Going for Broke: Oakland Hills Friends to Lovers Romantic Comedy (Friends with Benefits)

by Gretchen Galway

Can’t wait, he’d said.

  Thinking about Ian’s words, Billie pulled her car into her grandmother’s driveway at eight the next morning. Her driveway. What an oddly powerful feeling. She’d never owned property before and discovered the sensation was surprisingly awesome. Even if she had to get up before noon on a Saturday.

  She’d been to the house on the day of the funeral, but this was different. Her plethora of relatives weren’t here to distract her.

  Her family was enormous and complicated; the term “blended” didn’t do it justice. Both of her parents had been married twice, with each marriage producing two children, and she’d given up trying to explain it to people without drawing a diagram.

  Grammy had been her father’s mother, but most of the blended clan, even Billie’s mother and Billie’s younger half sisters, had come to the funeral pay their respects. Clara Garcia, her grandmother, had been eccentric but sweet, lavishing love on her family, even her ex-daughter-in-law, whenever she wasn’t too absorbed with her cats.

  Oh, the cats. This morning, studying the house from her car, Billie worried about how Ian would react to the mess her grandmother’s animals had left behind. Aunt Trixie, her dad’s cousin, had taken one of them and found a home for two more. A neighbor, apparently, had taken a fourth. A fifth, sadly, had been put down just a week before Grammy had gone into hospice care.

  Five was a lot of cats for anyone, but especially for an eightysomething woman who had never, even in youth, been an organized, tidy person. The walker and oxygen tank made daily animal maintenance almost impossible.

  If only she hadn’t been so adamant about refusing help.

  Billie climbed out of her secondhand Hyundai and gazed at the house. It was from what they now called “midcentury,” but her mother affectionately called “fifties fugly.”

  “Hello there,” a man’s voice called out from her right. “Are you Jane?”

  She turned to see a man about her age in a sweatshirt and jeans, approaching from the yard next door, holding a cat. Both he and the cat were sandy-haired.

  “No,” she said warily, because this wasn’t the middle of Kansas, it was Oakland. “Who are you?”

  “Then you must be Belinda,” he said, shifting the cat to the other arm, stepping over the hedge, and walking to her side. He had vivid blue eyes, a pierced ear, and a body that was either genetically gifted or carefully constructed in a gym.

  “Who are you?” she repeated. She didn’t like strange men, even the hot-bodied ones, to get so close when she was alone in a strange place. At her job, working with the rudest members of the public had taught her how to be cold and warm at the same time. Extra cold when necessary.

  “Oh, sorry,” he said, lifting his hand in a motionless wave. “Todd.”

  That didn’t quite cover all the bases. But she didn’t really want to know anything else about him; she was eager to get inside. With a faint smile, she nodded and moved to walk up to the front door.

  “I’m the one who adopted your grandmother’s cat,” he said.

  Chagrined, she turned. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. Thank you.” She studied the animal in his arms but didn’t recognize it.

  “Not this one,” he said. “She’s inside.”

  “How many do you have?”

  “Only the two,” he said. “Mine and your grandmother’s. When Clara was having trouble, I figured it was the least I could do. She was a nice lady.”

  “Thank you,” she said again, trying to warm up to him a little. “Well, it was nice to meet you, Todd.”

  “You are Belinda, right?”

  “Everyone calls me Billie.”

  He smiled. “Clara talked about you.” He stroked the cat behind the ears. A tattoo of a leafless tree decorated his wrist, its black branches winding around his forearm. “I work at home, so I saw her a lot. She told great stories.”

  “Yeah, she did,” Billie said, smiling sadly.

  “Well, I’ll let you go. I just wanted to introduce—”

  At that moment, Ian’s black pickup pulled into the driveway.

  Chapter 6

  Billie waved at Ian, relieved to see him, and turned to Todd. “Thanks for coming by. And for taking in her cat.”

  Todd’s eyes were fixed on Ian, who was stepping out of the pickup. “You know this guy?”

  “I know this guy,” she said.

