“Haven’t decided yet,” Eli muttered, pawing through the crap on his workbench.
“Wait a minute…I’d planned on staging the house anyway—if you haven’t sold the bed by the first open house, could I borrow it?”
Eli looked over. “You serious?”
“Absolutely. I’ve still got the old queen mattress and box-springs in my garage from when I changed out the master bedroom…” She shut her eyes for a second, then said, “And I’m sure I can rustle up a comforter and some pillows. And who knows, maybe somebody will buy it. So how about it?”
“Well…okay, then. Yeah. Thanks.” Eli spotted the shirt jacket he’d been wearing the day before; sure enough, the wallet was in the chest pocket.
“Any other furniture just lying around?” Tess said, craning her neck.
“Sorry, no. Although…” He glanced over at a stack of reclaimed lumber he’d been hoarding for more than a year. “I might be able to throw together a dining table and a couple of benches. If that would work.”
“Oh, don’t go to any extra trouble—”
“I wouldn’t be.” He held up the wallet. “Got it. Ready?”
As they traipsed back front, though, she stopped for a moment to chat with Jose—apparently his son and Enrique had been in boot camp together—and something warm bloomed inside him as Eli realized her friendliness wasn’t some salesperson schtick, but stemmed from a genuine concern about how other people were getting on. Not that she couldn’t get as bristly as the next person, if the situation—or the offense—warranted it. But neither did she let cynicism infect her relationships.
Not all of them anyway.
“Teo clearly thinks the world of you,” she said once they were on the road again. “For giving him and Luis work.”
“Just glad this job came along so I could. We’ve known the family forever. Mom and Teo’s wife, Luisa, do a lot of church stuff together.”
“Here,” she said, fishing a small pad and pen out of her purse on the console between them as she drove one-handed. Eli nearly had a stroke. “Write down their number,” she said, wagging them at him. “In case I hear of any other work in the area.”
Eli pulled out his cell, clicking through his contacts menu until he found Luis’s number. As he wrote it down, he slid his eyes to Tess. “Please tell me you’re not one of those women who puts on her makeup while driving.”
“Dear God, no,” she said on a short laugh. “Ricky hated that—” She hissed in a quick breath. “Sorry. Sometimes I forget. That he’s not really part of my life anymore.”
Replacing the pad and pen in her purse, Eli said, “Does it bother you to talk about him?”
A shrug preceded, “Depends on the day. Sometimes, yeah. Sometimes not.” She shoved a tuft of hair behind her ear; it popped right back out. “Since there’s nobody to talk to, though, it’s kinda moot.”
“What about your aunt? Or your friends?”
They drove probably another half mile or so before she quietly said, “Dumping on the people you care about gets old real fast.”
“Even though you’d do the same for them.”
She shot him a glance. “And you know this how?”
“Because I know—or knew, at any rate—you. In school, you were always the sounding board for everybody else, the guys, as well as the girls. It was weird,” he said when she softly laughed. “So how is it everybody can bitch to you, but you don’t feel right about letting somebody else bear the burden from time to time?”
Her hands tightened around the steering wheel. At perfect ten-to-two driving school formation. “Maybe because I don’t feel I need to, because I’m doing okay—”
“Like hell,” he said, and her eyes flashed to his. “I was there, Tess,” he said when she looked away, her mouth set in an angry line. “People who’re ‘okay’ don’t have wild sex with their old boyfriends.”
“And I could’ve gone all day without you bringing that up.”
“It happened, Tess. You can’t deny it. And God knows I’m not gonna. And it seems to me maybe you better figure out why it happened. Because if the earth tilts on its axis and we ever do that again, I wanna make good and sure it’s not because you’re mad at the world and taking it out on me.”
“If we ever…?” Her laugh this time was sharp. “I can’t believe you said that.”
“Just saying, if it does.”
“Well, it’s not. So you can put that thought right out of your head.” She paused. “And I thought you didn’t care. About my…” Her lips smushed together. “Motivation.”
“That time, no. Just don’t let it become a habit.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Eli—” When he chuckled, she realized she’d been had. “I hate you,” she said, without heat.
“Ah…just like old times,” he said, propping one boot on the dashboard, earning a disapproving frown. “Do I make you nervous?”
Her head whipped around so fast her sunglasses slipped. “What? No!” When he raised one eyebrow, she released a breath. “Okay, maybe a little—”
“Ha!”
Her mouth turned down at the corners. “It’s…strange being around you again. That’s all.”
“You can say that again,” Eli said nonchalantly, slouching down as much as the seat belt would let him, his hands folded over his stomach.
“Do I…make you nervous?”
“Heck, yeah. ’Cause it’s like I should know you, you know? Only I don’t. And yet…”
“What?”
He looked at her. “Before, when we were kids? I know ninety, maybe ninety-five percent of the relationship was about body contact. But the five to ten percent that wasn’t?” Focusing back out the windshield, he said, “I really liked you, Tess. Hell, I thought you were the coolest person I’d ever known.”
“Oh, God, Eli—”
“Don’t go getting your panties in a twist. I’m not tryin’ to score or anything. Exactly.” He ducked, chuckling, when one hand flew over the gearshift to smack at him. “But I guess what I’m trying to say is, some tiny part of that—it’s still alive. On my side of the fence anyway. I mean, by rights, this should feel totally bizarre, right? After all those years apart, then us hooking up like that.” He waited for another sputtering explosion that never happened. “And yet in some ways this feels completely natural. Which is what makes it so weird.” He sighed. “Am I making any sense at all?”
The Home Depot in their sights, she met his eyes. “Yeah. You are.” Turning into the parking lot, she added, “Which only goes to show how bad off I am.”
However, once in the store, Tess impressed the hell out of him by charging straight to the cabinet section, no veering off down aisles they didn’t need to be. And within maybe thirty seconds of his showing her the few options that were not only in stock, but within their meager budget, she said, “That one. See you in Paint,” and off she went, leaving him to order what they needed. Not surprisingly, by the time he caught up with her in the paint department, the first of four different colors were being mixed up.
Leaning against the paint counter, Eli softly laughed.
“What’s