“What in the actual hell just happened?” I said to the air. The remaining ugly wallpaper didn’t answer. I stalked over and ripped off a strip.
“That was a very bad idea.” I said it out loud, and hearing the words helped me believe them. “So bad. Dumb, dumb, dumb.”
Another strip curled down and hung in front of my face like it was dangling an answer, nodding gently.
I laid out white paper on the kitchen counter and arranged the mushrooms on them to capture their spore patterns. When I had them all set out, I tackled the wallpaper again, but no matter how loud I turned the music or how hard I scraped at the old glue, my brain kept replaying that kiss on a loop. It had been...
Incredible.
The kind of thing that curled my toes in ways I’d thought romance writers only made up. But now I got it. Your toes curled because they were trying to hold onto the ground while the rest of you felt like it wanted to float away.
I’d made out with Ian Greene in the woods and had felt like I was leaving the earth.
This was so bad.
I chipped away at the wallpaper and glue for a couple more hours, but when lunch rolled around and Ian was still in every other thought, I decided I needed to take even more drastic action.
I pulled out my phone and texted him. Meet me on my porch in 10 for a ham sandwich and a Coke?
He sent me a thumbs up, and I threw together two ham sandwiches complete with thick slices of tomato from the garden.
Ten minutes later exactly, he knocked and I opened the door to hand him a plate with a sandwich and a cold Coke from the fridge.
“Go ahead and have a seat on the porch. Sorry I don’t have furniture yet. I’ll get to it eventually. Maybe even a swing. Pull up a stair, and I’ll be out in a second.”
I fetched my own lunch from the kitchen and sat beside him at the top of the steps, smiling when he bit into his sandwich and gave a happy sigh.
“Good sandwich,” he said.
“Thank your grandmother for growing those tomatoes.”
“I’ll thank you too for helping her and for making the sandwich.”
“Sure. It’s the least I can do after your help today. You know, in the woods.” I tried not to wince at how not smooth my lead-in was.
“The woods were great,” he said, his tone carrying a faint question in it, like he knew I was getting at something.
“Right, so about that...” How was I supposed to say this?
“About the woods?” Now he sounded confused.
“Yeah. The woods. Or no. More like what happened in the woods.” My cheeks flushed.
“Ah.” The syllable was loaded with meaning. How did he put all those layers into a single sound?
“Right. So no more kissing.” Wow. Could not have said that in a dumber-sounding way.
“No more kissing,” he mused. “Why not? As a scientist, you should know I have a hypothesis that we might be really good at kissing each other.”
“I’m not a scientist. I’m a science teacher.”
“Right. And that was an excellent lesson in biology you gave me.”
My cheeks straight up flamed. “It was not.”
“You’re right. More like chemistry.”
I groaned. “How many versions are you going to do of that super lame joke?”
“Not a joke,” he said even though a smile lurked at the corner of his lips. “More like an observation.”
I rolled my eyes. “Fine. Then let’s also have a geography lesson. About boundaries. And how I have them, and I’m not crossing them again. And my boundary with you is friendship. That side of the line is fine. Past it is not.”
“So you’re saying straight out you want me to stay in the friend zone?”
“Yes.” My brain does, anyway. The rest of me is not so sure about that.
“Okay. I accept.” He didn’t even hesitate. “And trust me, I’m not the kind of guy who’s going to try to talk you into anything different, but can I ask why? Just so I can understand.”
“Because I’m not a casual dater,” I said. “And we are way too different to ever work long-term, so I’d rather avoid a mess.”
“A mess,” he repeated. “You think I’m a mess?”
“No, I think dating you would be a mess.”
“Why do you assume I want a long-term thing anyway?”
I stared down at my plate and pressed a crumb of bread to pick it up and nibble it off my finger. It wasn’t that I wanted the crumb as much as I did not want to meet Ian’s eyes. “I didn’t mean to assume. But I don’t have time to date at all right now, and if I did, I’m thinking long-term, so we’re still not on the same page.”
“It’s a good thing you’re not an English teacher, or you’d have to mark yourself down for all these clichés,” he said, but his tone was teasing. “Friend zone, boundaries, same page.”
“Happy to drop the subject. Just wanted to be clear.”
“Okay. Except why do you think we’d be a mess?” He didn’t sound annoyed, just curious, so I answered him.
“We want totally different things. You like your fast-paced life, the big city vibe, the whole environment. And I don’t. I’ve had it, and I don’t want it ever again. So what’s the point of dating now when I’m sure we’d break up later?”
“Maybe you’re a math teacher at heart, because that’s a very calculating way to see it.”
“If you make one more teaching pun, I’m going to find a hori hori.”
He grinned. “Fine. I accept. On the condition that we are actually friends. Do I have to try and avoid you when I come to visit Gran from now on or do you mean it?”
“I mean it!” I gave it an overly enthusiastic emphasis that made him flinch. “I do. I’m all for being friends.” I mean it, I told my heart again as it drooped at my words. Behave.
“Terms accepted. Your boundary is intact.” He put his hands up. “See? Not coming anywhere near you.”
“Thanks for understanding.”
