Mom turned to me and gestured to April. “Now, this young woman is a catch. You’re always saying there are no intelligent, attractive women in Lovely.”
April’s cheeks darkened with embarrassment. “Oh, I’m not looking for a husband right now, Mrs. Lockhart. Besides, I’m sure I’d be better suited to someone a little . . . older and more settled.”
A few faces turned to Kyle, who looked completely startled. The ink on the poor guy’s divorce papers wasn’t even dry yet.
April was hiding her face in her hands. “I didn’t mean . . . I’m just going to stop talking now,” she said.
Ivy went in for the save.
“Did I tell you guys April used to be my teacher?” she asked. “That’s how we met.”
“Is that right?” my dad said. “What did you teach, April?”
“Science. High school Chemistry and Biology.”
“So she can tutor the girls if needed,” Ivy said.
April smiled, her eyes lighting with happiness.
Not wanting to put my foot in my mouth for a second time, I just watched her as the conversation moved to a new topic. She ate slowly, actually listening to everything everyone said. I tended to focus on the food at these dinners and often missed some of the catching up.
I normally went for looks in a woman first, and their ability to carry on a decent conversation was a nice bonus. Consequently, none of them really knew or cared that I’d been a Math and Computer Programming double major who, truth be told, was a complete computer geek.
My family and friends knew I owned a tech business, but most of them didn’t ask about the details. They knew I ran a successful business and assumed that I was the kind of guy who made deals using my looks and charm. In truth, I loved the challenge of building advanced programs from the ground up and it was this that impressed my clients. Selling the programs was just a way to fund my two main interests—my next computer project, and my private pastime—and none of my family or friends would ever know about that.
April’s education in science intrigued me. Science went hand in hand with math, for which I had a slightly freakish aptitude. I wanted to talk more about this with her after dinner.
Once the dinner plates had been cleared, Mom handed around plates of the Texas sheet cake she had made. A few minutes later April ducked out before I had a chance to strike up a conversation. Fortunately, I had a good excuse to pay her a visit the next morning.
AFTER BREAKFAST, I PACKED up some tools and went over to Grieves House to finish some installation work I needed to get done. After using my key to get in a side door that opened into a small sunroom off the living room, I sat down with my laptop and looked up the program for the security system I was installing.
Once I had my bearings, I got out the wire I needed and started work. After about twenty minutes of working quietly on my own, a high-pitched yelp caught me off guard.
I looked over at the wide, open doorway to the living room and saw April glaring at me. She wore a floor-length light pink fuzzy bathrobe that zipped all the way up to her neck. With her long curls tousled and a mug of coffee in her hand, she looked cute. Except for the glare on her face.
“Morning,” I said in greeting.
Her brows lowered in a gesture of disdain. “What are you doing here?”
What the hell did this woman have against me? From the day I’d helped move her in she’d had a chip on her shoulder.
“Hi,” I said with an edge in my voice. “Nice to see you, too. I’m running wire for a security system.”
She eyed my drill skeptically. “You’ve done this sort of work before?”
“Yeah.” I sighed, frustrated, and went back to work. “I own a tech business. I wrote the code for the program that will monitor this place once I get the system active.”
“Will you just be working in the living room?”
“I’ll be in and out of rooms on every floor. I’ve needed to get this work done for a while but I’ve always been too busy with work. I took this week off just to get it done. When I finish this, I’m installing interconnected smoke detectors.”
A beat of silence elapsed before she glared at me again. “And that means . . . ?”
“It means if one of them goes off, they all go off. It’s a good thing in a building this size.”
“This week? You’ll be here all week?” She made no effort to hide her disgust.
I set my drill on top of my canvas tool bag and stood, facing her. “April, what’s your issue with me?”
“I never said I had an issue with you.” She folded her arms and looked away, her fair cheeks turning pink.
“You didn’t have to say it. My very existence seems to annoy you.”
