering the state of everything else. I’m being a dick. Sure, the place is a mess, but she got up early and cooked me breakfast. A delicious-looking breakfast.
“Where did you find strawberries?” I know she didn’t find them in my fridge.
“I ordered a few things last night and had them delivered.” She brings her plate to the table and sits down next to me. I watch her dip a strawberry into the whip cream on her plate then slide the berry between her lips. She really has the most perfect mouth.
“Yeah, I was going to go grocery shopping tonight. My fridge is pretty dismal,” I admit, picking up my fork. “I’ll pay you for whatever you bought today. Just let me know how much it is. ”
She nods, but the expression on her face tells me she isn’t taking me seriously. Does this woman take anything seriously? She always seems so easygoing. Calm. Laid back. And so incredibly beautiful, it’s making me oddly annoyed.
How is this ever going to work? How am I going to live with Briar for the next 60 or so days when she looks like that? Legs that rival any runway model’s, soft curves and a mouth I’m already dying to kiss. That definitely won’t be happening. Briar is Daisy’s best friend, and I would never risk my friendship with Daisy. We’ve become close, bonding over Gilmore Girls marathons and giving Tucker the gears. Besides, a relationship and everything that goes along with it is not in the cards for me right now.
“Thank you for the tea last night.” Briar looks at me over the rim of her mug, the tea bag still steeping in it. “I thought you said you didn’t have any. ‘Water-flavored nothing, right?’”
I laugh. “I stand by that. I didn’t have any.”
“Then —"
“I went next door. I was pretty sure Everly would have some, and she did. It isn’t a big deal so don’t go making one out of it.”
Briar smirks. “So how hard was it for you to make me that cup of tea?”
“I almost vomited.”
She rolls her eyes, stabbing at another strawberry with her fork. “Next thing you know, you’ll be running me a bath and massaging my feet.”
“That would be a first.”
Her brow lifts curiously. “A foot massage or taking a bath?”
“Both. Feet are gross and baths are a waste of time.”
“You really need to learn how to relax, Holden. Live a little. You can be a little uptight, has anyone ever told you that?”
“No. I’ve been told I’m hard to resist. But never uptight.”
Briar’s lips slightly rise at the corners, and I wait for her mouth to turn into a full-blown smile. It’s quickly become one of my favorite things about her.
“So I’ve heard,” she continues. “You have quite the rep in Reed Point.”
“Don’t believe everything you hear,” I say, brushing off the comment. I know the rumors she’s talking about. I’ve heard them for years. But it doesn’t make them true. “There are three sides to every story.”
Briar looks like she’s about to say something but seems to change her mind, instead lifting a forkful of whip cream and strawberries to her mouth. Sitting here at the kitchen table with her makes me realize that it’s been a long time since I’ve shared a space with another person. Tucker moved out a year ago, and I broke up with my ex, Aubrey around the same time.
Aubrey was the first girl I had seriously dated in a long time, and I cared a lot about her. I always got the feeling that Tucker and the guys didn’t really get our connection, but when it was just the two of us, we had a lot of fun. But after 18 months or so, we started having problems. She wanted to talk about our future, about marriage and kids, and I didn’t feel ready for that. I’m not even sure if I want to be a father. The tension between us grew and we were arguing over things that didn’t matter, nit-picking each other constantly. Over time, I could feel her pulling away from me, and in response to that I started pushing her away.
For a while, I wondered if I should have fought harder to save the relationship, but when things between us got difficult I took that as a sign it wasn’t meant to be. The writing was on the wall, and I didn’t want to drag it out any longer and make it harder for both of us.
Looking back, I believe it was the right decision, but ending things with Aubrey still messed me up. She took it pretty hard, and it broke my heart to hurt her like that. It felt like yet another relationship that I couldn’t make work. So, for the last year, I’ve sworn off relationships. I’ve sworn off hookups. I’ve starved myself of intimacy over the last 12 months. And I’m not ready to open myself back up.
Silence stretches between us for a minute as we both continue to eat our breakfast, until I motion to her plate with my fork. “You’re not hungry?”
