“Have you never had chamomile before?” Carly asked, eying me suspiciously.
I shook my head.
She laughed. “Well then why did you make it?”
“It’s supposed to be relaxing!” I chuckled at Carly’s laughter and let the beautiful sound soak into me, loosening the stress and tension of the evening.
“I’ll have yours then,” she offered, still smiling over the rim of her own mug.
“You’re welcome to it as long as you don’t mind the germs.”
Her eyes went dark and I wondered what was roaming around inside her pretty head. “I don’t.”
I sighed and leaned back. “This is an amazing couch.”
“Thanks. It’s my happy place. Every day after work, this is where I’m camped out. I swear, at least three nights a week, I fall asleep here and wake up a hot mess of eyeliner and lipstick.”
“Hot.”
“Totally,” she said, rolling her eyes. When they shifted back to me, a question was lurking. “What were you doing at the shop so late anyway? Have you still not stopped to read the business hours?”
“Very funny. No, I knew you were closed. But…I’d had a rough phone call with my brother and needed a little air. I figured I’d stop by and see if you were still slaving away. Maybe steal a treat.”
“You wanted to eat your feelings,” Carly said, grinning.
I chuckled. “Something like that. If nothing else—I knew you’d understand.”
“Yeah. I could teach a master course on dealing with pain in the ass younger siblings at this point…and you know what the sad thing is? We haven’t even spent that much time together. With such a big age gap, we were never really that close, and now it’s like I should be concerned with making up lost time now that we have things in common…or, at least we probably do.” She stopped to shake her head. “I don’t know. I give up. Maybe the right thing to do would be to ship her off to stay with our grandmother the rest of the summer.”
She didn’t sound convinced, but I knew she had way too much weighed on her mind as it was. She didn’t need me to point out the hole in her argument.
“Why don’t you go upstairs and get some sleep, you know, in a real bed. Alesha will turn up.”
She nodded, but there was a dark undercurrent in her eyes. When she didn’t move, I nudged her arm. “Whatcha thinking about?”
“I just—this is gonna sound stupid…but I don’t want to be here…alone.” She dropped her eyes to the remaining contents of her mug, swirling it thoughtfully. “Would you stay?”
“Of course. I’ll be right here,” I said, with a pat on the couch.
She nodded. “Thank you.”
After she polished off the last of her tea in one swig, she took my abandoned mug with a smile and pushed off the couch.
“Goodnight, Nick. Thanks for…everything.” She pressed a kiss to my cheek and then started off toward the stairs I’d seen from the kitchen.
“Goodnight, Carly,” I called after her.
12
Carly
* * *
The crash of adrenaline combined with two mugs of chamomile did the trick and when I woke up the following day, I could barely remember getting into bed. The moments leading up to going to bed came back in bits and pieces and surrounded me with warm comfort, knowing that Nick was sleeping downstairs on my couch. Protecting me.
“What are you doing, Carly?” I whispered to myself, smiling up at the ceiling.
I’d told myself he was off limits. A distraction. For all I knew, he wasn’t even going to be in town long term. There was no point in trying to start something up.
And yet…
I couldn’t get him out of my mind. It had been damn near impossible before the events of last night—but now—there was this new…layer…to our friendship. And I’ll be damned if it didn’t have me feeling all kinds of things I was trying to avoid.
I smiled as my thoughts drifted to Nick. He was such a wonderful man—what I knew of him. And sexy. It was like for a split second, my heart opened up and was ready to try and let him in and then Alesha—I bolted upright in bed.
Alesha!
My phone was lost in the pile of clothes I’d shucked off the night before. I leaned over the side of the bed, thankful it was low to the floor, and rooted through the pile until I found it. I flipped it over and saw a text message from the night before that told me she was on her way home.
I threw back the covers, slipped into a robe, and then decided to add a pair of pajama pants. Fully dressed, I ran my fingers through my hair, untangling some of the noticeable knots, and then raced downstairs.
The smell of coffee hit me first, like a comforting cloud.
I smiled and stepped into the kitchen, expecting to see Nick at the counter, preparing the coffee. But it was empty. Where was he? I searched the entire first floor and he was nowhere in sight. Circling back, I stopped in the kitchen and saw that my ancient, four cup brewer had been pre-programmed. And there was a note on the counter in front of it: