His response was, “Is this a deal breaker for you?”

I’d flipped up the top of the coffeemaker and turned to him while I poured the water in seeing he was preparing to open the fridge.

That was when I said, “I’ll take that as a no.”

He stood, fingers curled around the fridge’s door handle and his eyes leveled on me.

“Babe, I listen to Credence, the Eagles, Santana, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Thorogood, shit like that and pretty much anything country if a chick ain’t singin’ it. Does that sound like a man who’d like Fiona Apple?”

“No,” I replied. “It sounds like a man in dire need of a crash course in three decades of music. The boys are back from Vietnam, Brock, follow me into the new millennium.”

He grinned at me and muttered, “Smartass,” before he opened the fridge door and stuck his head into it.

I was feeling warm gushiness in my belly due to his grin and seeing his head stuck in my fridge when I heard my cell ring.

I shoved the coffeepot under the coffeemaker and moved to my purse on the kitchen counter wondering who was calling me at that ungodly hour and why. Then I pulled out my phone, looked at the display and saw it was Martha.

Damn.

I hit the button on the screen to take the call and put it to my ear.

“Hey, honey,” I greeted. “What’s up?”

“His filthy, rusted, beat up, in desperate need of a trade up truck is still in front of your house, that’s what’s up,” was Martha’s greeting and my eyes moved out the kitchen doorframe toward the front window which was still covered by closed blinds.

Then I asked, “How do you know that?”

“Because I swung by your place on my way to work to check and see how crazy, stupid you’re being with a smokin’ hot guy and I found out you’re being off-the-charts crazy, stupid with a smokin’ hot guy.”

“Martha!” I snapped.


“Am I wrong or did his truck not start last night and he hitched a ride home?” she asked.

My eyes went to the microwave then they went to the kitchen counter. “I cannot believe you. You are the one who’s crazy. First, you don’t leave for work for an hour and second, my house is thirty minutes out of your way to get to work.”

“I am committed to the mission of stopping you from making another very bad mistake,”

she returned.

I heard the fridge close but I didn’t need to hear it to be very aware that Brock was in the room and he could hear every word.

“I can’t talk about this now,” I told her. “Come by the bakery tonight after work. We’ll have a cupcake and a chat.”

“Girl, I’m single and my best friend just dropped ten pounds and got a three hundred dollar hairstyle. There is no way I’m eating one of your cupcakes because eating one means eating four and I don’t need those cupcakes on my fat ass when I’m out on the prowl with you. No one looked at me before, what with you and your bodacious ta-ta’s and the look on your face that says to all comers, ‘Isn’t it sweet, the whole world is like Disneyland!’ I eat your cupcakes which never fail to settle on my ass, I’ll become invisible.”

“That isn’t true,” I told her.

“Which part?” she shot back.

“All of it,” I answered instantly.

“Girl, wake… up. ”

I sighed. Then my eyes moved to Brock to see him, hips against the counter, open jug of milk in his hand and I was pretty certain I missed him drinking straight from it.

A drawback.

He grinned at me and I felt the sweet hum in the air, saw his eyes dancing and knew he was grinning in order not to burst out laughing.

Okay, cancel drawback. He could drink straight from the milk jug all he wanted as long as he filled my kitchen with that great vibe and grinned at me while looking all morning hot guy.

“Hello!” Martha snapped in my ear and I jerked my eyes away from Brock.

“I’m here,” I told her.

“Ohmigod, he’s right there muddling your head,” she muttered.

She wasn’t wrong about that.

Time to get serious.

“Martha, really, honey, we need to talk.”

“Shit.” She was still muttering.

“It’s important,” I whispered and felt the amused Brock vibe flatten but the kitchen filled with warmth.

Martha heard my tone, read it and immediately gave in. “All right but we’re not meeting at the bakery for cupcakes. You’re coming over and I’m making salad.”

I blinked at the counter. “You’re making salad?”

“I’m making salad.”

“Honey, the last time I had dinner at your house, you fried celery.”

The warmth in the room remained but the hum came back and it was heralded in by Brock roaring with laughter.

My eyes cut to him and I bugged them out but he ignored my hint, kept laughing and did it shaking his head.

