“I’ve got a date, and I don’t want to have to drive home and back.”
“And do we have Stuntman to thank for this date?” I asked, hoping I sounded adequately unaffected by this news. As I should be. The microwave beeped and I handed him back his plate.
“You were right. He’s a hunting dog,” he mumbled.
“What was that? I couldn’t hear you.” I grinned.
He gave me a sideways smile. “He’s a hunting dog. Are you happy?”
He’d taken Stuntman to the Home Depot on my challenge and he’d come back saying only, “Let me know when you want to do the photo shoot.”
He put an exploratory finger into the center of the lasagna, testing the temperature, and seemed satisfied. He put his finger in his mouth to suck the sauce off it and started eating. I put my own plate in the microwave and leaned back on the counter to wait.
My cell phone pinged.
Sloan: Are you behaving yourself with your cute carpenter?
I grinned mischievously.
Kristen:Nope. He just put a finger in my lasagna.
Sloan:WTH?!
I snorted.
Sloan:Okay, now my eyelid is twitching. Thanks.
Triggering Sloan’s nervous eye twitch was like hitting the bell on a strongman game. I loved it. You’d think after twelve years she’d be desensitized to my sense of humor, but she never failed to get flustered.
Sloan: Remember, you can look but you can’t touch. Unless you break up with Tyler
I narrowed my eyes. She’d love that.
Kristen:Not a chance.
Sloan’s prejudices against my boyfriend boiled down to, “I just don’t see it.”
It wasn’t him and me she couldn’t see. It was him and us.
I guess I kind of got why. I mean, Tyler didn’t ride a motorcycle. He didn’t hunt. Didn’t care for poker. Preferred an expensive glass of wine to whiskey or beer. Liked theater over movies. Brandon and he had very little to discuss the one time they met except for the Marine Corps, and Tyler’s job was so specialized they couldn’t even really connect on that front.
Tyler didn’t fit into Sloan’s vision of our future, full of pool parties and barbecues. He was more of a cocktail-party and charcuterie-plate kind of guy.
I didn’t like charcuterie plates. They always had weird stuff on them.
I took my lasagna from the microwave and sat down across from Josh.
“That party is coming up soon,” he said. “Do you mind if I got ready here then too? It’s thirty minutes in the wrong direction if I go home.”
Sloan had a dinner party planned for stuffing wedding invitations into envelopes and putting together the wedding favors. It was a mandatory bridal party activity and in typical Sloan fashion, she wanted everyone dressed to the nines to take pictures for Instagram.
“Sure. Wanna share an Uber? I want to drink.”
“Yeah, sounds good.”
I smiled. I liked that we were going together. Aside from being fodder for my fantasies, Josh bore the distinction of being one of the few people who didn’t annoy me. I liked spending time with him.
A dangerous circumstance to be sure.
My cell phone rang and I answered it, leaning over in my chair to grab my order clipboard off the counter. I wrote the order down and hung up.
Josh gave me an amused smile. “Wow, you’re so different on the phone. So professional.”
“I only cuss on business calls when I’m upselling my Son of a Bitch and Crazy Little Fucker shirts.”
Josh chuckled and cut another bite of lasagna with the side of his fork. “What did they order? Any stairs?”
A part of me hoped he asked because he liked coming over and wanted a reason. That same part of me purposely dropped lasagna on my shirt as penance. If I had one more inappropriate thought about Josh, I was going to have to see if I had some old curlers to put in my hair.
“He has my stairs in every room of his mansion already,” I said, wiping the red sauce stain with a napkin. “Dale’s my best customer. He’s got six Maltese and millions. He owns a strip club in downtown LA. Spent two years in prison for tax evasion. I love the guy. Every month he orders twenty-four shirts for his dogs. He likes me to deliver them in person.”
His handsome brow furrowed. “You deliver goods to a felon by yourself?”
I gave him a cocked eyebrow. “He’s eighty-three. He’s lonely. And how dangerous can an arthritic old man with a ponytail and a dog named Sergeant Fluff McStuffs actually be?”
He chuckled. “Fluff McStuffs? Do all little dogs have stupid names?” He took a drink of his soda.
I balled up the saucy napkin and picked up my fork. “You should name any dog according to how it will sound while yelling his name and chasing him down the street in a bathrobe.”
He laughed so suddenly Coke dribbled down his chin. He choked a moment and I handed him a napkin.
“So have you planned the bachelor party yet?” I asked once he’d recovered.
“I’m working on it. It’s not for another month and a half, so I have time. How about you?” He was still smiling and shaking his head.
“We’re going to a day spa first. Then Hollywood in a limo to go barhopping. And I’m making her a suck-for-a-buck shirt,” I said.
His forehead wrinkled. “A what?”
“Hold on—I’ll get it.” I went to my room and grabbed the shirt I’d been working on. When I came back out and held it up, he stared.
“Are those Life Savers?”
I’d sewn the candies onto the shirt every inch or so apart. “Yeah. Random guys pay a dollar per candy and they have to bite it off her. The ones on her nipples are five dollars. She’s going to hate it.”
He started laughing again.
“Where are you taking Brandon?” I draped the shirt carefully over the back of a chair and sat back down.
He chewed thoughtfully. “I’m thinking Vegas. No strip clubs. Maybe a nice resort, a round of golf. A steak house. This job is definitely helping me with the budget.”
You’d never find Brandon in a strip club. It spoke to their friendship that Josh knew that. I could see Brandon going to be a good sport, but that wasn’t his scene. He was kind of introverted. He didn’t like dancing, wouldn’t go near a karaoke bar. “He’d probably like a straight-razor shave. Maybe a bourbon tasting.”
He gave me an approving nod. “I like that. Anything else?”
“Can you get a motorcycle? He loves his bike. He’d want to ride there.”
That earned me a dimpled smile. “You’re good at this.”
“I’m full of ideas. Too bad they’d never let us do something fun for the walk down the aisle. Sloan wants it all dignified.” I rolled my eyes.
“What did you have in mind?”
“I don’t know. Something viral video–worthy. Maybe the lift from Dirty Dancing or something.”
“We still could. It could be a surprise. You know they’d love it once they saw it.”
I eyed him. “Do you have those kinds of dance moves?”
“Hell yeah, I’ve got those moves. Nobody puts Baby in the corner. Let me know when you want to start practicing.”
God, those dimples.
The corners of my lips turned up. “You and I might just be the perfect best man–maid of honor match ever.”
He smiled at me a flicker of a second too long and something fluttered in my stomach.
I couldn’t help but think we were well matched in more ways than one.
And mismatched in the worst way possible.