Chapter Four
Four
“Can I stay in the car?” Flo asked, propping her feet up on the dashboard and opening her book.
“Sure.” Fine by me. Surreptitiously, I pulled at the hem of my tank top and ran a hand through my messy hair.
I’d spilled mustard all down my own shirt at lunch and had resorted to borrowing Flo’s spare, cursing myself for packing light.
Unfortunately, Flo’s was a Wicked tank top with sparkling green and pink lettering, which was very short and very tight on me.
Paired with my shorts, there was a lot more skin on display than usual.
But maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. The hot guy clearing the picnic tables looked up as I slammed the car door, and the sun flashed off the lenses of his cheap plastic sunglasses.
He had very expressive frowny eyebrows. And the most impressive shoulders…
My slow pulse became a throb.
But the coastal honey didn’t seem pleased to see me.
Those frowny eyebrows were just about touching over the bridge of his nose.
“Lobster hour is over,” he said shortly.
“You missed it.” He had a rumbling down-east accent—lobsta owah is ovah.
Empty red plastic baskets teetered in his hands.
There was no one at the picnic tables anymore, but judging by the number of serving baskets, lobster hour had been busy.
“That’s okay,” I said hastily. “I’m actually here to meet Jake Abernathy. He’s expecting me.” I gave him a bright smile, wondering if I even remembered how to flirt.
The hot guy looked even less pleased, if such a thing was possible. Maybe he was afraid Mr. Abernathy would make him serve us lobsta. He looked me up and down, his gaze lingering on the tank top. “I doubt it.”
“I beg your pardon?” My smile faltered.
“I doubt it,” he repeated irritably, dismissing me.
“Is he inside?” I wasn’t about to be dismissed after coming all this way.
“No.”
Wow. I mean, I’d heard Mainers could be taciturn, but this was just rude. Shame, because I didn’t imagine a town this small had many men, let alone good-looking ones in my age range.
“He is expecting me,” I said tightly, pulling my phone out and searching for Mr. Abernathy’s texts.
“He’s really not,” he snorted. And then he headed for the store.
“Tell him Zoe Copeland is here,” I snapped, following him, “and see what he says.”
He stopped dead, and I almost broke my nose on his wall of a back. He was stupidly muscular. Too muscular, I decided, settling into disliking him. Clearly vain. Why were hot guys such dicks?
“Watch it,” he growled, sidestepping me.
“You’re the one who stopped short.”
He gave me a very close inspection. “You can’t be Zoe Copeland,” he told me irritably when he was finished.
I flushed at his close attention and his refusal to believe me. “Yes.” I felt the need to reinforce it. “I am.”
“No, you’re not.” He shook his head definitively.
I frowned. This guy was impossible. “I think I know who I am.”
“No. Zoe Copeland is a middle-aged mom. You’re not a middle-aged mom.”
“She is,” Flo disagreed loudly through the open window of the car. The hot guy startled, noticing her for the first time. She’d put her book down and was leaning out the window. “And can I have a lobster roll? I’ve never had one before.”
“I’m not middle-aged. And he said lobster hour is over,” I snapped, heading her off. “Besides, you wouldn’t like it.” I turned back to the half-naked grump. “So, you do know who I am.”
“I know Zoe Copeland is coming to pick up a key. And that she’s a middle-aged mom.” He was scowling in earnest now. “Not… you. I wouldn’t let you order a beer without seeing some identification first.”
“Oh my God. Is Mr. Abernathy inside?” I headed for the open door. I didn’t want to talk to this pain in the ass anymore, no matter how hot he was.
“No,” he exhaled irritably. “I mean, no, I’m here.”
Now it was my turn to stop dead.
Wait. What. This guy was the gentlemanly fisherman from the phone?
“You?” I couldn’t keep the disbelief from my voice.
“Yeah.” He was scowling like the villain in a bad film. “Ah hell, come in and we’ll sort this out.”
“What’s to sort out?” I said, confused. “I’m here to pick up the key and take a look at the house, like we agreed on the phone.”
He ignored me and jerked his head at the car. “Does your kid want to come in and have a soda while we talk? It’s hot out here.” The red basket towers were wobbling in his hands. He readjusted his weight to steady them, and I could see the muscles of his stomach flex.
“Flo, come on,” I called back to the car. “It looks like we might be longer than I thought.”
The interior of Oxeye Hardware (and Lobster Shack) reminded me of an old-fashioned general store in a black-and-white movie.
It smelled of linseed oil mixed with old woodsmoke.
It had sash windows overlooking the porch, where the picnic tables had a prime view of the bay.
Today, the windows were thrown open and the breeze caused the knickknacks that hung from the ceiling to jingle.
There were framed photos of a golden retriever on every wall and a dog bed in the corner by the potbellied stove, but no sign of the dog.
Jake Abernathy looked like the very last kind of guy to be running a place like this. And now that I’d met him, he was definitely not the golden retriever type. His personality seemed more suited to a pit bull or rottweiler.
“Do you get your muscles from working, or from the gym?” Flo asked him casually, as we followed him to the rear of the store. She was completely unperturbed by his rottweiler vibe.
Jake missed a step and looked down at himself. “What…?”
“You don’t have to answer that,” I said hurriedly. “Flo, don’t be rude.”
“Why not? He seems pretty rude. Besides, is it rude to ask about muscles?” Flo cocked her head. “He doesn’t have a shirt on, so he must want people to look at his muscles.”
I felt myself turning red because I did keep looking at his muscles. “Sorry,” I grudgingly apologized to Jake, who was also turning red. “Flo, it’s rude to comment on other people’s bodies,” I told her, secretly pleased that she’d unsettled him.
