And what the hell was he thinking? His Piper?
She wasn’t his. She was Jordan’s.
Pretty sure when Jordan had said, “Take care of Piper,” he didn’t mean, Fuck my wife.
Yes, that had to be it. Nate was thinking about Jordan.
But he couldn’t tell her that either.
Piper had cried on his shoulder about her husband many times. And, while it might be hard for Nate to see her with anyone else, Jordan would not want his wife to be lonely for the rest of her life.
“Actually,” Nate told her, “you’re a woman, and you’re right. I would react differently if, say, Luke were sitting here with me rather than you.”
She blinked a couple of times. “Wow, I didn’t think you’d admit I was right so easily.”
“Now, who’s being stereotypical?”
She laughed.
“I’m glad you’re moving on. But will you promise me one thing?”
She tilted her head to the side. “Maybe.”
“Please be careful. There are some crazies out there.”
She made an X in the middle of her chest. “Cross my heart.”
He chuckled.
“If it makes you feel any better, I met my date at the restaurant. I didn’t tell him where I lived or anything like that.”
“Good.” He nodded. “So, when is your next date?” he asked as Piper got up to put her plate in the sink.
“Saturday.”
“Saturday?”
Piper spun on her heel and raised her brow.
Nate cleared his throat. “I mean, good for you.”
She smiled sweetly. “That’s what I thought you meant.”
Nate got up from his seat, too, and the two of them cleaned up their dishes and put the food away.
“Let’s go watch our show.”
“Okay,” Nate said as he followed Piper into her living room. They sat on the couch while she grabbed her remotes to turn on the television and Netflix. “What is the guy like, the one you’re going out with on Saturday?”
“He’s rich. He’s a stockbroker.”
Nate raised his brow. “Really?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Where?”
“On Wall Street.”
“Wall Street? How in the hell are you—”
“I’m just kidding. He’s actually a hit man,” she tried to say with a straight face.
“Piper.”
She laughed at her own joke and punched him in the arm. “Joking. He’s an accountant.”
“Oh.”
She shook her head. “What’s with the big-brother routine?”
Trust me, sweetheart, I feel anything but brotherly toward you.
He shrugged. “I’m just worried about you, I guess. I can’t help it.”
“Aw,” she said and scooted closer to him. She wrapped her hand around his bicep and rested her head on his shoulder. “You’re so sweet.”
Inside, he cringed. He didn’t feel sweet.
Piper hit play on their show, and he tried to concentrate on what they were watching, but she smelled and felt so damn good. The fucking hard-on in his pants didn’t help. It was almost a relief when the episode ended, and Nate told her he needed to get home.
After saying good-bye, he got in his truck and thumbed through his Contacts. He went past the usual women he had sex with until he got to the end, and then he scrolled back up again. He picked a number and hit Send, only to immediately hit End.
He was hard and horny, but he just couldn’t do the meaningless-sex thing tonight. He didn’t know what had gotten into him because he couldn’t remember ever feeling this way before.
Instead of calling someone over, he went home and used his fist. He imagined what Piper would look like naked. As she rode him. To her own climax. And that was what made Nate come.
After he cleaned himself up and dropped into bed, he couldn’t help but wonder who Piper had thought about on Saturday when she did the very same thing.
Then, he laughed. Because he highly doubted she’d been thinking of him.
Piper pulled open the door to the restaurant and approached the hostess stand. “I’m meeting someone. Carl Smith.”
The hostess smiled. “Right this way, miss.”
When Piper saw her date sitting at their table, she breathed a sigh of relief. He looked just like his picture. His hair was light brown, and he even reminded her of Jordan with his oval face and hazel eyes. Her date on Tuesday had looked like his profile picture, too, except she’d known instantly that it had to be at least ten years old.
Carl stood when he saw her, and a smile spread across his face.
“Here you are, miss. Your server will be over shortly.”
“Thank you,” Piper said.
The hostess left with a nod, and Piper held out her hand to Carl. “Hello.”
He took her hand and kissed her knuckles. “Good evening, Piper.”
She grinned. What a gentleman.
“Shall we sit?” Carl asked her.
“Oh, yes,” she said and reached for her chair.
“Wait,” he said and came around to pull her chair out for her.
Piper couldn’t remember the last time she’d been treated like such a lady.
“Did you find the place okay?” Carl asked her.
“Yes. Nowadays, with Google Maps, directions are pretty easy.”
Carl pulled open his menu. “This is very true.”
Piper opened her own menu and perused the items.
Their server came over and took Piper’s drink order. She decided to go with white wine because she didn’t care for red much. After bringing Piper’s wine, the server took their orders and menus and walked away.
The two of them sat together for a few minutes with neither of them saying anything.
Piper chuckled to herself. “I’m sorry. I’m bad at this. This is only my second date since…”
Carl leaned forward in his seat. “Hey, that’s okay. It was hard for me, too, after my wife died. I felt like a fish out of water.”
One of the reasons Piper had said yes to Carl was because he was a widower. Who better to understand her situation than someone who had been in her shoes?
