“He is,” I say.
“You guys take care of Navie, huh?”
I shrug. “Yeah. I mean, that’s what you do, isn’t it? Take care of your friends?”
She twists her lips before looking at the floor. “That’s what’s supposed to happen. I’m glad she found you guys.”
My chest starts to ache, and the discomfort propels me to move. I press off the window and busy myself with repositioning my hat on my head.
Her tone bothers me, but I don’t know her well enough to ask her about it. I don’t want to pry. I hate when people try to pry things out of me.
“Well,” I tell her. “Now you’ve found us too, and if you can manage not to be mean, maybe we can—”
“Mean? I wasn’t mean,” she says, cutting me off. The spark is back in her eyes. Funny that it makes the pain in my chest evaporate too. “I was being … defensive of my friend. Our friend.”
“Fine. But you owe me for your defensiveness.”
She pulls her hair on top of her head. An elastic comes from her wrist, and in two seconds flat, she’s piled her hair into some messy looking bundle. I wonder vaguely if that’s what it looks like when she gets out of bed.
“How about this?” she says. “You come to Navie’s tonight, and I’ll cook the two of you dinner in your cookware.”
Even if I wanted to say no, which I don’t, I couldn’t. There’s no way to say no to a woman who looks like that when she’s inviting you to dinner. Plus, I kind of like bantering with her. Plus plus, I love not having to find food on my own.
“I really can’t turn down dinner,” I say. “Especially when I’m already so invested in it.”
“Great. See you tonight. At … six?”
“I don’t get out of here until about five thirty, so how about seven? That way, I can shower first.”
She starts to crack some comment. I can see it on the tip of her tongue. But she laughs instead, nods, and heads for the door. “See ya at seven.”
She leaves a trail of orange-scented air behind her.
Seven
Dylan
“That’s really good, Dylan.” Navie gives her finger a final lick. “Like, really good.”
“Why, thank you.”
I give the spaghetti sauce a final stir and then switch off the heat.
My grandma’s recipe called for homemade red sauce, but I used jarred. She’s probably rolling over in her grave right about now, but there’s not a lot I can do about it. Inviting Peck over for dinner just shot out of my mouth without any forward thought, and I wasn’t prepared to spend six hours watching a pot simmer.
That’s insane. But it makes the best sauce for people who care about those things. People like my nonna. Not people like me.
“It was really nice of you to offer to cook dinner for Peck,” Navie says.
I’ve been her friend too long to miss the hint of humor in her voice. It’s not just humor. That would be one thing. It’s a tease, a prod of some sort that has me rolling my eyes.
“Well, I felt like a dick.” I pick up the spoon I used to stir the sauce and give it a good lick. “Besides, he’s your friend. Since I’m going to be living here too, it makes sense for me to make friends.”
“Uh-huh.”
I turn away and lick the spoon again.
She’s crazy. The invitation I extended to Peck was merely to make up for my miscalculations about his identity. And I do need friends here. It can’t hurt to be acquaintances with a guy who can change tires, anyway, can it? Seems super logical to me.
“I’d go with friends with benefits, if I were you,” she says.
The spoon hits the spoon rest with a thud. “Navie.”
“What?” she asks, pressing a hand to her chest like she’s taken aback by my rather forceful use of her name. “What are you Navie-ing me for?”
“Stop it.”
“Stop what?”
“Stop insinuating I’m trying to get laid or something.” My cheeks turn the same shade as the sauce. I pop open the oven and bend to retrieve the meatballs. If she comments on my red face, I’ll claim it was from the heat. “I’m righting wrongs over here, not … lining up dongs.”
Navie snorts so loud I look to make sure she’s not choking.
“Besides,” I continue, “dealing with some guy, no matter how hot he is, is the absolute last thing I need to be doing right now.”
Thoughts of Charlie threaten to blitzkrieg their way into my brain. I jumped into that too fast. There were probably signs he wasn’t ready for a relationship, and I ignored them. I wanted his attention. I craved his love. The problem was that he wasn’t in a space to give me either because he was still in love with Vanessa.