“There are three teenage girls living here.” She gave me a pointed look. “I don’t think a strange man should be wandering around like you seem to be.”
“What the hell are you talking about? I’m not strange. I’m Reed’s brother, for Christ’s sake.”
“Strange to them, I mean. The girls.”
“They know who I am. You’re the one who just got here five minutes ago. I’ve been helping Reed and Ivy with this place since the day they bought it.”
Her expression softened slightly. “All I’m saying is I wish you’d let me know you were coming. I’m not used to running into someone I didn’t even know was in my house.”
“Clearly.” I held back a smile. “How ‘bout if you give me your phone number and I’ll call next time?”
She sighed. “I . . . okay. I guess that would work.”
I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket. “Hit me with the digits, baby.”
Her eyes narrowed as she told me the number to the Grieves House landline, which I already knew.
I input it anyway and grinned at her, reaching into my pocket for my wallet. I opened it and handed her one of my business cards. “That’s got my cell number on it.”
“Great.”
The deadpan of her voice was amusing and off-putting at the same time. I wasn’t used to being treated this way by women. For some unknown reason, I was on April’s shit list.
She didn’t like me, which made me like her all the more. Was there a woman I couldn’t charm? The idea was unexpectedly appealing. April probably wasn’t a woman I couldn’t charm, but rather one I couldn’t charm without a little work.
SINCE I’D ONLY BEEN here less than a week, I’d spent very little one-on-one time with the girls in the house. This morning I was going to fix that. I was spending time with Erica, who was sixteen years old and seven months pregnant.
“I’ve been here for two months,” she said, carefully spreading butter on the banana muffin I’d heated up for her. “I don’t know what I would’ve done without this place. My mom kicked me out when she found out I was pregnant.”
“That must’ve been hard.”
She shrugged. “I wasn’t surprised.”
“So what will you do after the baby is born?”
“It’ll be adopted by a couple I picked out. I like them. They can take care of it better than I could.”
Her blue eyes were somber, but she sounded at peace with the decision. I was about to tell her how selfless and loving that choice often was, but Ivy and Reed walked in right then.
“Morning, guys,” Ivy said.
“Good morning,” we said in unison.
“How are you feeling, Erica?”
“Good. I have to get going, actually. I didn’t realize how late it was getting.”
We all said goodbye and she stood, slid her backpack over her shoulder and walked toward the side entrance. I thought about my former students as I watched her go. Their worlds had been centered on social media, clothes and who was dating whom. Erica’s life was so different than theirs, and I knew it would stay that way even after her baby was born.
“Reed’s wondering if you want some wood for the fireplace in the living room,” Ivy said, grabbing a muffin from the plate on the large island. “He’ll bring you some after
work if you want.”
“That might be nice. We’re doing movie night on Friday and a fire would be really nice.”
“We need to talk about making house rules for the girls, too.”
“I’m free if you want to do it now,” I said, standing to clear the table. “You want a muffin, Reed?”
“Yeah, thanks,” he said, taking one from the plate.
“I’m actually volunteering at Noah’s preschool this morning,” Ivy said.
“Oh, no problem. We can do it this evening if you’re free.”
Ivy glanced at Reed. “We’ve got plans tonight, actually.”
“Sure, that’s fine,” I said. “I can get started—”
“You’ve got plans tonight, too,” Ivy blurted out.
“I do?” I gave her a puzzled glance.
“Dance lessons with Miss Dee Dee.” Somehow, she managed to look guilty and excited at the same time.
“No.” I folded my arms and shook my head for emphasis. “I told you, I’m not dancing. I don’t dance.”
“It’ll be fun.”
I sighed deeply. “Not for me. I’m crap at anything that requires coordination. And it’s just extra pathetic to show up to dance lessons with no partner. I appreciate—”
“You have a partner!” Ivy’s face was alight with happiness. “It’s Mason!”