“I’m not much of a breakfast person.”
“Not even bacon? No one can hate bacon.”
“Relax, Mr. Clean. Just eat. And no, not even bacon. I hate all pork.”
“Then what do you eat in the morning?”
“I don’t. Why is that so hard to believe?”
“It just is.” I shrug, taking a bite, and dammit, it is good. Annoyingly good. “What about eggs?”
“Gross.”
“Sausage?”
“Nope.”
“A breakfast burrito?”
“Dis-gust-ing,” she says, drawing the word out. “Are you done now?”
“Nope.” I pop the p . “Breakfast is an important meal. You should eat something.”
“I like fruit,” she says, sucking whip cream off her finger. Jesus, she needs to stop doing that. “I’ll eat the rest of my strawberries to make you happy.”
Is she not starving by lunch? I want to ask her more questions, but we’ve shared enough over the last 24 hours. I’m also in a rush to get to work.
“Okay, got it, no breakfast.” I smile, and it occurs to me that I’ve done that a lot more than usual since Briar showed up. Maybe it’s the food or the way she looks in my kitchen—barefoot and comfortable, like she belongs here. I stand up and start to clear the dishes from the table, reminding myself that this is only temporary.
“I’ve got it, Holden.” Briar snatches my empty plate from my hand and my skin heats from the brief contact. Why the fuck am I having this reaction to her? I have to get this under control if I’m going to survive this roommate arrangement.
“How about I clean up the kitchen, and you stop bugging me about my eating habits ?”
“You mean your disdain for breakfast.”
“Forget it,” she groans at me as she stacks our plates in the dishwasher. Those damn shorts. They rise up a little when she bends over.
“Fine, I won’t bug you, Bee.”
“But you’re calling me Bee. I think that could be considered bugging me.”
“You never stop. You earned the nickname. You’ve looked like a busy bee all morning buzzing around my kitchen.” I shrug. “But no more breakfast jokes, and I won’t fight you on the clean-up this time. Deal?”
She nods, then holds out her hand, intending for me to shake it. When my hand wraps around hers, the heat I felt earlier returns, skating up my spine. Briar’s eyes move to my mouth. Her gaze stays there, just for a second, but it’s long enough for me to notice.
Our hands stayed joined in the space between us for a long moment before I finally drop her hand and take a step back. Does she feel the attraction too? If I was a betting man, I’d say yes.
Not that long ago, I would have given into the temptation to kiss her, but I made a promise to myself, and I intend on keeping it. I will take care of the sexual frustration myself, like I’ve been doing for months. Since Aubrey.
So, I clear my throat, reluctantly taking another step back until there’s enough distance between us that I can’t smell her body wash. A scent that I want on my clothes, all over my sheets.
Fuck. More distance. Go to work. Now.
“I need to get going,” I say, grabbing my keys from the counter. “There’s a spare house key for you by the door.”
Briar blinks, drops her gaze to the floor before recovering. “Thank you.”
“I’ll see you when I get home from work. I’ll order dinner tonight. Nothing with eggs.”
Briar’s face lights up in amusement. “Sounds like a date.”
My heart stops. “It’s not a date, Briar. It’s we-both-have-to-eat-dinner-so-we-might-as-well-eat-together.”
She grins. “It’s a date.”
Fuck me. It’s hard to tell whether she’s being serious or not. She never seems to be serious about anything. So then why is Briar looking at me like that? Like she’s excited for our date. That is not happening.
Having breakfast with her was a mistake. No more meals with Briar Moore. I am not looking for a relationship and I can’t run the risk of leading her on. The only reason she’s even here is because I agreed to do Daisy and her a favor. End of story.
Ignoring the grin that is still plastered on her face, I turn and walk toward the front door as fast as I can. “Thanks again for the breakfast,” I call as I slip into my shoes, which are placed neatly in the entryway.
“You’re welcome!” She stands in the center of my kitchen, right where I left her. And as fucked up as I feel about my morning with her, I can’t help but think that I really like the way she looks in my home.