I force those thoughts out of my mind with every bit of mental energy I can gather.
I set the meatballs on the counter before flipping the sauce back on. One by one, I lay them into the pool of tomato-y deliciousness.
Navie takes a slice of mozzarella off the plate beside me and nibbles on the end. “Can I give you one tip?”
“No.”
“Wrong answer.” She bites off the end of the cheese. “There’s this girl named Molly McCarter. Peck says he’s in love with her, but he’s not,” she says. “He just thinks he is. He couldn’t possibly be in love with that rat, and she’s definitely not in love with him—or so says the chain of men who have escorted her out of Crave every night last week.”
I cover the meatballs with a lid and try to reason why a woman would blow a guy like Peck off if she knew he was into her. I’d bet double or nothing on my HAS budget that his body is rock hard under all those car company T-shirts. And he’s so damn funny and sweet and kind—so far, anyway. I suppose he could, theoretically, not be her type, but I don’t know a woman who wouldn’t die over him.
Except me. Because I’m not into the idea of competing for another man’s affection.
Nope.
“I don’t care who he loves,” I say. “Or who loves him. I’m just your cutest best friend making dinner for you and your ex-cutest best friend.”
Navie laughs, plucking another chunk of mozzarella off the plate. “I’m going to go change my shirt before dinner. This one smells like fingernail polish remover.”
She traipses across the room, mouth full of cheese, her head bobbing side to side. As soon as she’s gone, I slink against the cabinets.
I hope this was a good idea. It felt like it at the time, and it’s not like it feels like it’s a bad idea now, exactly. Navie’s leap to Peck’s love life is just a little jarring.
Sure, he’s adorable with a heavy dose of subtle sexiness that’s pretty incredible. But he also seems like really good friendship material. He can take a joke. His patience runs deep. Quite frankly, he’s the kind of guy I should make friends with.
If he’s in love with someone else, won’t that make it easier? He’ll friend-zone me right from the start.
I press off the cabinet as the doorbell rings.
“Grab that, Dyl. Please,” Navie calls out from her bedroom.
I suck in a deep breath and make my way to the door. I tug it open.
“Heya, Dylan.”
Peck smiles brightly on the other side of the doorway. Clean jeans stretch down his long legs, and he’s traded a diesel company’s shirt in for an eighties rock band. A blue baseball hat with white stitched L.A. sits on his head.
“Hey, Peck.” I step to the side so he can walk in. “How are ya?”
My voice is too high. It’s like my brain worries that Peck could somehow telepathically know I was just mulling over his love life and feels embarrassed. Either he doesn’t pick up on it, or he’s too well-mannered to point it out.
“Great. Something smells good in here,” he says.
“I just threw a little spaghetti and meatballs together. Easy dinner, you know?”
“That sounds like it would be a big pain in the ass to make, actually.”
I grin. “Well, not true, but I’m happy to play along
. You should be so grateful I went to all this trouble to make a pain in the ass dinner for you.”
The blues of his eyes match his hat. I can see it as he moves toward the window. The light makes his irises shine, blending different shades of aqua together.
“Let’s be honest,” he says. “This isn’t for me. It’s for you.”
“What’s for me?”
“This dinner. It’s an apology dinner because you have guilt.” He turns on his heel and looks at me. A giant smirk lights up his face. “As you should.”
I gasp. “I have no such thing … Well, not much,” I admit. “But I’m not making you dinner out of guilt.”
“Huh.”
I try to glare at him but can’t quite get it just right because of his stupid smirk. My efforts are saved by Navie.
She flings her bedroom door open with a flourish before striding into the room with not just a new shirt but also different jeans and sneakers too.
The ones she wears at work.
I give her a look she pretends not to see.
“Hey, Peck. Welcome to my humble abode,” she says, holding her arms out to the sides like a game show host. “I wish I could stay and have dinner with you guys, but Machlan just called and said he needs me to come in. Who am I to say no to the boss?”
