Chapter Four
Andy
Holy shit, Josie Walsh was stunning.
When Ian and Sam paired us up for the wedding, I noticed that she was pretty, but maybe I was still too raw from my breakup to do much more than passively file it away in some dusty corner of my brain. Or maybe a fancy getup just wasn’t really her thing. Either way, the Josie I saw in her parents’ kitchen, with sleep-mussed hair and wearing nothing but soft pajamas that skimmed over her lush curves, squinting up at me from behind a pair of stylish blue glasses—that was a girl I wanted to get to know.
I didn’t see her for the rest of the morning, even though at times I swore that I felt someone’s eyes on me, like an itch between my shoulder blades. I wanted to see her, wanted her to look at me with that same sly interest I saw flash across her face this morning. But every time I turned around, hoping to find her peeking through the doorway, there was no one there.
Too slow,I thought ruefully after the eighth time I wheeled around, hoping to see that thick mass of sable waves and her sharp, curious gaze. I set the sledgehammer down and took a deep breath as I toed at the large pile of broken drywall and plaster that had accumulated as I chipped away at the superfluous wall. My stomach growled, and I realized that I’d been at it all morning, but with my focus squarely on Josie and not on the exhausting task in front of me, the time had flown past before I noticed.
Lunch, I decided. Lunch and some time to think. I headed through the house toward the front door, past the staircase. And even though my heart thumped with foolish hope as I glanced upstairs, hoping to catch a glimpse, Josie stayed hidden.
But a boxy old SUV—the same one I saw when I pulled up just before seven this morning—remained cold and empty in the driveway when I slipped out the door and headed for my truck, and that tiny, ridiculous hope flared again as I passed by.
The late spring sunshine beat down on me as I pulled open the door and slid into the worn leather seat, and I didn’t bother to close it, instead electing to enjoy the cool breeze while I pulled my lunch out of a cooler I kept on the floor. Sandwich in hand, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and dialed George.
“Hey,” he answered. He sounded breathless, and in the background, I heard muffled feminine laughter. “What’s up?”
“Are you at work?”
“Lunch break with Annie,” George said. “Everything okay?”
I shifted in my seat and tugged open a plastic container full of cut fruit. “What’s the deal with Josie?”
“The deal? What, are you asking if she’s crazy?”
I frowned. “No, and that’s a crappy thing to say about anyone. I wanted to ask you if—” I glanced surreptitiously toward the house, just to make sure she hadn’t emerged and come within earshot “—if she’s single. And, you know…to see if she might be up for something.”
“Wait.” George sounded confused. “You want to ask Josie out?”
“He wants to do what with Josie?” I heard Annie exclaim on the other end of the call.
“Maybe,” I replied honestly. “If she’s up for it, but I thought I might…you know, run it up the flagpole with you first.”
“I snuck around with Sam’s best friend and didn’t tell Ian, so it’s not like I have the moral high ground here,” George pointed out. “I think Annie might be having a heart attack, though.”
“Am not,” she called out, loud enough for me to hear her.
I snorted. “So she’s a student, right? Chemistry?”
“Biochemistry. And she’s really smart. She showed me some of her course materials and it was shit that I didn’t go near when I was an undergrad.” George paused. “I get along great with her, but she just kind of marches to the beat of her own drummer.”
A flicker of movement from an upstairs window caught my attention. “How do you mean?”
“Nothing bad,” he reassured me. “She’s just kind of prickly and doesn’t tolerate—I don’t really know how to phrase it—"
“Bullshit,” Annie’s voice cut in. “She doesn’t like bullshit, and she can smell it at a hundred paces. So don’t try it with her—no stringing her along, no promising to call and then not following through—you know, bullshit.”
“No bullshit,” I repeated, grinning to myself. “I think I can do that.”
“And she can be kind of blunt,” Annie continued—clearly she’d wrestled the phone away from George. “But she’s never mean or unkind. Just…straightforward, and not afraid to say what she likes or doesn’t like.”
“Is that supposed to scare me off? Because it kind of sounds great, if I’m being honest.” It really did, I thought. Marnie and I—we had always hesitated to lay it all on the table with each other, and looking back, I’m sure keeping those things bottled up had only hurt our relationship.
“I think it is, but she’s dropped guys in the past who couldn’t handle it,” she replied. “And she’s also ditched guys who couldn’t handle her brains and tried to make her feel like…like less, you know?”
In the upstairs window, a face appeared through a sliver in the curtains. It was Josie, trying her best not to be seen as she eyed me from—I assumed—her bedroom. I grinned and waved up at her and the curtains snapped shut.