Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Wine bottles clanked together in a bag as Noah shuffled his feet. He stood on Cassie’s front porch, clutching a bouquet of lilies. His mother always told him he should never show up to someone’s house in the evening empty-handed.
Why was he nervous? It was probably the stupid clothes. The collared shirt was strangling him, and the buttons didn’t lie flat. It was basically a business meeting, so he had tried to dress the part. Instead, he probably looked like a Saint Bernard playing dress up.
He rapped on the front door, laptop bag digging into his shoulder. Footsteps approached.
The floral scent of the lilies hit his nose. They were supposed to be a standard hostess gift. Shit, did they make it look like he thought this was a date? They hadn’t even talked about the other night. She didn’t deserve mixed signals.
He fumbled the flowers and abruptly pitched them over his shoulder.
The door opened, and Cassie emerged.
His chest tightened. She was stunning. Her red curls flowed down her back, and she was barefoot with capri pants and a pale blue top. Taco appeared behind her, his face squished between her leg and the door frame.
Something in the house smelled amazing. He hadn’t even paid attention to it the last time he was here, since he was only there to yell at her. But over her shoulder, he spotted a mint-green wall.
“Hey. Oh, now I feel underdressed.” She tucked her hair behind her ear and smiled. She seemed nervous.
Her gaze moved from his head to his toes, and he shuffled his feet.
“Don’t. You look great.”
Shit, was that too far?
She narrowed her eyes and looked behind him. “What’s that?”
He glanced over his shoulder. Shit. The bouquet had landed very obviously in her hydrangeas. He was a fool.
She stepped onto the porch and looked into the sky as if they had fallen off a delivery drone. Time to fess up.
“Ah, that’s where I put those,” he said. “Ran out of…hands.”
“Oh. That’s kind of you. I love lilies,” she said. A smile that bordered on a smirk had appeared. “Come in. Sorry, don’t mind Taco.”
“We meet again.” He extended a hand to Taco, who immediately planted his face there. He smiled against his own volition and gave the dog a pat.
She closed the front door and walked through the living room, disappearing into the kitchen. “Sorry again about him busting into your yard. I figured out where he’s getting through the fence, but the dig guard and tools I ordered haven’t come yet.”
Her house was nice. Much nicer than it had been before she had moved in.
The walls were all vibrant greens and pinks and yellows—not his style, but it definitely warmed up the place.
There were cozy-looking blankets draped over the couch, and art hung in gold frames.
It made his house look like the inside of a refrigerator.
“You’re going to fix it yourself?” he asked. He followed her into the kitchen, where the delicious notes of garlic and cream hung in the air.
She shot him a look and snipped the bottoms off the lily stems. “You don’t need to sound so skeptical. I put all my own furniture together. I can handle some plastic sheeting.”
“I just meant I could’ve helped if you’d asked.”
“You’ve only recently stopped hating me. I wasn’t going to push my luck asking for favors.” She filled a vase with water and nestled the flowers inside.
“You’re doing me one right now,” he pointed out.
Her eyes narrowed. “Did your mother put you up to this?”
He shook his head. “It was my idea. Saving the sanctuary is more important than babying my apparently delicate ego.”
She stirred something on the stove in silence, then turned back to him. “I half expected you to cancel tonight to go patch a roof or teach preschoolers about lemurs.”
He set his laptop bag on the end of the dining room table. It wobbled, and he frowned. “Everyone can survive without me for a night.”
He ducked down to look underneath. Just what he expected—a shoddy hunk of particleboard that wouldn’t last two years. And the chairs were even worse. He wiggled one of the legs. The screw was practically splintering the wood already. Disgraceful.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
He peered over the edge of the table. “Your table’s a piece of shit. You might as well chop it up for firewood.”
She shot him a dirty look. “You’re going to come in here and critique my furniture while I’m making you dinner?”
Shit. She had a point.
“It just doesn’t look like it’s going to last, that’s all,” he said.
“Well, not all of us can go deforest the land and build an heirloom four-poster bed any time the mood strikes.”
“I don’t deforest the land,” he said defensively. “I have a permit to go into Tuckahoe State Park and collect certain fallen trees.”
“What kind?”
“Native ones, mostly. Ash, overcup oak, that kind of thing.”
“What’s your favorite wood to work with?” she asked.
He wasn’t used to people taking such an interest in his woodworking.
“It depends on the project. Cherry and walnut are great for furniture. Oak can be a bitch to work with, but it makes beautiful cabinets. I like ash for chairs.”