“Sure. Being friends with you isn’t a consolation prize. I like you as a person, and eventually I’ll get over the urge to kiss you stupid.”
I’d just taken a sip of my Coke when he laid that on me. He smiled at me blandly while I choked.
“You okay there?”
“Fine,” I wheezed and coughed again to clear my throat. “Why do I feel like you’re not taking this new friendship very seriously?”
“I was teasing. I promise I mean it. You’re worth knowing. I’d like to be able to talk or eat ham sandwiches or hunt mushrooms with you any time I drop in to see Gran for a weekend.”
I nodded, not trusting myself not to say the exact wrong thing again. We finished our sandwiches in silence, and though it felt awkward at first, it became comfortable by the time I swallowed the last delicious bite.
“So as your friend, I’m curious what the prospects are like in Creekville,” he said when his sandwich was gone. “Is there a happening dating scene around here?”
I thought about Noah for a second. “Not really? I don’t know. I haven’t been looking for one, but I sort of get the impression that Miss Lily would be lining me up with church boys if she didn’t have you to marry off, and I think the secretary at school is looking for an opening to set me up with a nephew she keeps bringing up.”
“Sounds grim,” he said.
“More grim than dating apps and pub crawls?”
“Good point.”
“What’s your DC dating life like? When I worked there, it was hard to find time. People mostly seemed to hang out with people from their office or offices nearby. Not a lot of time for one-on-one, traditional dates.”
He shrugged. “I’m a little old school. I like dating the old-fashioned way, I guess. Set a time and place, pick up my date, spend time getting to know each other over a good meal. But I tend to always date the same kind of woman.”
“What’s your type?” Was I some kind of sadist? But I really wanted to know. It was the kind of thing I’d a
sk any of my other friends.
“I don’t have a physical type, I guess. But I do date a lot of lawyers.”
“Like from your firm?”
“Some,” he acknowledged.
“You don’t worry they’re all going to get together and compare notes and you’re going to be in hot water?”
He shook his head. “No. I was brought up to be a gentleman. I don’t date more than one woman from our firm at a time, and we always leave on good terms. I guess it’s possible they get together and trash me, but I kind of feel like I maintain a good working relationship with all of them? I never hide anything from them, and I try to communicate well.”
I stared at him. “Are you the actual perfect man?”
He snorted. “Obviously not or we’d be making out right now.”
“Ian...” My cheeks heated for the fiftieth time.
“I kid, I kid. No, I’m not the perfect guy. I’m a workaholic. I tend to put it before anything else. I tease too much. And I don’t visit my grandmother enough,” he added.
“That’s true. You’ve done better coming to see her the last couple weekends,” I conceded.
“I forget sometimes how much I love being here. Her trick did a good job of getting me back here to remind me of that.”
“Even breathing the air here feels like therapy.” I inhaled deeply and picked up notes of garden soil, the faint whiff of freshly cut grass from a neighbor’s yard, and a freshness that I couldn’t describe but that was the essence of Creekville.
“Very true. Almost as good as Gran’s hugs. Speaking of which, I better get back to her. I promised I’d play cards with her and Mary. I’m sure they’d love it if you joined us. You should know that Gran cheats like a senator.”
Spending the afternoon playing cards and laughing with them sounded perfect, but I needed to reinforce our new friendship boundary with some time and distance. And honestly, I probably needed the reinforcement more than he did as he rose from the porch and stretched for a minute, the hem of his shirt creeping up enough to let me peek at his washboard abs.
I glanced over at Miss Lily’s house to distract myself. “Thanks, but I’m going to spend some time prepping fungi for class on Monday. Try not to be jealous of my exciting life.”
“Then I’ll head back. See you around, Brooke Spencer.”
“See you around, Ian Greene.”
I watched him walk away. That had gone exactly like I wanted it to. So why did it feel like I was missing out?
Chapter Twenty-One
Ian
Brooke’s “just friends” talk made perfect sense. It was also easier said than done. I drove back to DC Sunday night, trying to focus on the Rink case, but thoughts of Brooke slipped in the whole way home. It would always start with wondering how she’d been affected by the predatory senator. It always ended with me thinking about the places I’d like to take her to in DC. Or what we’d do the next weekend at Gran’s. Or making out with her again.
How come stripping wallpaper and hunting mushrooms with her was more entertaining than swanky dinners with gorgeous women?
In the office Monday, Sherrie dropped in to report on her incredibly productive weekend. It was a good distraction from Brooke, and by the time Sherrie was done detailing how she’d met with one of Rink’s victims, I realized we had so much work ahead of us following down leads that I’d easily be working through the upcoming weekend.
It was for the best. I needed a week or two to get Brooke out of my system before I went out to visit Gran again.
By Thursday, Brooke was still on my mind. A lot. More than other “friends” had ever been on my mind. I hadn’t been so fixated on a girl since high school. I was tempted to drive out to Gran’s tomorrow anyway, but it would only make it worse.
Instead, I called a woman I’d met at an embassy party a few weeks before. What was her name? Charlotte. She was a human rights attorney working on building a case against a small Asian country I’d barely heard of.