“I hear he found that amusing,” Martha noted irritably.

I looked away from Brock and pointed out, “Martha, babe, you fried celery. Anyone would find that amusing.”

“I’m an experimental chef,” she fired back.


This was true. But she was not an altogether successful one.

I sighed again.

Then I suggested, “How about you come over here and I’ll make salads.”

“Will smokin’ hot guy be there?”

“His name is Brock,” I whispered.

“Will smokin’ hot but bad for you Brock be there?” she amended.

“I don’t know,” I told her the truth. “But what I have to say won’t wait and he knows about it anyway so if he is, you’ll deal. If he isn’t, he isn’t. Yeah?”

Silence.

Then, “So this isn’t about him?”

“No, it isn’t. It’s about something I should have told you awhile ago but I didn’t and I need to…” My eyes slid to Brock and saw his were on me as I saw he was moving toward me. Then he made it to me. Then his arm wrapped around my belly, the front of his body hit the back of mine, I felt his heat then I felt his face in my neck. Only then did I continue, “I need to get rid of it so it’s time to tell you about it.”

Straight off the bat, she whispered her guess, “Damian.”

That’s when I knew she knew or she might not actually know but she sensed there were deeper issues at play but she backed off and let me deal with them and when I stuck to my guns and got shot of my ex-husband without sinking into the depths of despair, she gave me that play.

“Yes,” I whispered back.

Brock’s arm gave me a squeeze.

I closed my eyes.

“All right, babe, I’ll be there at seven.”

“Martha?” I called.

“Yeah, Tess,” she answered.

“Love you, honey.”

“Love you too, babe.”

“But, you keep stalking me, that love with die,” I warned on a tease.

“Whatever,” she muttered, knowing it was a tease then disconnected.

I hit the screen to end call and dropped my phone on the counter. When I did this, Brock turned me so we were face to face and both his arms were around me.

“Not my biggest fan,” he muttered but he didn’t appear the least broken up about it.

“You want to hang with me, you might want to put some work into that,” I suggested.

“Right,” he replied then said, “No, babe. I’ll tell you now, she don’t like me, she don’t like me and I don’t give a fuck.”

Hm. Another drawback.

“She’s my best friend,” I reminded him.

“If she is, she’ll come to see what’s good for you and she’ll sort her shit out. If she’s a different kind of woman, she won’t. Instead, she’ll see green and won’t clue in that men do not want high maintenance drama queens so much they steer well clear and until she shifts that shit outta her life, it’s gonna be a lonely one. Unlike her friend who sees a man drinking outta her milk jug, processes that it’s highly unlikely she’s gonna break him of that habit seein’ as he’s forty-five and still does it and has since he was a kid, lets it go and moves on all in the expanse of about a second instead of throwing a shit fit about it which gets her nowhere, is a waste of energy and leaves both involved feeling like garbage.”

Well, I had to admit, all that was interesting and insightful and weirdly mature.

Still.

“Um… well, now that we’re on that subject, it’s somewhat unhygienic for you to drink out of the milk jug.”


“Babe, I had my tongue in your mouth for ten minutes this morning. How’s that any different?”

I tipped my head to the side while considering this point.

Then I shared, “Your point holds merit.”

He burst out laughing and in the middle of it, buried his face in my neck so when he was done he could kiss me there.

This was nice as in way nice.

He used to do that all the time too.

And I’d missed it.

Then his head came up and his eyes captured mine.

“You all right with me jumpin’ in the shower before I head out?”

Brock naked in my shower and all the delightful visions that would generate that I could pull out and turn over in my head anytime I wanted?

Uh…

Yeah!

“Sure,” I said.

His mouth hitched up on one side and I liked that too.

Then his semi-smile faded, his arms squeezed and he asked, “You want me here for salad?”

“Do you want to be here for salad?” I asked back.

“What I want is for you to tell me what you want,” he replied.

I thought about this.

Then I said hesitantly, “Maybe not.”

“Right,” he muttered.

“It’s not that I –” I hastened to add but he cut me off with another arm squeeze and he dipped his face close.

“Baby, it’s cool. I’ll show tonight around the same time as I showed last night. Good?”