  Todd was still standing there when Ian reached them with a bag slung over his shoulder and two steaming Starbucks cups in his hands.

  “Morning,” Ian said, handing a cup to Billie. Tea bag labels on strings flapped in the breeze.

  Smart man. He knew better than to bring her coffee.

  Billie moved to Ian’s side, edging closer to the house. “This is Todd, a neighbor. Todd, this is Ian,” she said quickly. “Well, we should be going.”

  “Nice cat,” Ian said to Todd.

  Todd’s eyes narrowed. “He doesn’t like strangers.”

  There was an awkward pause.

  Ian looked at Billie. “I got you tea.”

  “I know,” she said, holding it up with a smile. “Thank you.”

  Without a word, Todd turned, jumped over the hedge, and strode up the front steps of the little white bungalow next door.

  “Well, see you later,” Billie called after him. “Thanks again.”

  If Todd responded, she didn’t hear him.

  Ian followed her up the stairs to the front door, which she opened with the keys her father had given her at the funeral. The immediate family had met at the house for a few minutes after the service, but because of its condition, they’d immediately relocated to Jane and her boyfriend’s apartment near Lake Merritt instead.

  “Know that guy long?” Ian asked, too polite to mention the cat stench wafting down the hallway.

  “Just met him a few minutes ago.”

  “Weird,” Ian said.

  For some absurd reason, his comment made Billie want to defend Todd, even though he’d given her the creeps too. “Just because he likes cats?”

  “I like cats. Doesn’t mean I’ve ever walked around with one.”

  “He took in one of my grandmother’s cats,” she said.

  “That one?”

  “No. He said it was inside.” She shivered and went over to the thermostat, an ancient circular device on the wall surrounded by family photos.

  “I wonder why he didn’t bring that one out to show you,” Ian said. “Instead of the one that didn’t like strangers.”

  She twisted the thermostat and heard a click, then a roar, as the furnace turned on. “Grammy liked to keep the house warm, so at least the heating should work.”

  But Ian, apparently, was still thinking about the neighbor. “Maybe he killed it.”

  She tried to express shocked disapproval. “It was nice of him to take it in.”

  “And then ate it,” Ian added.

  Billie broke out laughing. “God, he was weird, wasn’t he?” Maybe she was getting better about good-looking guys ruining her judgment. She hadn’t been even remotely tempted to flirt with Todd, not even for a second.

  After flashing her a grin, Ian slipped the bag off his shoulder and started to set it on the grimy floor before seeming to think better of it and hanging it on the closet doorknob. “She had a lot of cats, I take it?”

  “We tried to help her with the mess, but she wouldn’t let the cleaners inside. Only family.”

  “And Todd, apparently,” he said.

  “I doubt it. They probably did all their chatting outside. Going out for the paper and the mail was her big excursion of the day. She’d push her walker down the driveway, greet the neighbors, wave at people jogging to the park, pet everyone’s dogs, talk to the UPS guy, and if she didn’t see anyone, she’d wait. Her walker had a little seat on it. She’d perch there and hang out.”

  Feeling an intense urge to go out and talk to her that very minute, Billie held her breath, blinking back tears.

  “She sounds like a nice woman,�
�� Ian said. “I wish I’d met her.”

  “She was awesome. Please don’t get the wrong idea when you see the house. It was just the one thing she couldn’t handle. Everyone has their thing, right?” Smiling, she sniffed.

  “At least one.” He pulled a square of white fabric out of his jeans pocket and held it out to her.

  She took it and stared at him. “You carry real handkerchiefs around?”

  “My mother,” he said. “She gives me a few every Christmas. They’ve uh, got my initials on them.” He cleared his throat and stood up taller, looking embarrassed.

  Amused, she looked down, patting her eyes with the handkerchief, reluctant to actually blow snot into a monogrammed gift from his mother.

