“Not a problem. Can you pick up milk and eggs?” Her eyes sparkled as they met mine, conveying her awareness of how many times we’d enacted this same scene when I was in high school.
“It’s the least I can do.” I paused a beat, as she expected, then added, “Wait, no, that would be nothing. But then I don’t get the car keys.”
“Right again.” She led the way downstairs and dropped them into my open palm. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
I grinned, gesturing at my messy up-do and grungy gray sweats. “It’s tough when you look like this, but I’ll try not to break any hearts.”
Mom smirked. “See you later, Lauren.”
It was half past three on Saturday afternoon as I skipped down the front steps. The house, a two-bedroom shotgun style, looked better than it had in years. Though my mom hadn’t admitted it yet, I suspected she had a guy coming around for upkeep and repairs, maybe more. She might think it would be awkward to tell me she was dating again, but in my view, it was past time. My dad had been gone for ten years, and the divorce had been final for eight. By no means could this be considered a sudden development.
I got into the old Plymouth and started it up. It made sense for me to buy my own car, but I couldn’t afford it at the moment. Ten minutes later, I pulled into the Safeway parking lot. Since I needed lotion and deodorant, I’d get milk and eggs at the same time. No reason to drive farther for more choices. As kids, we used to do crazy shit in the parking lot, mostly because there was nothing else to do. I remembered drinking behind the store and Nadia pushing me around in a shopping cart until management came out to yell at us.
The nostalgia that swept over me was deep and rich; no matter where I went, this would always be home. To a lot of people, Sharon seemed stifling, I guessed, a complete dearth of opportunities, but I hoped to get into computer science and land a job where I could telecommute. I’d always been more into fiddling with programs and apps than anyone else I knew, but I also had causes. So I tried the latter first and discovered I hated it enough to start over, even if it meant losing momentum on the academic track. Nobody knew this—and I’d never admit it—but the reason I flunked out was because I stopped trying. People always seemed to think I must be dumb, possibly because I’m blond and curvy. And that pissed me off.
Six cars in the lot—I counted them as I went inside. No need for a cart. I picked a wheeled basket instead and got the groceries before heading to the small cosmetics section. There, I found Nadia’s brother. As ever, my pulse went into overdrive and my knees went soft. I’d always had this reaction to him; too bad he treated me like an honorary sibling.
Belatedly I noticed he was deliberating the merits of two body sprays. They were both that terrible, smelly stuff that commercials claimed would make guys irresistible to the ladies but really reeked like chemical muskrat death. I mustered some normal and stopped peering around the shelf at him.
“Neither,” I said, stepping into sight. “Please? Have mercy, seriously.”
Rob glanced up in surprise. “Not good, huh?”
“Your sweat smells better, I promise.”
“That’s a weird thing to say, Lauren.” His expression was unreadable, but that was no surprise. Nadia always compared her brother to a tree stump.
I suspected he was more like one of those giant sequoias. There might be all kinds of things going on, but you’d never climb high enough to see it. The worst thing about Robert Conrad? In eighth grade, I had a killer crush on him. He was a senior in high school at the time, lettered in both football and basketball, while I was a chubby little grease spot with braces and a terminal case of the stutters anytime he spoke to me. We’d both moved on from those awkward days, but any time I ran into him, I felt thirteen again, nerves jangling like a car alarm.
In some cases, time was unkind to high school athletes. They lost their hair and muscle tone. But the opposite was true of Rob. He worked construction alongside his dad, and at twenty-five, his shoulders were so broad that I wanted to climb him. Not with the giggly uncertainty of junior high, either. He was all solid muscle, great guns, ripped abs and incredibly defined deltoids. When you added chiseled features, strong jaw, blue-gray eyes and dark hair, it was hard not to drool. But it was so wrong to think that way about my best friend’s brother. I had no idea if he’d noticed my crush back in the day, but if so, he was kind enough to ignore it and not tease me. I’d slept with other guys since then, enjoyed sex just fine, but I still tingled whenever he was nearby.
Yeah, I’m taking that secret to my grave.
“You’re staring.”
Shit. I was.
“Sorry, I was considering some better options for you, cologne-wise, but I don’t think you’ll find anything here.”
He sighed and put the two sprays back. “Avery should buy it then. Because I have no idea what she’s talking about.”
“What did she say?”
My fist balled up, a knee-jerk reaction to hearing about his girlfriend. They’d started dating back in the fall and were still together, apparently. At Thanksgiving, I’d gone home with Nadia, who’d invited my mom and me over to Casa Conrad to eat. Watching Rob with Avery, it had been all I could do not to yank her hair out. She was so beautiful—model thin, with natural red hair, green eyes and the sort of face I’d call ethereal; she could dress up as Titania, the fairy queen, and totally pull it off. That day, he’d taken such great care of her, filling her plate, making sure she had a drink and was never just sitting, lonely. Seeing that made me ache.
“She wants me to be more upscale.”
“What are you, a trendy eatery?”
In my opinion, Rob didn’t need improving. He was rocking those Levi’s, along with a blue plaid flannel shirt and navy down vest. No, he wasn’t a GQ guy, but why the hell would any woman want that from him? Also, I kind of wanted to hug him, if he thought he could buy “upscale” at Safeway.
He laughed. “Not hardly.”
It might not be any of my business, but... “Don’t change for her, okay? You’re great the way you are.”
His eyes widened. Not for the first time, I noted that his irises were a swirl of charcoal and mist with specks of blue, fringed by ridiculously thick black lashes. In a face without such a strong nose and firm chin, those eyes would make him too pretty. When I had sleepovers at Nadia’s, back in high school, I imagined him cornering me and shoving me against the wall, overcome by his unspoken longings. That was pretty much my favorite fantasy when I was sixteen, but Rob never gave any sign he suffered from ungovernable passion.
Too bad.
“That’s not true,” he said quietly.
A little flicker in his eyes, a twist of his mouth, and I got the impression that he was incredibly sad. He didn’t have an expressive face, and truthfully, his at-rest look suggested he didn’t have much going on in his brain box. Behind his back, people had been calling him the quintessential dumb jock for as long as I could remember. The girl he went out with in high school dished about his body, but she never mentioned any other traits. In my rich fantasy life, I’d never wondered about his thoughts or feelings, either, and staring up at him now, a pang of remorse went through me.
“I disagree. But don’t take my word for it,” I said breezily. “I’m just the idiot who flunked out of Mount Albion.”
“Bullshit. You were always on the honor roll along with Nadia. You’re only here because you want to be.”
I was astonished into silence for a few seconds, then I rallied. “That’s a bold statement. What about the love child I’m having?”
His gaze swept down my body, quietly intense. “Nope.”
I