Life Rewired (Aspen Friends, Book 3) (16 page)

A doorbell interrupted my closet organization. I’d been reduced to closet organization for my evening’s activities because I couldn’t interest anyone in going out on a Tuesday night. It needed organizing, and I’d make some donation center very happy tomorrow when I dropped off all my gently used but mostly forgotten clothes. A benefit to wearing cargo shorts and company shirts half the year was that a few pairs of jeans completed my wardrobe the rest of the year. Some of these clothes followed me here from college. It would be good to be rid of them.

The doorbell sounded again. I growled, wanting to shout through the connecting wall to my neighbor’s unit. She was always home by now and always entertaining at this hour. If I heard her doorbell, surely she could. Then I realized it was my doorbell.

I dumped a pile of old sweats into the nearly full donation bag and went to the door. Falyn waited on the landing looking tired and a little sad. I sucked in a breath, feeling a flush come over my skin.

“Hi. Are you busy?”

“No. Come in.” I stepped back to let her brush by. The smell of smoke wafted off her. Guess she’d upped her once a week habit to every day. I shouldn’t be disappointed. It wasn’t my body, but the odor wasn’t great.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her tone and expression showing every bit of her sorrow. “I’ve been a little wrapped up and a lousy friend. Please accept my apology.”

She was just full of surprises tonight. “It’s okay. You don’t have to apologize. I don’t know how I’d be if the police were hassling me for no reason.”

Her hazel eyes skated away from mine, searching the apartment before coming back with a determined look. “It doesn’t excuse me blowing you off. I’m sorry for that.”

It seemed like she was leaving something out. Not that it mattered, I was just glad to have her here tonight. So glad that I hugged her.

She went rigid for a second then relaxed into my arms. My face brushed against her hair. The smoky smell blasted me as if she’d blown it right into my eyes, but I didn’t care. She felt so good. Her long arms clasped around me, hands gripping my sides. Her heart beat against mine, heavy thumps that felt as good as her hug. We held each other for a long time, letting it release our tension.

“The Rockies are on,” I said when she started to pull back. “We can make your fabulous burritos and watch.”

She started to smile but concern clouded her expression. “What’s wrong with your eyes?”

My hand came up, fingers touching eyelids that were somehow wet. Odd, I wasn’t sad. I was just the opposite now that she was here.

“Oh, jeez, you’re allergic to cigarette smoke, aren’t you?” She gripped my shoulders and stared at me with sorrow. “Why didn’t you just say so when you found out I smoked?”

I blinked my watery eyes to clear them. Allergic to smoke? Was that a thing? I knew it bothered me and I could smell it from yards away, but allergic? “I don’t think I am.”

“But you can smell it on me, can’t you?” She stepped back. “I’m sorry, Molly.

“It’s okay.” I closed the distance between us. “I never noticed it was a problem. I just thought I didn’t like the smell.”

“It affects you pretty badly.” Her hands came up to cup my face, thumbs brushing away the moisture from under my eyes. “Well, that’s the best motivation I could have for quitting.”

My eyes popped wide. She’d quit so it wouldn’t bother me? Amazing, and one of the main reasons I liked her so much. “You don’t have to do that.”

“I will. I don’t like it anyway. It’s just a habit I picked up in…a bad habit. It doesn’t help with stress as much as it used to.” She brushed some stray strands of her hair off her cheek. They fell into place at the wave near her ear. No hat hair today, nothing but bouncy, shiny blond tresses. “I’ll head home to shower and change. Do you want to come over and watch the game there?”

She might change her mind if she got back to her place. If I went over there again, she might decide to push me away like she had the last time. I couldn’t risk that happening. “Use the shower here. I’ve got clothes you can borrow.”

She squinted and tilted her head. “You sure?”

“Yeah, I’ll get the stuff for dinner started. You know where the spare towels are.” I felt my face get hot and looked away. Yeah, she knew where the spare towels were. The last time she was here she’d used one, put it in the laundry, and woken me to say goodbye after we’d made love most of the night. “I’ll set out some clothes for you.”

She studied me for a minute. Perhaps she was also remembering the last time she’d used my shower, or maybe she was thinking the same thing I was. If she went home, we’d lose this fragile reconnection. “Okay.”

The shower flipped on as I was pulling tomatoes, cheese, and lettuce out of the fridge. I almost started humming, thinking about how happy it made me that my friend felt comfortable here. That she’d shower because she knew the smoke bothered me. That she wanted to stay.

I ventured into the interrupted chaos of my closet to find a Rockies jersey and my best pair of shorts and set them outside the bathroom door. I turned and hurried back to the kitchen, fighting the desire to open the bathroom door and place the clothes inside. My glass shower door wouldn’t hide anything. I’d be glued in place staring at her wet, lean, sexy, showering body.

Friends. Buddies. Chums. Pals. No looking or thinking about naked, sexy, wet, friend bodies. Or how her hipbones created these enticing little dips that drew my eyes to the soft, trimmed curls on her mound. Or where her collarbones stood out, pointing to that lickable hollow at the base of her throat. And the upward tilt of her squeezable breasts. I should have stayed awake to study her longer. Touch her longer.

No. Bad buddy, bad.

I reached into the fridge for the avocados I’d picked up hoping she’d follow through on her promise to make fresh guacamole some time. She could do it tonight. She liked cooking. I didn’t unless I was helping her. Typically I lived on whatever I could grill, sandwiches, and frozen dinners.

