Too Friendly to Date. Nicole Helm

Like this afternoon when she’d wiped baby spit-up off his back. That was a weird moment. Weird in its domesticity and proximity and everything.

       Christ, what are you doing?

      He was going to do a little restoration work, that was what he was doing. He nodded, following Leah to her extra room. He’d lose himself in measuring and planning and he wouldn’t think about Leah that way and if he did...

      Grace’s words niggled at him. Be careful with her. I don’t want to see her get hurt.

      Aaaand now he felt vaguely sleazy even if he did consider Grace’s admonitions ridiculous.

      He needed to start dating again. All this alone time really screwed with his mind.

      “Ah, my precious.” He set his toolbox down, immediately going for the measuring tape and notebook he’d jotted notes down in the other day. “How can you stand it?”

      “The same way I stand a lot of things. Willful ignorance,” she muttered. Then she glanced around the room. “We have four days. What can we do?”

      “I don’t have any pressing business this week. I can get the floor done tomorrow.”

      “Too much damage to get it done in one day even if I help you. Besides, I don’t have the money for this.”

      “Well...”

      “No.”

      He hated the way she shut him down before he even suggested anything. She was always doing that. As if she could read his mind. Except, obviously she couldn’t or they would be doing a lot more interesting things than talking about money and floors.

      Or maybe she was just being sensible. Which was also quintessentially Leah.

      “A loan.”

      “You already sign off on my paycheck, asshole. You’re not giving me money.”

      “Asshole? Seriously? Calling the man who signs your checks ‘asshole’ seems like a bad move.”

      She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Oh, you are giving me a headache.”

      “You invested in MC. We can cash you out.”

      She dropped her arm, blinked incredulously. “So then I’m not invested in MC?”

      Okay, he hadn’t thought that through. “Just take a damn loan, Leah.”

      “Take a damn step back, Jacob.” She glared, so he glared back. This was often where they ended up. And yet, at the end of the day, they still walked away friends.

      It was one of the few things in his life he couldn’t work out.

      “Why are you really here?” she asked, sounding far more exhausted than she looked.

      She looked rumpled and pretty. Usually she had that tough-girl exterior, all put together like armor. But in her slouchy clothes and with her messy hair, obviously tired and fed up with him, she looked infinitely touchable. “Do you really want to know?”

      She looked away. “No,” she grumbled. “You’re right. I don’t.”

      “Well, then let’s talk about drywall.”

      “No. I’m closing the door. They’re not going to see it, and on the off chance they ask why my contractor boyfriend hasn’t had his grubby paws all over it, I’ll tell them the truth. I can’t afford it. I have one guest room suitable for my parents, and Marc can crash comfortably on the pullout couch. It’s fine.”

      Another thing he couldn’t work out was how easily she irritated the crap out of him just by being so damn reasonable. Because she wasn’t wrong, and he wasn’t right and he hated that.

      “Fine. You’re right.”

      “I’m sorry—can you repeat that?”

      He scowled. “Bite me.”

      She smiled and it didn’t take that clingy red dress from the party for him to think about the fact her bedroom was right across the hall.

      Yeah, seriously, why had he come here? Did he really think he was just going to walk in and redo this room? No, he’d been thinking...well, not thinking. Feeling. Restless.

      Maybe he needed to tell Grace to be his babysitter because he couldn’t trust himself with the idea of a “thing” hanging between them.

      “Why don’t we talk about why you really came here?”

      “I thought you didn’t want to.”

      “Well, maybe we need to.” She looked up at him, brow furrowed, blue-green eyes shading toward blue in the darker light. “Why did you kiss me?”

      Full truth or half-truth? In this case, as much as he wanted to let the full truth go, the half-truth was the right way to go. Knowing Leah had some kind of low-level interest in him didn’t change a thing because she hadn’t acted on it. Not once in five years.

      And he hadn’t, either. The red dress certainly wasn’t the first time he’d thought of Leah inappropriately. This whole pretending-to-be-involved thing was bringing it to the forefront, but he’d been reasonable for five years, too.

      Maybe if he wrote it on his palms he’d remember that before barreling over here whole hog again. Yeah, half-truth was the way to go. “We’re going to have to.”

      “Why on earth would we have to?” Throwing her hands in the air, she stalked away from him, then back. “People don’t make out in front of their parents.”

      “It was a peck on the lips. Your parents are going to expect that. If there aren’t at least some teeny tiny gestures of affection, they’re going to think we’re not happy, and if your mom really is so desperate for you to have a significant other, she’s not going to want to see you unhappy.”

      “But...”

      “You know I’m right. I’m sorry kissing me was such a terrible hardship for you, but this was your idea.”

      She didn’t say anything about it being a hardship or not, and maybe it was idiotic of him to hope she would. Maybe actually kissing her had killed whatever “thing” Grace thought Leah had for him, because it had been the lamest kiss of all time. And maybe that was a good thing. Too bad it hadn’t done the same for him.

      “Who knew you could think like this?” she finally said.

      “Like what?”

      “Like...all devious and good at lying. I just... It’s not something I would’ve given you credit for.”

      “Leave it to you, Leah, to give someone credit for being devious and good at lying. I told you I’ve had practice.”

      “But you won’t tell me what. Is MC some kind of drug front?”

      He spared her a withering look. “Really?”

      She crossed her arms over her chest, stubborn glare fixed on her face. “Tell me.”

      He could argue. He could walk away. He could do a lot of things, but, eh, why not tell her? Maybe she’d trust some of his suggestions if he did. “Okay, you asked for it. When I was in high school, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer.”

      Her expression, her stance, it all softened. “I...didn’t know that.”

      “Neither do I, technically.”

      “Huh?”

      “Mom didn’t want to tell anyone. Not wanting people to worry and all that bullshit. Grace found out somehow, but they decided to keep it from me.”

      “But you knew.”

      “Of course I knew. But they didn’t want me to, so I pretended like I didn’t. I figured I could give them that. But, let me tell you, it wasn’t easy to do. It is not