pizza.
“Is something bothering her?” I asked, more curious than I cared to admit.
He paused, his expression clouding. “Seems like it, but I can’t get her to tell me.”
Since I wasn’t the confiding type, I understood her reticence. Which sort of pissed me off. I didn’t want to empathize with Avery. “Maybe she’s afraid you’ll think less of her if she whines to you about her problems?”
“I need to tell her that’s not true.” He let out a slow breath, obviously relieved at hearing there might be a simple solution.
“Anyway, there’s nothing to be tetchy about,” I said. “I’m vertically challenged, you helped me out. It’s all good.”
That won me a smile that simultaneously brightened his eyes and crinkled them at the corners. He jogged around the truck and climbed in, stretching his arm across the back of the seats to back out of my driveway. There was essentially no traffic, so we zoomed straight to Pizza Hut. The restaurant was nearly full, mostly families and a few high school students; we were lucky to snag a two-person booth tucked in the corner back near the bathrooms. When I was in high school, it was a huge deal when they installed the tiny salad bar here.
“So what do you like?” he asked, not bothering to open the menu.
You would’ve been the obvious answer, but I hadn’t come back to Sharon to let my first crush swell back into unmanageable proportions. So I replied, “Lots of meat.”
That was apparently the best news he’d had all day. Rob gazed at me as if I’d said he was the sexiest man on earth. “Meat lovers it is. Should we get salad, too?”
I grinned. “Should and will are wildly different. I’m living dangerously tonight.”
“The training wheels are coming off, huh?” He was smiling; the faint sorrow I’d noted at the supermarket seemed to have dissipated.
For a few seconds, I forgot who he was and answered with a flirty glance and a half smile. “Oh, they’ve been off. You have no idea how well I ride these days.”
Shock made him drop his straw as I fought the urge to bang my head on the table. Then he surprised me by laughing softly. “You had me going. Well played, Lauren.”
That’s me, a laugh riot. Send in the clowns. Oh, wait, I’m already here.
In the end, we were complete maniacs and got both the meat lovers pizza and a pitcher of root beer. I’d never eaten alone with Rob before, but as long as I remembered he had zero awareness of me, everything would be fine. I had two pieces and one glass of soda while he finished everything else. His metabolism must be awesome.
“So what’s next?” I asked, as we split the bill. Or rather, Rob consented to letting me pay a quarter of it since he ate and drank more than I did.
It was more of a general question than a demand he justify his life plan, but he straightened with a hint of tension. “What do you mean?”
“Are you taking me home, or are we headed to the roadhouse to cause some trouble?” That was highly improbable, but when he relaxed and shook his head, I was glad I went to the silly end of the spectrum.
“I was gonna drop you off, then work on my dining room,” he answered.
“Well, obviously. I think I’ll go home and do the same. I could totally get it to be more formal if it just focused a little and stopped watching so much daytime TV.”
That startled a quiet chuckle out of him, and I realized that until earlier today, I’d never really heard Rob laugh. The deep rumble of sound sent a pleasurable shiver through me, and I immediately wanted to make it happen again. At this point, I didn’t even care if that involved dressing up in an actual clown suit, complete with red nose and humungous shoes. In the past, I’d seen him smile, but he was so careful, guarded and tentative in his expressions—for reasons not entirely clear to me.
“I bought a house in December. When you were home before, I was still living with my parents. It’s a fixer-upper, and once I get done, I plan to flip it.”
“That’s when you restore a place, make it awesome, then sell for a profit, right?” I’d watched a few home makeover shows.
“I hope so. Dunno if Sharon is the right place for it, though.”
“Yeah, I imagine the market’s a bit sluggish here.”
“If I can’t sell it, I’ll have a nice place to live. So it’s not a loss.” He sounded faintly defensive, as if he’d explained this before, and with less success.
“Sounds like a good move. Plus you have the satisfaction of remodeling your house exactly the way you want it.”
He nodded, excitement sparking his expression. “I’ve already taken out a wall downstairs, opening up the layout from kitchen to dining room.”
“How much work have you done?”
That question acted on Rob like a key turning in a lock. He opened up with a click, telling me everything he’d done so far and what projects were yet to come. I was impressed by the time he finished his recitation because he’d obviously put a lot of thought and planning into this. Moreover, he didn’t intend to stop until he finished the house properly.
“It’s a little complicated to live there sometimes,” he said with a sigh. “With power tools and dust everywhere, I can’t get Avery to set foot inside. She says she’ll judge the results once I’m finished.”
“I bet it’s not that bad.” I mostly said that for the silent satisfaction of disagreeing with his girlfriend.
“You want to see it?” His invitation came as a surprising bonus.
“Sure. I’ll be able to visualize what you were saying better.”
“Sweet.” Rob studied the bill with a faint frown, likely trying to figure out the tip. So I plucked it from his fingers, skimmed the total and dropped four singles.
“You paid way more for dinner,” I said, as if that were why.
“Thanks.” Fortunately he let it drop.
Rob waited for me to precede him, a polite gesture that only made me like him more. Which I definitely didn’t need—I was already hauling around the weight of an old crush. If he insisted on being sweet and considerate, I didn’t know how I’d deal. As before, he settled me in his truck before he got into the driver’s seat, then instead of heading to Dover Road, he drove across town to the west side.
His house was on the outskirts of Sharon, off the highway instead of in a neighborhood like mine. The driveway was a quarter of a mile long, and the house was nestled in a small clearing with snowy trees framing it on either side. Everything was too wintry for me to judge the landscaping, but I liked what I saw of the side-gabled bungalow, from the deep eaves to the tall, stately chimney, and especially the front porch with its slender columns. It wasn’t huge, but definitely big enough for a porch swing.
“Watch