Peck raises a brow. “You. Every damn time you work.”
“Well, he really seemed like he needed me this time.”
“I’m sure he did,” I deadpan. “You’re a terrible liar, Navie.”
Her eyes sparkle with mischief as she gently pushes Peck out of the way. “I’ll see you two later.”
The door closes with a loud wumpth.
My eyes flick to Peck’s. I have no idea what he’s going to say now about being stuck here with just me. I’m not sure what I even have to say about this because I was not prepared. Not that this is anything to prepare for. It’s just an apology dinner between two potential friends. No big deal.
My stomach ripples as his lips part, and the easiest smile ever is shot my way. Immediately, tension I didn’t know I had melts away from my shoulders, and I sink into a smile of my own.
“I’m glad she’s gone,” he says.
My mouth goes dry. “Why?”
“Have you ever seen how much that girl can eat? Now that she’s gone, that just means more meatballs for me.” He winks as he walks by me and into the kitchen area. “Tell me you made garlic bread.”
A laugh topples from my lips. “I did.”
He takes a plate off the table. “Can I fill my plate?”
“Sure.”
He busies himself with the pasta and garlic bread. “What did you do today? Accost any other unsuspecting guys about crimes they didn’t commit?”
“Are you ever going to let me live that down?” I take a plate and begin filling it too.
“Nope.”
We finish getting our dinner in silence. The only sound in the apartment is the silverware clamoring against our plates as we load up with spaghetti.
In a few moments, we sit across from each other at the table. Peck removes his hat and hangs it on the back of his chair. His hair sticks up wildly as though he put the hat on it while it was still wet. I have to force myself to look away.
I clear my throat. “So you asked what I did today. I actually got a call from the landlord at my new digs. He said I can get the keys tomorrow.”
It’s the best redirection I can come up with.
“Cool. Vine Street, right?” he asks.
“Yup,” I say, trying to hide how impressed I am that he remembered that. “Just passed that house with the big balcony on the second floor. Man, I’d love to have one of those one day. It reminds me of Gone with the Wind or something. So romantic. Anyway, it’s perfect timing because my stuff is coming tomorrow too. Finally, something is working out.”
I slice a corner of meatball and shove it into my mouth to keep from talking. Peck doesn’t fill the void, though. He sits in his chair and watches me chew.
“What?” I say through a mouthful of meatball.
“Nothing.”
“Come on.” I squeeze the bite that’s still too big to swallow healthfully down my throat. “What?”
“Does it ever occur to you to breathe when you’re talking? Or do you just worry about that if you pass out from oxygen deprivation?”
I take the napkin beside my plate and throw it at him. He laughs as he easily dodges the flimsy paper product.
“I have a lot to say. A lot of passion,” I joke.
“Do you?”
“I do.”
He takes a sip of the ice water on the table, and I realize I had beer in the fridge.
“Hey! Don’t drink that.” I scoot my chair back and jump up.
“Did you poison it, and now feel bad?”
“You’re so funny,” I say, the words mixed with both sarcasm and a laugh.
I grab a bottle of beer that Navie said he’d drink and open it. As I carry it to the table, I narrow my eyes. “Now I regret being this nice to you.”
“Now I regret teasing you,” he says as he takes it. “Thanks, Dylan.”
“You’re welcome, Peck.” I get seated again. Spinning a forkful of pasta around, I feel him watching me across the table. “What’s the story behind your name, anyway? Surely, your parents didn’t just love the name Peck.”
“What’s not to love about my name?”
I drop my fork. “Come on. Were you never teased? No one ever called you peckerhead?”
He laughs, setting the bottle on the table. “A few times, I guess. Mostly by Machlan, come to think of it.” He grins. “But the name Peck is actually a nickname.”
“Aha! I knew it.”
“Want a cupcake?”
“I always want a cupcake.”
He shakes his head.
“What’s it mean?” I ask. “Is it short for peckerhead then?”