  Something brown formed an L-shaped smear on the ex-beige carpet. Perhaps in the previous century—the middle of it—the material had been as light and fluffy as a newborn baby’s stuffed animal. But now the fibers were ground into a stained, patchy, clumpy mass, more like a skin disease than a fabric. “I snuck a vacuum cleaner in with me once while she was napping, and she got so mad she wouldn’t let me in again for a month.”

  Ian turned and went over to the corner near the front door, where he squatted down and began tugging at the edge of the carpet. It made popping sounds as he peeled it back. “Good news,” he said. “You’ve got excellent hardwoods under here.”

  She walked over. “Really? My dad said it was probably just cheap subfloor.”

  “I don’t know about the rest of the house, but here you’ve got hardwoods. They’ll need some work, but they’ll be an improvement over… this.” He plucked at the scabby carpet. “Whatever this is.”

  She leaned over his shoulder to get a better look at the planks under the row of rusty nails and splintered plywood strips. “Fantastic,” she breathed, squeezing his shoulder, imagining all the work his big muscles could do. “Let’s pull it all up right now.”

  He turned his head, bringing his nose close to her cheek. “Now? It’s usually best to do the floors last.”

  Another shiver, not from cold, ran through her. She’d always been smart about keeping casual around Ian. Their mothers were friends, they were friends. They’d grown up together, or as much as you can when you’re three grades apart.

  Although there had been that moment when she was twelve and she’d noticed the way his raven-black hair brought out the bright summer-sky blue of his eyes, and that he was as big as a man and looked more… interesting… in jeans than other guys did.

  She’d noticed.

  But when her sister announced that she and Ian were “going out” (although sometimes they stayed in doing things only grown-ups should do), Billie worked hard at not noticing anything more about him. Especially not the good things, such as how he was brilliant and ridiculously nice, even when she was throwing Doritos and making smooching noises from behind the couch.

  Years later, when he’d broken up with her sister and they were all out of school, and Jane living in LA, Billie had been glad to become friends with him. Carpooling up to see their mothers, she’d thought he seemed lonely and isolated, without much of a life outside work, even after he’d quit the corporate grind and started his own company. She’d always thought it was good for him to hang out with a normal person like her, who had some college but no degree, a full-time job but no money.

  Hang out. Not go out or stay in.

  Friends.

  Straightening quickly, she turned her attention to the job at hand. And not his hands, which were tanned and attached to well-muscled forearms.

  “I’d love to do it now, but we probably shouldn’t,” he said.

  Swallowing a smile, she nodded. Definitely shouldn’t.

  “Let me show you the rest of the house,” she said.

  Chapter 7

  Ian got to his feet and watched Billie walk away. She wore tight jeans and a short black hoodie, nothing particularly unusual or evocative, but he found himself staring at her butt longer than he should have.

  Wafting cat odor reminded him of where he was and whose body he was admiring. Getting to his feet, he brushed off his knees—something sticky clung to his palms afterward, so he had to brush those off as well—and followed Billie down a hallway into a dark room at the back.

  “Could you help me? She never opened these.” Billie was tugging at the heavy curtains covering everything from floor to ceiling. Not a hint of light broke through from outside.

  After tripping over something on the floor, he took out his pocket flashlight and flicked it on. Around them crowded heavy furniture and piles of stacked boxes as tall as he was.

  “Technically, this is the living room,” she said. “She never used it, though. She always kept the door closed. I’ve been dying to know what it really looks like.” With a grunt, she continued to pull at the curtains.

  Aiming his flashlight over her head, he saw the way the drapes were attached. “Hold it. They’re nailed to the wall.”

  Billie stopped and let out a loud sigh. “Oh, Grammy. Seriously?”

  “I’ll get my gear. Just a second.” He returned a few minutes later with his hammer and a small crowbar. “Think there’s a ladder around here?”

  “I’ve never seen one. Maybe in—”

  “Never mind. See if you can find a working lamp,” he said. “I’m going to get my ladder out of my truck.”

  When he got back, she’d dragged a light in from somewhere and was pointing it at the curtains. “I can’t believe she nailed them. She must’ve done that ages ago, before she hurt her hip.” She paused. “Is that duct tape?”

