“And more?” He was almost afraid to ask.
“I might’ve done some online shopping for you, but hey, you’re going to be my brother anyway. It isn’t such a big deal.”
His ears burned. Did she plan on dressing him like a doll? “That is probably the craziest thing that anyone has ever done to me.”
She dimpled. “I know.” She pushed him aside to get to the fridge.
He popped back in her way like a spring. “I’ll take that mayo.” He pressed his back against the door.
Eva let out a shout, stumbling over him. Her hand ran into his chest, seconds before she fell into him. Whoops. Fighting for the mayonnaise had dire consequences. The top of her head landed into his chest. He caught her and gulped. Her eyes darted to him in surprise.
Slowly, she handed him the mayonnaise.
He snatched it, pretending like being so close to her was no big deal. Seeing her in her PJs and fuzzy bathrobe and realizing that they were both barefoot, he became aware of how domestic this moment felt with her—making sandwiches and, uh… wrestling in the kitchen.
Her lips parted, but nothing came out.
Cole needed to change this strange new vibe around and fast. If he was being forced to play house with Eva, he might as well clear the air between them. “Okay,” he said, “about that kiss.”
Her cheeks turned pink. It was actually pretty cute… maybe because he didn’t think that he could ever embarrass her. “Y-yeah?” she asked.
“We won’t repeat that.”
“No, never.”
Bringing up their kiss only seemed to make the air between them worse. Wishing he could take back his words, he scrambled to fix that distressed look on her face. “Not that it was bad.”
“No, it wasn’t,” she said with a decisive nod.
He inched away, his stomach nosediving. He just seemed to make everything worse with what he said. Going to the kitchen island, he attacked the bread with the mayo to make his sandwich.
“Where is everybody?” Eva asked. She was better at smoothing out his faux pas than he was. “Everybody cleared out while we were gone.” She bit into her own sandwich like she was in these kinds of awkward situations every day.
He shrugged. “They must be shopping. I’d ask, but…”
“Your phone is broken,” she finished for him. Eva took another bite of her sandwich then swallowed. “I’ll text West.” She slipped her phone out of the pocket of her bathrobe one-handed and texted him. “He… uh… might not answer back right away. He isn’t as glued to his phone as I am.”
Sure, he wasn’t. If she was West’s priority, he would. Cole would bet his life that West answered his clients in an instant.
“I’m trying to go on a tech fast,” she said. “No social media. No TalkieTalk.”
Eva was the last person he’d expected to do such a thing. “Is that why you left your phone behind earlier?”
She hesitated then admitted the truth with a sheepish grin. “Yeah.”
He was impressed. She probably had a huge following and made a pretty penny on her TalkieTalk posts. “Why?”
She licked her lips. “Oh, no reason.”
His attention narrowed on her. She’d said that too flippantly—he was beginning to read her tells by now, and she had a tendency to underemphasize things by acting like they weren’t a big deal. “Wait… this doesn’t have to do with those weird texts you keep getting from that other… Ashley?”
She grimaced. “No, no…”
“Is Ashley a guy?”
“No!”
So in other words, yes!“Do you actually know this person or did they get your number from the black market somewhere?”