She ran her thumb over the rim of her glass. “Can I ask, how many dates had you been on before it got easier?” She looked at Carl when he didn’t respond. “I’m sorry. That was kind of personal.” She rolled her eyes. “Lesson one: don’t ask your date how many other dates they’ve been on. I told you I was bad at this.”
Carl smiled. “It’s okay. I know you’re asking for future reference, not because you’re quizzing me about how many women I’ve dated before you. Let’s just say, it took about five to ten dates before I felt comfortable.”
“Oh, great. You’re only number two.”
They both laughed.
“Well then,” Carl said, “I guess it’s my job to make you comfortable.”
Piper blushed at his flirty words, but she was already starting to feel better about their date.
By the time dinner was over, Piper and Carl were talking like old friends. They had a lot in common from being Cornhusker fans to both not liking Star Wars. They also bonded over their widowed statuses and never getting to have kids. The more they talked, the more Piper felt like he was a really nice guy. And, when their check came, Carl paid for it even though Piper had tried to go Dutch.
“What are you doing tomorrow?” Carl asked her.
“Nothing exciting. I have some errands to run.” She didn’t mention Nate was coming over to work on her house. It didn’t seem like the right time to tell Carl about Nate. “Why?”
“I was wondering if you’d want to have brunch with me tomorrow.”
“I would love to. Would you like to pick me up?”
“Uh…no. How about we meet at the restaurant again?”
Piper thought it was kind of odd, but maybe he didn’t want t
o scare her away. “Okay. You tell me when and where, and I’ll be there.”
They made their brunch plans, and then Carl walked Piper to the front of the restaurant. Once they were outside, he leaned in close and gently kissed Piper on the mouth.
It was tender and sweet.
The next morning, Piper picked through her clothes, trying to decide what to wear to brunch. It didn’t help that she was having mixed feelings about her second date.
At dinner the night before, she’d had a great time and really clicked with Carl. But, after she’d gotten home and lain in bed, she’d started to feel guilty. What if Jordan was up in heaven, watching her and feeling sad that she’d found someone so fast? Even though it wasn’t like that and she hardly knew Carl yet, the remorse had weighed heavily on her shoulders.
She sat on her bed and took a deep breath. She fell back onto the comforter and stared up at the ceiling. “Jordan, I need your advice. Can you please tell me what to do? Or send me some sort of sign?”
There was no answer, of course.
Piper dragged her butt back up and finished finding an outfit. Since it was brunch, she chose a casual outfit of capris and a T-shirt. She looked cute but not sexy. She went to the bathroom where she put on her makeup and brushed her teeth.
When she left her bedroom and walked down the hall, she was surprised to see Nate in her kitchen.
“Oh,” she said when she saw him. “When did you get here?”
“Just a few minutes ago.” He looked her up and down. “Where are you going?”
Nate had been a little weird about her dating, so she lifted her chin. “I have a second date with Carl.”
Nate curled his lip. “Carl? That’s his name?”
“Yes, that’s his name,” she said as she stepped around Nate to grab a cup of coffee.
“He sounds…boring.”
Piper set her mug down hard and spun around. “Why are you being like this?”
“Like what?” Nate asked, but he looked ashamed, so she knew that he knew what she was talking about.
“Like I’m doing something wrong.” She sighed. “Is that it? You think it’s too early? That I shouldn’t be dating?” A horrible thought came to her. “Do you think I’m a bad wife?”
Nate’s shoulders slumped, and all the defiance left his body. “No. Of course not.”
“Then…why?”
He ran a hand down his face. “I don’t know, Piper. But you’re right. I shouldn’t be putting whatever I’m feeling on you. You are not a bad wife. Jordan has been gone for a year, and I saw how his death devastated you. You deserve to be happy. I’m sorry if I’m standing in the way of that.”
She wanted to ask him what he meant by whatever he was feeling, but her phone beeped in her pocket. It was a text from Carl, which told her he’d see her soon.
“I have to go,” she told Nate.
“What about your coffee?”
“I’ll get some at the restaurant.”
Nate stopped her with a hand to her elbow. “I’m sorry, Piper.”
She put her hand on his arm. “You’re forgiven. But I really do have to go.”
Nate opened his mouth but closed it again. “See you later,” he said with a head nod.
Piper tried to shake off the effects of the morning before she met up with her brunch date, but it was hard. First, it had been her uncertainty and guilt, and then Nate’s slight hostility had put her in a foul mood.
It was a good thing that, when she saw Carl waiting for her, he had a bouquet of flowers with him.
“Are these for me?” she asked.
“Yes. Beautiful flowers for a beautiful lady.”
Piper blushed. His words were a little cheesy, but she needed them this morning. Maybe coming here for date two was the right thing to do.
“Thank you. They really are beautiful. I haven’t gotten flowers in a long time.”
Carl grinned. “Shall we go in?”
“Yes. I’m starved. And I haven’t had any coffee yet.”
“Why not?” Carl asked as he led her inside by the small of her back.
“Oh, I just ran out of time. I should have woken up earlier,” she lied. She really didn’t feel like her and Nate’s argument was any of Carl’s business.