I started chopping the tomatoes when the bathroom door opened and closed. She’d found the clothes. I tried not to imagine her wrapped in a towel, but it was difficult. Had I done this with other friends? Did I picture Vivian naked when we’d first met? I know I’d never crushed on her because she was way too gorgeous for me. I never knew why I did that. I was interested in any woman who was a four to an eight on my scale. When they were tens like Viv, it was like my brain shut off the attraction part. No, I never pictured Vivian naked. J&B, sure, many, many times, and I definitely wouldn’t bed them. So there, it was a normal thing for me. Attractive woman, picture her naked.

Falyn appeared looking far better than I ever did in my baseball jersey. “You got a lot done.” She smiled and took a spot next to me. She smelled like my soap and rosemary scented shampoo, both familiar and comforting. “Better?” One eyebrow rose as she glanced at me.

“You didn’t have to.”

She studied my eyes, which no longer felt itchy or watery. “Yes, I did. It won’t happen again.”

I wanted to tell her not to quit smoking for me. I wanted to tell her that she shouldn’t worry about how I reacted to smoke on her clothes and hair. I wanted to tell her that it wasn’t my business what habits she kept or lost, but I didn’t because no one had ever changed their habits for me. No one. And to think she’d try felt really good. Like I was as important to her as she was to me.

That was it, what felt so good about her. I was as important to her as she was to me. I’d never had that either. I felt myself turning to stare at her. Her hair was still wet and looked sexy. Her lips pressed tightly together in concentration while she peeled the avocados. Her contoured jaw tilted down as she worked with her graceful hands.

Heat pulsed out from my chest, flooding my arms and face. My heart twitched and started pumping double-time. Sparks swirled in my stomach. I gripped the counter for balance. This wasn’t how I’d felt about any of the tourist flings. It wasn’t how I’d felt about the snowbirds I’d been involved with. It wasn’t even how I felt about my crushes. This was substantial.

“What?” She noticed I’d stopped slicing the tomatoes. “Did you cut yourself?” She turned and reached for my hand, tenderly inspecting each finger.

“No,” I said in a daze but didn’t pull my hand back.

“Oh, good, you scared me. Cole got a jolt today, and I probably went all grey from the scare.”

The news put the flare of lust in check. “Is he okay?”

“Yeah, he just forgot to throw the breaker first, but it scared both of us. Natalie must have lectured him for a half hour after that.”

I chuckled. Natalie was pretty obsessive about safety. “What do you mean all grey?”

“I’ve been heading that way for a while now.”

My eyes flipped up to her damp hair. The blond looked darker wet. I wanted to reach up and run my fingers through the strands curled over her collar. “You don’t dye your hair?”

“Two years now.”

“No.”

“Same color, just covering the white streak.”

“Premature grey. Hot-Ness!”

She laughed and my heart pumped faster. I hadn’t been kidding, but I let her think I had been. “Just wait, lady. When you get ancient like me, you’ll want to remember what your natural color is before you start dyeing.”

“You’re only four and a half years older.”

“Your body will give out, you’ll groan when you sit and stand, you’ll say things like ‘when I was a kid,’ and you’ll think you’re too young to go grey.”

“You’re definitely too young.”

She gave a wistful smile and went back to stirring the Spanish rice she had in a pan. I tried not to stare, but it wasn’t every day I learned I had actual feelings for someone. Feelings that we’d both decided couldn’t be explored. Or shouldn’t be explored. Or something like that. What had we decided? Oh, yes, not to sleep together because we were better as friends. But that was when sleeping together was just sex.

“Okay, really.” She stopped stirring and focused completely on me. “What’s up? Did your weekend go okay? Any assholes?”

She asked. Tessa, my friend of many years, hadn’t asked. Hadn’t cared enough to ask. I’d known Falyn months rather than years, and she cared enough to be concerned about my work. I really needed to figure out what do to about her.

Vivian asked me to pick her up at the jobsite. Her brother needed her car for some reason and Natalie was giving her nephew driving lessons later. Viv felt like dinner out, which we hadn’t done alone in a while.

I skirted past Natalie’s truck, two other trucks, an SUV, and Falyn’s bike on the now paved driveway up to Vivian’s house. Guess I was early since the whole crew was still there. It would give me a chance to inspect the project a little longer.

Viv’s nephews darted out of the house as I hit the bottom step. I broke into a grin. I had a little love affair going with these cuties. Their mom, Cassie, appeared in the doorway after them, waving hello.

“Hey, guys.” I stopped to say hello. “You helping your aunt build her place?”

“She needs us to help,” Teddy told me.

“I’m sure she does.” I patted the seven-year-old’s hard hat and scooped up his younger brother, Mason, for a surprise squeeze. He giggled and squirmed out of my arms.

“C’mon, Ms. Molly, you got to see what we did.” Mase tugged on my hand.

“We’re late to meet your dad, boys,” Cassie told them, coming forward to give me a quick hug. “Aunt Viv can do the show and tell.”

“Okay,” Mason agreed easily. He never whined. If I ever had kids, I’d want one just like Mase.

“Viv’s upstairs with Sammi.” Cassie herded the boys down the driveway. “You can still make it to Viv’s b-day cookout, can’t you? The usual gang will be there, and Nat’s entire crew is showing up.”