  He set up the ladder and climbed up to where she was pointing. “Afraid so.” In a few minutes, he’d removed six nails and torn away three layers of tape, freeing the corner of the curtain so that a beam of bright morning sun streamed in. Dust motes floated in the light, shimmering like fireflies.

  Billie sneezed.

  “There are masks in my bag,” he said. “Help yourself.”

  “I’ll be all right.”

  “I insist,” he said. “And please get me one too.”

  Wearing their low-budget hazmat equipment, they removed dozens of square yards of thick, dusty, mildewy fabric. Each inch encouraged them to go faster, because they were revealing a stunning, sunny view of San Francisco, the bay, the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, and the slopes of the East Bay hills around them. The world outside was much more appealing than the one inside.

  “Guess she didn’t like the view,” he said.

  “She was afraid of heights.” Billie had both hands pressed up against the glass and was peering out in wonder. “Look at the yard. Well, what used to be a yard.”

  He looked down into a flat, wide plot of weeds, cardboard boxes, plastic tubs, a tangled web of rusty bicycles, and the ruins of a broken swing set, now slanted at a forty-five degree angle and overrun with ivy. “It’s huge for up here. And level. Most of the houses along here don’t have nearly so much usable land.”

  “She used it, all right. As a landfill.” Her voice was bleak.

  “No big deal. One debris box and some muscle, and it’ll be beautiful.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “Take a break outside and I’ll go through the rest of the house.”

  “What? No, I’m fine. I was just wishing…” She put a hand over his and leaned against him. “I wish I could’ve done this while she was alive. Now she won’t be able to appreciate it. It’s too late—” Her voice cracked, and she fell silent.

  “Come on.” He grasped her arm and led her out of the house to the sunny front step, where bright flowers were spilling out of a dozen small pots. The front of the house, unlike the back, was clean, happy, and tidy.

  “Deep breath,” he said, inhaling one himself. “It’s toxic in there.”

  “Which is why I can’t subject you to it another second.” She pulled her hand free and turned to go back into the house. “I’ll get your ladder and your bag, and you can go. I’m so sorry to put you—”

  “I’m ha
ving a great time,” he said, and it was true. The thought of cleaning out the decrepit old house filled him with an excitement he hadn’t felt since he’d landed his first multimillion-dollar investor. “Don’t worry about me.”

  She stared at him. “Really?”

  “This place is going to be beautiful when I’m done with it.”

  “When you’re done with it?” She laughed and tore the mask off her head, shaking off bits of debris. Some remained in her hair, which bothered him, and he had to fight the urge to run his fingers through each strand and make it as glossy and voluminous as it had been before.

  He shoved his hands in his pockets. “You don’t want my help?”

  “Ian, you’ve got a company to run. You don’t have time to fix up my grandmother’s house.”

  “I have plenty of time.”

  “I was grateful you came today just to eyeball the place. That’s more than enough.”

  “Hardly. You can’t do this by yourself,” he said.

  “I’ve got my sister.”

  “I bet Jane works longer hours than anyone I know. And that’s saying something.”

  The white dust mask cupped her chin, emphasizing her rosy cheeks. Her brow was furrowed. “You can’t mean it. You’ve seen what it’s like in there,” she said. “We haven’t even looked at the outside yet. Jane’s worried about the roof.”

  He reached past her and tapped his knuckles on the drainpipe. It was solid, and he didn’t see any sign of soil erosion along the house below the gutter. The exterior windows were clean, too, and the sycamore arching over the front had been recently trimmed. The mulch around the shrubs and perennials was freshly raked and weed-free. “I suspect you’ll find that most of the repairs will be on the interior.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Look around,” he said, gesturing at the garden, the clean steps, the shining glass windows. “Did you or your sister or your dad have the trees trimmed?”

  “Trees?” She frowned up at the branches.

  “If your grandmother was afraid of heights, I doubt she was the one who climbed up there.”