She agreed to dinner for Friday night, and when I picked her up, she was as attractive as I remembered. She was smart and funny, though her humor had a bite to it as she pilloried the opposing counsel on her case. But as interesting as her work was, I found my mind wandering.
What was Brooke up to? Were she and Gran having dinner? Had Mary made roast again? Because her roast still beat the thirty-dollar steak I was eating.
After I had to force my focus back to Charlotte for the fifth time, I made a mental note: stay away from Creekville and Brooke for at least another week.
I wouldn’t be that guy, the one who thought he knew better than a woman did what she needed for herself. Brooke seemed very sure of who she was and what she needed. Until I could show up well and truly as her friend and only her friend, I’d stay away a little longer.
It helped that the Rink case kept me busy through the weekend. Sherrie’s source had worked in the senator’s office five years previously—before Brooke had gotten there—and while she said the senator didn’t do anything that bordered on assault, he’d definitely veered into harassment. She didn’t want to come forward without anything more than comments he made that could be twisted to look innocent, but she’d provided names of other employees past and present who she’d heard through the whisper network might have bigger grievances.
Tracking them down and combing through their social media was enough to keep me from getting in the car and driving out to Gran’s. The diversion felt like it was working until Gran’s name flashed in my phone on Sunday afternoon.
“Ian-boy, why didn’t you come see me this weekend?”
“I told you, Gran. I’m slammed at work.”
“I have Wi-Fi, you know. You can work from here and at least I’d see you some instead of none.”
“Ah, Gran, you know I want to. But to be honest, I’m trying to stay out of Brooke’s way a little bit too.”
“Why? You should be in that girl’s way as much as possible. She’s good for you.”
“Maybe, but she only wants to be friends.”
Gran scoffed. “She most certainly does not.”
“I ate lunch on her porch last weekend, and her exact words were, ‘Let’s just be friends.’ I have to respect that.”
I listened while Gran muttered a bit, but she’d covered up the receiver, so I couldn’t be sure what she said. Must be some cussing in there or she would have said it straight to me.
“Gran?” I prodded when she fell silent.
“Who knew she’d be the hard one in this equation?” she grumbled.
“Leave her alone, Gran. I’m respecting her wishes. You’re supposed to tell me what a good boy I am.”
“You are a good boy, but Brooke could use a spanking.”
“She’s fine. I’ll get over it. I even went on a date Friday.” It was a strategic error to bring it up. I’d meant to distract her. Instead, Gran dug in.
“How’d it go?”
“Fine. Good dinner, good company.”
“Don’t lie to Gran.”
“I’m not. She was a nice lady with lots of interesting things to say.”
“You were bored.” Gran’s voice held such a note of certainty that I couldn’t deny it.
“How do you know?”
“Ian, how many times do I have to tell you: if you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you’ve always got. And you always date the same kind of woman.”
“There’s nothing wrong with the women I date.”
“Except that they’re all in DC. I know you like women with strong personalities to stand up to you and busy careers so they understand your devotion to yours. Am I wrong?”
“No. But there’s nothing wrong with a strong-willed career woman.”
“Nothing wrong at all,” she agreed. “And that’s exactly what Brooke is and why I picked her for you. She was just smart enough to leave DC before the city started eating her up. She throws herself into her work here as much as anyone you’re going to date
in that town. That place is giving you a hard crust, Ian. It’s not good for you. It would be different if you were spending time with the good people there. But you’re always dealing with the rats and weasels.”
She wasn’t wrong. There was no point in arguing, but I tried. “I like Brooke, but I’m not what Brooke wants. Give me a couple of weeks to get her out of my system before I come back around.”
“Fools, the both of you,” she declared. “Neither of you knows what you need.”
“Can I just get a gold star for respecting her wishes?”
More grumbling. “Fine. But stop dating lawyers.”
I decided to ignore Gran’s advice and went out with a couple more lawyers in the next two weeks in between working on the Rink case. They were both attractive, smart, and ultimately like every other woman I’d dated since graduating from law school. Both dates only made me think of how easy it was to hang out with Brooke.
Luckily, work kept me too busy to dwell on it much. We were so close with the Rink case. All we needed was a witness willing to go on record about her experiences with him. If we got one, another would follow. But all of them were either bound by non-disclosure agreements or too worried about the senator’s reach to come forward.
“Keep looking,” I ordered Sherrie after our fifth victim declined to go public. “There are more out there, and one of them will eventually help us take this guy down.”
“You got it, boss,” she said, rising from her seat. “Hey, not to overstep, but I have a niece coming into town who I think you’d like. What do you think about me bringing her by to meet you? Maybe you guys could grab lunch or something.”
“Sure, that sounds great. Just promise not to quit on me if we don’t hit it off.”
“Never, boss. I’ll bring her by Friday. She’s a cutie. Look,” she said, pulling up a photo to show me. Her niece was a striking brunette with dark eyes and bold red lipstick.
“Cutie is underselling it. But can she carry on a conversation?”
“Top of her class at the Kennedy Institute,” she said proudly.
Kiss Me Now: A Romantic Comedy Page 16