My mouth dropped open. Of all the men to force into being my dance partner, she’d chosen the one who thought I was mousy. It was a recipe for my complete humiliation.
“No.” I looked back and forth between Ivy and Reed. “No, no, no. You guys are the worst for doing this.”
“He’s cool with it,” Reed said. “Mason’s a fun guy, he likes these kinds of things.”
I couldn’t stop the small snort that escaped my nose. “Um, he strikes me as more of a horizontal cha-cha kind of guy than a ballroom dancing fan.”
Reed broke out in a hearty laugh. “Let’s just say he likes both. You’ll have a good time, I promise.”
I gave Ivy a pleading look. My face burned and my heart pounded at just the thought of dancing in public. “I can’t. Really.”
Ivy’s tone was reassuring. “It’s not a firing squad, it’s dance lessons, April.”
“But—”
“And Noah’s really looking forward to it.”
“He doesn’t need to watch me tripping over my own feet. He can dance without me there.”
“Actually, he can’t.” Ivy’s pleading look was back. “Miss Dee Dee has a six couple minimum for lessons and we have six with you and Mason.”
After a beat of silence, I rolled my eyes with exasperation. “This is ridiculous.”
“Lessons start at six. I already registered you guys, so . . . we could pick you up at five-forty-five, if . . . ?”
“Fine,” I said with more snap than intended.
Ivy threw her arms around me. “Thank you! We’ll have so much fun.”
I groaned in skepticism. “I’m sure Miss Dee Dee has never had a more remedial student than me.”
“Give yourself more credit. You go to lessons to learn, which means you’re not supposed to know what you’re doing.”
“So you guys don’t know how to do any of these dances?” I glanced between her and Reed.
“Not . . . all of them,” Ivy said slowly. “We’re not so good at the fox trot.”
“You owe me so big for this,” I muttered. “Very, very big. Huge.”
It wasn’t that I lacked confidence. I knew I had many talents and strengths. But dancing with Mason Lockhart could not possibly go well, and damned if I wanted to give him another reason to laugh at me. I’d sworn off dancing after spraining my ankle during the first day of tryouts for my junior high dance team. I’d tried my best, but I’d been lucky I hadn’t broken my leg.
Stepping on that cocky manwhore Mason’s feet would be extra humiliating. Unless it hurt, in which case it would be humiliating and slightly gratifying. If anyone deserved to get stuck dancing with me, it was Mason Lockhart.
KYLE NODDED AT ME as soon as I walked into Jimmy’s Italian Place. He’d gotten there before me and found us a table.
“Hey,” I said, sliding off my coat and tossing it over the back of an empty chair. “Everything okay?”
He shrugged. “Just wanted to catch up. Haven’t had lunch with you in a while.”
“It has been a while,” I said, sitting down across from him. He wore the blue scrubs that were his work uniform as a surgeon.
“How’s life?” he asked.
“No complaints. I’m starting dance lessons with Ivy’s friend April tonight.”
He nodded appreciatively.
“Ivy asked me to. But I’m looking to spend more time with April, so it’s a good setup.”
“You like her?”
“Yeah.”
He leveled a stare at me and I furrowed my brow in response.
“What?” I said.
He was about to say something when a waitress approached and took our order. As soon as she was gone, I gave Kyle an expectant look.
“I hope you don’t plan to fuck over Ivy’s friend,” he said.
“Thanks, asshole.”
“I’m serious. You lose interest after one night of sex.”
“I’m young and—”
He cut me off. “Don’t start that shit with me. You’re thirty years old. Out of all five of us, you’re probably the smartest.”
“Probably? I went to MIT, remember? I’m definitely the smartest.”
He rolled his eyes. “Right, I’m just a lowly surgeon. And yeah, if we were taking the SAT, you’d score the highest. But when it comes to your own life, you’re kind of a dumbass.”
“Do tell,” I said sarcastically. “Just because I’m not married?”
