I have an interview on Thursday, but I don’t have a ride. And if they make an offer, I don’t have a way to get there because this is Sharon, there’s no public transportation and I have no idea why I wanted to come back here.”
“Because it’s home,” he said quietly. “And I’ll take you to the interview. You know I don’t mind...and it’s not the farthest I’ve driven you by a long shot. If you get the job, you can borrow my old truck. It looks like crap but I keep it running.”
I stared at him. “You have two trucks.”
“You remember the green one? It’s handy when I have the other one serviced.”
“I can’t just take your truck.” Avery would shit her pants. Plus, there should be a law against anyone being as nice as Rob. People probably took advantage of his good nature.
“I’m not giving it to you. When you can afford wheels of your own, it’ll go back in storage. Not a big deal.”
Once more I tried to get out of the truck, but he didn’t let me. I sighed. “We’ll freeze to death if I don’t agree, huh?”
“Nope. I’ve got a full tank of gas, a working heater and all day.”
“You win,” I muttered.
He smiled and brushed a hand against the top of my head. If only he didn’t look so amused and indulgent, whereas I wanted to rub against him until I purred. It had never stung so much to be Nadia’s best friend. There didn’t seem to be any way I could make him realize that I was twenty-one, not eleven, and Rob was focused on Avery like a laser beam.
He climbed out of the truck and led the way to his front door. “To answer you, I thought I’d let you try the power sander. I moved everything out of the dining room.”
“It sounds like you expect things to go horribly wrong.”
“Nah,” he said with the smile that wrecked my heart. “I’m just careful.”
How well I know it.
After I ran the power sander like a boss, finishing the dining-room floor, Rob fixed one-pot macaroni and cheese for lunch. He started it while I was sweeping up the dust. I didn’t even know it was possible, but he boiled the pasta in butter and milk, so by the time it was soft, he just added cheese and bacon crumbles. It was pretty close to the best thing I ever tasted. On a hot plate. In a real kitchen, he had to be amazing.
We took our bowls up to his room, and he turned on the TV. I made incoherent this-is-so-delicious noises as we ate. I probably would’ve licked the bowl, if I hadn’t noticed him staring. “What, this is really good. Tell me what else you can cook, preferably with pictures.”
He smiled at me, an easy warmth in his expression. “Sorry, no food porn for you, or I’ll never get you back to work. But I’ll brag a little. Should I start with breakfast?”
“I’ll allow it.”
“Oatmeal, omelets, sausage scramble, French toast, pancakes.”
“How the hell do you make all of that on a hot plate?”
“The key is preparation. I have cooked bacon and sausage in the fridge at all times.”
I nodded sagely. “In case of a meat emergency.”
“You never know,” he said.
Suddenly I wasn’t in a bad mood anymore. I hadn’t set out to let Rob solve my problems, but I’d be an asshole to blame him for caring, just because his affection didn’t take the shape I preferred. Surreptitiously I licked my spoon.
“Lunch,” I prompted.
“That’s usually a sandwich. I’m showing off because you’re here.”
That made me happy. “And dinner?”
“Stir-fry, various soups, quesadillas, country-fried steak. I can’t make anything that requires more than one burner and a microwave. If I get in the mood for something else, I go to my mom and dad’s.”
Or you take Avery out for dinner. His receipts had told me that much.
“It sounds like you enjoy cooking.”
“In a better kitchen, I do.”
“Yours will be beautiful when it’s finished.”
“I hope so. Once we finish the dining room, it’s next on my to-do list.”
“Most people would’ve done the kitchen first.” I didn’t mean to criticize; it was just an example of how Rob’s thought processes differed from the rest of the world.
His pleasure dimmed. “Yeah. But I’m already taking my food up, and even if I finished the kitchen, there’s no room to eat it in. So I wanted to have somewhere to go first.”
“You mean when you christen your new stove and cook something complicated, there should be more ceremony than just carting it up the stairs.” Put that way, it made sense to finish the dining room first, even if it seemed backward and lengthened inconvenient meal preparation. It also established the fact that such milestones mattered to Rob; he was sentimental.
He seemed relieved, flashing me another bright smile. “Yeah, exactly.”
“You should invite me over. After all this effort, I’d like to be part of the inauguration.” After I said it, I realized my mistake. He’d be cooking for Avery, not me, when the kitchen was pretty and polished, the dining room ready to receive guests. My next breath actually hurt.
“Maybe.” He didn’t mention her, much to my relief. “We should get back to work.”
“Don’t remind me.”
Rob did, in fact, have running water, but he washed up in a basin. I went back to the dining room and got the right grit sandpaper to complete the final pass on the floor. If I’d processed everything he told me correctly, the next step would be staining. After that, we’d wash the walls and paint them, along with the baseboards. It was possible I’d never see the finished product, of course. Once I had a job, there would be no excuse to hang around.
I was on my hands and knees when he came in; I didn’t look up. He stood over me long enough for me to feel weird, so I finally sat back on my heels. “What?”
“Let’s do something else.”
“But we’re almost done with the floor.” The perfectionist in me was going to be annoyed if he decided the built-in hutch was more important.
“Not in here. Out there.” He gestured at the world beyond the windows.
“Like what?”
“I’m wondering if you know how to drive stick.”
Shit. Now that he mentioned it... “The green truck’s a manual, isn’t it?”
“Yep.”