They had to wait about ten minutes until a table opened up. It seemed like Carl was getting antsy, waiting, because he looked at his watch every few minutes.
“Are you okay?” she asked him. “You seem impatient.”
“What?” He looked at her. “Oh, no. I’m just hungry.”
Once they were seated, the server came over with water for them.
“We’d like to order right away, please.”
We would?
Nobody had told Piper that. Good thing she already knew what she wanted.
They had just put in their orders when someone yelled, “Carl Hughes! Where is that son of a bitch?”
Carl’s eyes widened, and he sank down in his chair, but he couldn’t escape the woman. She came charging for their table as fast as the busy restaurant would allow.
“So, this is why you didn’t want to go to church with your family, huh? So you could take some hussy out on a date? Did you really think I wouldn’t find out? Your wife wasn’t born yesterday.”
Piper sprang from her chair. “Whoa,” she said in shock. “Ma’am, I am sorry. I didn’t know he was married. He told me he was a widower.”
The woman narrowed her eyes at Piper, and she was a little afraid of this woman’s wrath.
“Let me guess. You’re a widow, and you connected over the two of you losing your spouses?”
“Yes,” Piper said hesitantly.
“Figures. That’s kind of his thing now.”
“His thing?”
“Yes, Carl likes to prey on vulnerable widows.”
Piper looked at Carl, who wouldn’t meet her eyes. “You’re an asshole,” she told him. “I’m sorry,” Piper told Carl’s very-much-alive wife. Piper wanted to ask the woman why she was still married to him.
“No, I’m sorry. I should have murdered him the last time I caught him cheating.”
Piper grabbed her purse and her flowers. Before she walked away, she handed the bouquet to Carl’s wife. “These are for you. You deserve them.” Then, she escaped the restaurant as fast as she could.
Once she got in her car, she looked up at the bright summer sky.
“I got your sign, Jordan. You could have been a little subtler.”
“Hall.”
Nate continued to hammer at the nail. Pound, pound, pound.
“Hall.”
He didn’t understand why he was concerned so much with Piper’s morning date.
“Nate!”
He stopped what he was doing and turned around to look at Luke. “What?”
Luke raised his brow. “I think you got the nail in.”
Nate looked down at the wood that he had pounded so hard, there was now a large circle in the shape of the hammerhead. “Oh, I didn’t mean to do that.”
“What’s wrong with you today? You’ve been off all morning.”
Nate didn’t want to admit to his friend that Piper’s date bothered him. He put the ruined wood in the scrap pile and grabbed a new piece. He didn’t answer Luke’s question, but thankfully, his friend left him alone.
But, when it was time for a water and piss break, Luke cornered Nate before he could go back outside.
“Yes?” Nate said.
“You need to tell me what’s bugging you. You’ve messed up five times now, and we’re going to have to go back to the lumberyard. I’m sure Piper would love to pay more money than she already has.”
“I didn’t mess up five times.”
Luke proceeded to list not five, but six mistakes that Nate had made.
Nate sighed in defeat and took a seat on one of the kitchen stools. “If I tell you this, you’d better keep your mouth shut.”
/> Instead of being worried by Nate’s threat, Luke chuckled, but at least he said, “I won’t say anything.”
“Not even to your wife?”
“Not even to Elise.”
Nate ran a hand over his bald head. He had a tiny amount of stubble on there today because he hadn’t shaved before coming over to Piper’s. “Piper’s dating.”
Luke nodded in understanding. “Now, it makes sense.”
Nate narrowed his eyes at him. “No. Nothing makes sense. What do you mean by that?”
Luke shrugged. “You like her.”
“No. I mean, yes. She’s my friend. I’m worried about her.”
Luke chuckled.
“Why are you laughing? This isn’t funny.”
“It kind of is.” Luke smirked. “If you were me, you would understand.”
Nate stood up, ready to get back to work before Luke could say more, when there was a knock at the front door, and Elise walked through it.
Luke’s attention immediately went to his wife, and he grinned.
“Remember, bros before hos,” Nate hissed.
Luke laughed and punched Nate in the arm. “I’m not going to say anything.”
Nate would have a better time believing Luke if the guy didn’t have a silly smile on his face.
“Hey, guys,” Elise said. “How’s it going this morning? Have you gotten a lot of work done?”
“Not really,” Luke said, and Nate shot him a stern look.
“That’s too bad,” Elise said. “I was hoping to steal you for lunch,” she said to her husband.
Luke wrapped his arms around Elise and pulled them together. “As long as you don’t mind me being sweaty.”
Elise ran her hands along Luke’s arms. “I love you sweaty.”
Nate rolled his eyes. He was about to tell them to get a room when the door to the garage opened, and Piper came storming through.
She slammed the door behind her and stopped when she saw the three of them. “I am never going on a date again,” she stated and took off down the hall.
“Uh-oh,” Elise said. “I’d better take a rain check on our lunch date and go talk to Piper.”
“Okay,” Luke said and gave her a kiss. He let go of his wife and turned around. “I wonder what that’s all about.”
So did Nate.
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