“No. I don’t know what you’re doing with your time, but you get way too many black eyes for a guy on the up and up.”
“I like to box,” I said, shrugging. “You used to like it, too, before you had to worry about your hands.”
“Sparring doesn’t leave you looking like you got the shit kicked out of you, Mason. You’d rather get your ass kicked than try to find a healthy relationship?”
The waitress delivered our drinks and we both smiled politely, waiting until she was out of earshot to continue.
“Hey, can I just point out the irony of you suggesting I find a healthy relationship?” I said.
“What, because I’m divorced? At least I tried, man. And I can tell you with complete certainty that I didn’t fail Kim. Her alcoholism broke up our marriage.”
“I know. How’s that going, anyway? Bachelorhood, I mean?”
He sighed deeply. “I’m a single father with a fucking crazy work schedule. It’s all I can do to keep up. It’ll be a long time before I think about dating. But you’ve got more latitude than me.”
“I don’t know. I’ve never wanted to settle down because I reached a certain age or because everyone else was doing it.”
Kyle gave me a serious look. “Kim checked out of our marriage a long time ago. And now that I’m single, I don’t want to sow my wild oats with random women. I’d give anything for someone to talk to at the end of a shitty day at work. Someone who loves my boys. You don’t know what it’s like to have that, because you never have.”
I nodded slowly. “I tried a relationship once, and it didn’t end well.”
“That girl in college? That’s not the same, Mason. It’s not the same as having someone next to you for the real-life ups and downs of adulthood. Just think about it, okay? If you like April, either treat her the way she deserves or stay the hell away from her. Don’t be an asshole.”
“You need to get laid,” I mumbled.
“You have no fucking idea.”
The waitress delivered our food and we ate in silence. I wanted to dismiss what Kyle had said, but I couldn’t. He’d never steered me wrong, for one. I also knew the sincerity on his worn-out face when he’d told me he wished for something real
would stay with me.
MISS DEE DEE’S DANCE World was housed in a former train depot. The renovated building had high ceilings with exposed metal beams, worn oak floors and windows that looked out on downtown Lovely.
A very large woman with wild gray curls examined us from her spot in the corner of the room, where she leaned on a cane.
“She looks like she needs help,” I whispered to Ivy. “Should we get her a chair?”
“That’s Miss Dee Dee. She’s very proud. Don’t ever offer her help. She’ll ask if she needs it.”
I leaned in to whisper in Ivy’s ear. “Are you serious? She’s teaching this class? She looks like she can barely stand.”
Ivy leaned in to me. “Just go with it. She used to be an amazing dancer, but her knees gave out.”
“Good evening, ladies,” a deep voice drawled behind us. We both turned and my spine tingled with nervousness at the sight of Mason.
The man was criminally attractive, with a tall, broad-shouldered frame and a smile that made my mind immediately go blank. His short black hair looked deliberately tousled, but his close-cut beard was perfectly groomed.
“Hi, Mason,” Ivy said, giving him a quick hug. “I’m glad you could be here.”
He was about to answer when Miss Dee Dee called out to the class.
“Find your partners,” she said in a throaty, no-nonsense tone.
Ivy turned and walked across the room to Reed, who was standing with Noah and a little girl who looked about his age.
Mason was giving me a lopsided smile that I was sure got him past first base with most women. But most women hadn’t overheard him comparing them to a librarian.
“You should know,” I said in a low whisper, “that I am an abysmal dancer.”
His brows quirked up with amusement. “Did you just use the word abysmal?”
Here I was, already at my lowest, and he was making fun of me. Asshole.
“Are you not used to conversing with women who know three-syllable words?” I gave him a look of mock pity.
His expression grew serious as he considered. “Let’s see . . . Mason, oh God, Mason . . . yes . . . don’t stop . . . right there . . . Now that I think about it, I guess I am used to just one or two syllables from women.”
In Deep Page 2