“Oh.” She took that in. “Sorry I commented on your body,” she told Jake, who had ducked through to a narrow kitchen and dumped his armful of red plastic baskets. We followed him as he hastily snatched a faded T-shirt from a hook and yanked it on. The T-shirt had a cartoon lobster on the front.
There was a huge pot on the stove and the smell of cooked lobster and sharp green scallions was heavy in the air. Breadcrumbs littered the stainless-steel counter, and a bag of long white bread rolls sat half empty.
“That’s okay,” Jake told Flo, clearing his throat awkwardly.
He crossed his arms and tried to rearrange his expression.
He seemed chagrined… What should have been a straightforward interaction—him giving me a key—had somehow turned into something really unwelcoming and weird.
And I’d been expecting to meet such a nice man.
“You weren’t what I was expecting,” Jake admitted as he straightened his lobster shirt, echoing my thoughts.
“What were you expecting?” Flo demanded. She lit up, clearly hoping for an interesting response.
“Ah…” Jake was nonplussed.
“It’s fine,” said Flo encouragingly. “She won’t be offended. Mom says it’s in her constitution to take insults in her stride after working in a call center.”
“Flo,” I warned.
My mouthy kid rolled her eyes and leaned in to confide in Jake. “She also has this thing about private conversations versus public conversations. But you can tell me if you thought we were criminals on the run or something.”
“You want a soda?” Jake asked, looking slightly panicked. He didn’t seem to know what else to say.
“Depends. What have you got?” Flo asked, following him to the refrigerator.
“Moxie, mostly.” He opened the door and the light illuminated the bright orange cans. Flo shot him a dubious look.
“It’s the official state drink of Maine,” he told her, pulling a can from the fridge.
“You’ll probably hate it, it tastes like medicine.
” He handed it to her and glanced at me.
“You want one?” He looked at me like I might bite.
What on earth was it about me that he didn’t like? He’d known me for all of two minutes.
I shook my head. “No, thank you. I’d just like the key.”
He gave me a sour look. “I can’t let you inside that house.” He didn’t sound regretful in the slightest. In fact, he sounded like he was a cop who’d caught me spitting on the sidewalk. “And Gail had no right telling me to give you the key.” The sound of Flo popping the can punctuated his words.
“Are you kidding me?” I was bewildered. “We just drove twelve hours from Pittsburgh. You gave me the directions here.”
“Yeah.” He frowned. “But I didn’t know you were you.”
“What the hell does that mean?” What was wrong with me?
“Oh, this is seriously gross.” Flo made a noise like a cat vomiting as she handed the orange can back to Jake. “Your state has problems.”
“I warned you.” He put it down and grabbed a lemonade from the fridge. “Here. Go drink it out on the picnic tables while I talk to your mom.”
“Please,” Flo scolded him. “Don’t you have manners in Maine?”
“Please,” he added tersely.
“Wait,” I protested as I followed him back out of the kitchen. “I don’t want to talk. I just want the key.”
“Here, take a popsicle too.” Jake slid open an ice chest and pulled a popsicle out for Flo. “You might see some whales if you look out to the bay. There were minkes out there yesterday.”
“Thank you,” Flo said pointedly, raising her eyebrows at him to illustrate that her manners were better than his. “And what’s a minke? Is it like a mermaid?”
“It’s a whale.”
“Oh. Cool.” She headed eagerly for the porch.
“Don’t settle in,” I warned her. “We’re about to go.” Because I was seeing this house come hell or high water. On principle. All my nerves about the state of it had evaporated.
“Look, Mrs. Copeland—” the impossible man began.
“Ms.,” I corrected him, seething. A sexist aging fisherman was one thing, this surfer dude with a superiority complex was another. This man had zero charm. “And you called me Zoe on the phone.”
“Right.” He ran a hand through his salt-tousled hair and pulled the cheap sunglasses off. His eyes were the clear, pale blue-green of marble glass. Faint lines radiated beside his eyes, making it seem for a moment like he was smiling, even though he clearly wasn’t. “Zoe. You don’t want that house.”
“What?” My voice came out louder than I expected. “Excuse me? What is going on here? I’m seriously confused.” I crossed my arms.
“Ah…” He drew a deep breath. “Look. The house is a mess.”
“I know. I saw the photos.” This guy was playing some kind of game, and I wasn’t having it. I wasn’t letting him win.
“Sure. You saw photos. But… in real life, it’s… worse.”
I considered him, trying to control my temper. “I know. That’s why I can afford it,” I said bluntly. “Even then, I don’t understand why there aren’t developers lined up.”
“It’s just…” He made an inarticulate noise. “The realtor didn’t tell me you were this young. I thought you were middle-aged, with a teen. Not, like, a first-time home buyer with a kid. I would have…”
“What? You would have what?”
“It’s a lot,” he said helplessly. “The house. And you’re—”
“Excuse me,” I cut him off. “I don’t see how this is your business. It isn’t even your house.”
He swallowed and turned his head to look up at the ceiling. Eventually, he nodded. “You’re right. I’m sorry.” Jake cleared his throat. “I’m just the key guy. I’ll lock up and throw some shoes on and then we’ll go.”
“We’ll go? I thought you were just giving me the key.”
But he’d gone already, padding barefoot off to the kitchen to close up shop.
“What was all that about?” Flo leaned through the open sash window, her mouth red from her popsicle, the open lemonade can in her other hand. She was gleeful with sugar.
“God knows.” I shook my head. “Maybe he’s been out in the sun too long.”
“Did you like all those muscles, though?”
“Eat your popsicle.”
“Why doesn’t he want us to live on his street?”
I didn’t know. And I didn’t care. All I wanted now was to get inside that house.