He was talking too much. “How can I help?” he asked.
“You can set the table if you want.” She pointed the spatula at a pile of plates and silverware.
He jumped up and distributed them.
“You can crack that wine open too,” she said. “I think I’m going to need it.”
“Are you sure?”
It probably wasn’t nice to remind her of The Incident, but the words were out before he could think about it.
She looked over her shoulder. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to put on a wedding dress and drink the whole thing myself this time. This is a business meeting, not a laundry day.”
“Whatever you say, Doc.”
He came into the kitchen and opened her cabinets, searching for wine glasses. She seemed high-maintenance sometimes, but her cabinets were surprisingly sparse. She had exactly four plates and four glasses.
“Pretty empty in here,” he commented as he withdrew two wine glasses.
“I just reinvented my life and moved in not even a month ago. You’re lucky you have a shitty table to eat at.”
“I just didn’t get the impression that you were so minimalist. I think the shoes you were wearing the day we met cost more than my lathe.”
Cassie was silent for a moment. “I’m on a weird journey of self-discovery right now.
I’m trying to figure out what relics from my old life were really me and what was…
conditioned. Sometimes I feel like a fucked-up mosaic where every piece of me actually belongs to someone else.
Do I really intrinsically love My Chemical Romance, or do I only think that I do because my middle school boyfriend got me The Black Parade for Valentine’s Day? ”
He frowned. The ex must have done a real number on her. “I think all relationships shape us. There’s nothing wrong with liking something someone else introduced to you. It doesn’t mean you’re inauthentic.”
She turned around with the pan in hand. “I think I just don’t trust my own judgment anymore. With the exception of a few things. I’m good at my job. And I do like shoes…and dogs. I’m pretty confident on those.”
“Well, you definitely shouldn’t trust your furniture-buying judgment. I think a gentle breeze could splinter this monstrosity.”
“Bold words to say to someone who could easily spit in your food.”
“I don’t mind a little spit.”
Some pink rushed into her cheeks. Shit. He shouldn’t have said that either.
“Can you grab that trivet?” she asked.
“What the hell is a trivet?” He looked around the kitchen with zero clue what he was looking for.
“Never mind,” she muttered, whipping something that looked like a silicone doily off the countertop. She put it on the dining room table and covered it with the pan.
He frowned again. He didn’t like feeling stupid. How was he supposed to know what a trivet was?
Taco grumbled and nosed at Cassie’s hand.
“Yes, I know it’s your dinnertime too.” She pulled something out of the refrigerator and spooned it into a bowl set on a food scale. She heated it briefly in the microwave before setting it down for the dog.
“Pampered pup,” he said.
“He deserves the best,” she said fondly.
“So you didn’t have a dog when you lived in San Diego?”
“No, actually. Taco is my first dog.” Her expression went cloudy. “My parents didn’t like them, and my ex had a thing about animal hair. He installed a washer and dryer in the garage and made me throw my scrubs in before I could come in the house. Couldn’t stand pet fur, let alone tiger fur.”
“What a dick.”
She didn’t respond.
Noah rolled his shoulders back and took a moment to center himself. He needed to stop reminding her of her parents and ex if he was going to get her help.
“This smells amazing,” he said.
Great, now he was compulsively filling the silence.
“Thanks. It’s a new recipe. Sit,” she ordered. She had brought over a bowl of salad and some garlic bread.
They sat across from each other. The chandelier was hung too low, but the lighting was nice. He brushed something that looked like drywall dust off the table.
“You like to cook?” he asked.
“I do. It’s like science, but more forgiving.”
“I’m useless at cooking,” he admitted.
“What were you planning to make when you invited me over?”
“Oh, I was going to order takeout and then put it on plates to make it look like I made it.”
She snorted. “Shit. Why didn’t I do that? I could’ve saved so much time.”
“How’s setup going at the office?” he asked. “New outlets are working?”
“Yes, they’re great. Almost everything is great.”
“What’s not?”
She bit her lip.
“Just tell me.”
“I hate the exam cabinets the old doctor left,” she said in a rush, like it pained her to admit it. “The drawers stick, and there aren’t enough dividers. Yet another thing that makes me wonder what kind of practice he was running.”
“Don’t buy new ones online,” he sternly instructed. “All it’ll take is one obese Maine coon hopping up there, and they’ll fall right through.”
“Well, I have to do something,” she said, then took a thoughtful bite of salad.