“Wow. Well...” In fact, it looked as if Jake had dropped everything right where he’d stood. “God, Jake, I didn’t realize you were such a slob.”
Jake followed her gaze. “I’m not a slob,” he said. “I’m just busy. And I wasn’t expecting company.”
Obviously.
Anna thought about asking why he didn’t simply walk a few more steps into the bathroom where he could deposit his socks into the dirty clothes hamper rather than leaving them strewn all over the floor. Instead, she focused on being part of the solution rather than nagging him and adding to the problem. She quickly organized the table clutter into neat piles, revealing two placemats underneath, and set out the silverware she’d just washed and dried.
“Where are your napkins?” she asked.
He handed her a roll of paper towels.
This was the first time in the month that she’d been home that they’d cooked at his place. Really, it was just an impromptu meal, but it was just dawning on her how little she’d been over at his place since she’d been back. That was thanks in large part to Jake’s girlfriend. She wondered if Dorenda had seen the mess—or had helped create it—but before she could ask, she realized she really didn’t want to know.
“It must be a pretty serious case of the flu if Angie has been down for two weeks. Has she been to the doctor?”
Jake gave a one-shoulder shrug. “She’s fine. I ran into her at the coffee shop in downtown the other day. She looked okay to me. She’ll probably be back next week.”
Anna balked. “Why do you keep her?”
She crossed the room to straighten the newspapers and corral the socks. She couldn’t just stand there while Jake was cooking and the papers were cluttering up the place and in the back of her mind she could hear him toasting soul mates.
Even that small act of picking up would help work off some of her nervous energy.
“I don’t have time to find someone else,” he said. “Besides, it’s not that bad around here.”
She did a double take, looking back at him to see if he was kidding.
Apparently not.
But even if it looked as if Jake had simply dropped things and left them where they fell, the house wasn’t dirty. It didn’t smell bad. In fact, it smelled like him—like coffee and leather and something else that bridged the years and swept her back to a simpler time before she’d married the wrong man and Jake had become a serial monogamist. She breathed in deeper, wondering if they were still the same people or if the years and circumstances had changed them too much.
She bent to pick up a dog-eared issue of Sports Illustrated that was sprawled on the floor facedown. As she prepared to close it back to its regular shape, she nearly dropped it again when she spied the tiny, silky purple thong hidden underneath. Like a lavender spider. Only it didn’t get up and crawl away.
“Eww.” Anna grimaced. “I think Miss Texas forgot something.”
Jake gave a start as his gaze fell to where Anna pointed.
She reached over and grabbed the poker from the fireplace tool set on the hearth and used it to lift the thong off the ground.
“This is classy. How does a woman forget her underwear?”
He smiled that adorable lopsided smile that always suggested something a little bit naughty. There was no doubt why women fell for him. Heck, she’d fall for him if he weren’t her best friend.
“She carried a big purse,” Jake said. “It was like a portable closet. She probably didn’t leave here commando.” His gaze strayed back to the panties. “Then again, maybe she did.”
Anna raised the poker. The thong resembled a scanty purple flag, which she swiftly disposed of in the trash can.
“She might want that back,” Jake protested.
“Really? You think she’s going to call and ask if you found her underwear?”
They locked gazes.
“If she does—” Anna scowled at him and pointed to the garbage “—it’s right here.”
He was quiet as he pulled out the toaster and put in two slices of whole wheat bread.
Anna returned the poker to its stand.
“Jake, this is why we need to have a heart-to-heart talk about what you want in a woman. It’s no wonder you can’t seriously consider spending the rest of your life with a woman who leaves her panties on your living room floor. Even if she lived here, leaving her panties lying around in the living room wouldn’t be a good sign.”
“I leave my socks on the floor,” he said as he transferred the omelet from the frying pan onto the two plates Anna had set out.
“Yeah, and it wouldn’t take that much more effort to put them in the laundry hamper,” she said. “Do you want orange juice? I need orange juice with my eggs.”
“Sorry, I’m out. I have coffee and there’s more beer. I need to go to the grocery store. I really should go tonight because I’m not going to have time to go later with everything going on this weekend.”
She passed on the beer. Not her favorite thing to drink with eggs. Even if it was dinner. It was one of those combos that just didn’t sound appetizing. She opted for making herself a quick cup of coffee in his single-serving coffee brewer. As she pushed the button selecting the serving size, it dawned on her that even if they had been apart for a long time, she still felt at home with Jake. She could raid his K-Cups and brew herself a cup without asking. Even in the short amount of time that she’d spent here, she knew which cabinet contained the coffee, and that he stored his dinner plates in the lower cabinet to the right of the sink because they stacked better there.
“I need some groceries, too,” she said. “How about if we shop together after we do the dishes? We can talk as we shop and figure out where the happy medium is between the nice women you should be dating and the ones who leave their underwear all over town.”
Jake’s brows knit together as he set the dinner plates on the table.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Anna said as she slid into her seat at the table. “You know I’m right. If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll keep getting what you’re getting and you’ll keep repeating the same pattern. You need to look a little deeper than a pretty face.”
He sat down, speared some of the omelet and took a bite, watching her as he chewed. She wished he’d say something. Not with food in his mouth, of course. But that was the thing about Jake—he may be a manly guy’s guy who didn’t know how to pick up after himself, but he still had manners. He didn’t talk with his mouth full, he said please and thank-you; Jake Lennox was a gentleman.
He knew how to treat a lady. He just didn’t know how to choose the right lady.
“So what are the deal breakers, Jake?”
“Deal breakers?”
“You know, the qualities in a woman that you can’t live with.”
“Why don’t we focus on the good? The attributes that I’m attracted to?”
“Because attraction is what gets you in trouble. Attraction is what caused Miss Texas to leave her thong on your living room floor.”
Ugh. She sounded like such a harpy. She knew that even before she saw the look on his face and consciously softened her tone.
“I don’t mean to be a nag. Really, I don’t. It’s just that sometimes it helps if you work backward.”
She