“Uh, no. My grandfather gave it to me. Legend has it that I was four years old, and we were in Crank. Crank was Pop’s shop originally. He left it to my Uncle Ed—Walker, Machlan, Lance, and Blaire’s dad. He was my mom’s brother. And then when he died, it went to Walker.”
I’ve only had a few conversations with Peck over the past couple of days, but I’ve never seen him this serious. The joke that’s always right there, waiting to come out is nowhere to be found.
My instinct is to reach out and put my hand on his or touch him on the shoulder because there’s pain there. Or emotion. Or something. But I don’t know him well enough to do that, and it feels like it would be intrusive somehow.
So I intrude a different way. Because I can’t help myself.
“Does that bother you?” I ask.
“What?”
“That your Pop’s shop is Walker’s?”
He shakes his head. “No. It’s how things go. What was Pop gonna do? Leave it to my mom?” The end of that sentence gets scoffed with sarcasm, the final words halting. It’s as if he has to spit them out. “Anyway,” he says, swallowing hard, “it doesn’t bother me. But I do like working there. Sometimes, I’ll see something that reminds me of Pop or even Uncle Ed. And Walker and I have had some damn good times in there.”
A grin splits his cheeks as he takes another long swig of his beer.
“So the nickname …?” I push.
“Oh, yeah. So Pop had me in the shop because I loved anything with an engine. Still do. I’d beg him to take me. Nana says I used to call up there and tell him she needed him so he’d come home, and then I could get him to take me back with him.”
I laugh. The picture in my mind is so sweet—a cherub-faced blond baby crying for his grandpa. “That’s awesome and very manipulative of you.”
“Right? And apparently one of those days, he was working on a truck. He couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it or whatever, and I kept saying ‘peck, peck, peck.’ I kept doing it and leaning toward the truck and finally Pop heard what I was getting at. There was a knock in the engine,�
� he says with a shit-eating grin. “I didn’t know how to say that, so I just replicated the pecking sound I heard.”
“Oh, my gosh. That’s so adorable.”
The apples of his cheeks turn red. His brows pull together, and he slides his phone out of his pocket. With a finger hovered over the screen, he looks up at me. “I need to answer this. I know it’s really rude, but this is the only call I have to take.”
“Yeah. Sure. Go ahead.”
“Hey, Nana,” he says into the device. He nods once, twice, and then three times. “No. No, no, no. Don’t do that.” He sighs. “Don’t. I’ll … I’ll be right there. Just sit still, for the love of God, and don’t touch anything.” His eyes find me. They’re defeated. “Love you too.”
My spirits fall as I realize he’s leaving.
“I hope everything is okay,” I tell him.
“I hate this because your cooking is awesome, and I didn’t quite mind bantering with you either.” He smiles. “But my nana has mixed up all her meds. She had a heart attack not that long ago, and I need to get over there and re-sort her pills before she kills herself.”
The affinity he has for her melts me from the inside out. Even the way he talks about her—as if she’s the best thing ever—makes me wish I could tag along and meet the woman who makes a man like him care for her that much.
“Go,” I say. “It’s fine. Honest.”
We both get to our feet quietly. Peck bumps the table as he gets his hat off the back of the chair and the silverware clatters together. The sound feels hollow, and I realize how empty this room is going to feel in a few minutes.
“I’m really sorry about this, Dylan.”
“Don’t be. I’ll tell you what. I’ll bring you lunch tomorrow. Leftovers, though. Nothing fancy.”
His face lights up. “I’ll tell you what. To make up for this, I’ll help you move in tomorrow.”
“No,” I say, flabbergasted at the offer. “Everyone hates moving. I’ll just be cleaning tomorrow mostly anyway.”
He heads to the door. “I’m a great cleaning guy. Okay, that’s not true.” He chuckles. “But you have to let me help, or else I’ll feel really …”
“Guilty. You’ll feel guilty.” I fist-pump in the air. “Thank your nana for turning the tides my way.”
Gibson Boys Box Set Page 103
