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  Therefore, I asked, “Have I lost you?”

  “We’ll talk tonight about where I’m takin’ us,” he said as answer and I froze solid, staring unseeing at my desk blotter.

  Where I’m takin’ us.

  Us.

  What on earth did that mean?

  Were we an us?

  “Now, babe, gotta go. I’ll be at your place tonight at five,” he said.

  “I… okay,” I replied, still reeling from what he said before. “Do you need me to text you directions?”

  “Everyone in town knows your pad but a big giveaway of how to get to it is that it’s called Canard Mansion and it’s on Canard Lane and there’s only one house on Canard Lane, your house, so I reckon I can find my way.”

  That erased the weirdness of before and I laughed quietly as I replied, “I forgot about your awesome mental powers so I’ll let them lead you to me.”

  He had quiet laughter in his voice too when he said, “Right. Later, Emme.”

  “ ’Bye, Jacob. And thanks for your guy advice.”

  “Anytime, baby.”

  Baby.

  I was still dealing with that when he rang off.

  I looked back out the window into the yard.

  Dane was gone.

  I sighed.

  Things Jacob said last night made me realize that I’d said yes to a date with Dane because I’d been sick, I’d unconsciously reflected on my life and how I was living it, and I decided to live it differently.

  I’d always liked my life and tended to gravitate toward solitude. I was close to my family, had a small cadre of friends who were all real, true friends, even Elsbeth had been a true friend (just, in the end, a stupid one). But I didn’t mind being alone.

  It was being sick alone that made me feel lonely.

  I’d felt loss before. When Elsbeth broke up with Jacob then I broke up with her because she did. I hadn’t realized what a big part of my life they were, including Jacob. How I’d have them over to dinner just to get a chance to talk to him. How I’d pop by their place on the off chance I’d see him. How I’d be the first one to their parties and the last one to leave because I liked spending time with him.

  When he was gone, and even before, when he got distant (and I knew that was Elsbeth, I didn’t know why, but she could be weirdly jealous), I felt that loss.

  Acutely.

  But nothing was worse than being sick, really sick, and going it alone.

  Not that I wanted to share my exhaustion and vomiting with someone I loved.

  Just that it highlighted how really alone I was. Especially up here, away from family and friends.

  I loved the mountains, jumped at the chance to move here, something new, a change. I didn’t know why I did but it just came when I was ready for it.

  And it seemed I’d found my calling, not the lumberyard, where I had to admit I enjoyed working. Being the boss didn’t suck and my dad being my boss didn’t suck either, seeing as he loved me and always believed I could do just about anything.

  My calling was my house, which I took one look at, saw what was under all the mess and fell in love.

  But after I was sick, I made changes I hadn’t really even noticed were changes. They just came naturally. New hair because I’d gone so long without a cut. New clothes because I’d lost so much weight.

  And a boyfriend because he was cute, sweet and into me and it meant I might not be so alone.

  Now I’d screwed the pooch.

  I sighed and turned back to my desk to get some work done, thinking people lived through worse, me being one of them. And at least I had Jacob back. Better, it seemed like Jacob was happy to be back.

  So it would probably suck for a while.

  But that was life.

  Then everyone would move on.

  One way or another.

  * * *

  “Jesus, Emme, baby, this place is a heap.”

  This was what Jacob said upon me opening my door to him at five-oh-three that night.

  I stared up at him a second then asked, “Are you kidding?”

  He put a hand to my stomach, shoved me inside, came in with me and pulled the door out of my hand to swing it closed with a flick of his wrist.

  My door was twelve feet tall, solid wood. It weighed a ton. Maybe not literally but it felt like it.

  And Jacob threw it to like it was a flimsy screen door.

  This was hot and I’d forgotten how Jacob doing superhuman things with his big-guy strength gave me a little tingle.

  Back then, I wasn’t allowed to really feel that tingle because he was Elsbeth’s.

  Now he wasn’t so that tingle struck full force.

  I was dealing with the tingle as he walked into the entryway, looking around and talking.

  “Fuck, don’t know whether to pack you up, take you to my place and save you from this nightmare or move in here and start work tomorrow…” he turned, locked eyes with me and finished, “and save you from this nightmare.”

  I fought back the tingle and put my hands to my hips. “It’s not that bad.”

  “You don’t have any snow on your roof.”

  I rolled my eyes. I knew what that meant. Dad had been on me about insulation since about three hours after I moved in. I didn’t need the same from Jacob.

  I rolled my eyes back to him and declared, “It’s fine.”

  “You’re heating the mountain, Emme, and payin’ for it. It isn’t fine. And you need new windows.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” I returned. “They’re after the kitchen.”

  He shook his head and moved to me. “Before the kitchen, babe. Heat and safety. Windows may seem more fragile than boards but some asshole who wants in will balk at breakin’ a window. He won’t balk at pryin’ open a board.”

  I hadn’t thought of that.

  “But insulation before that,” he went on to announce.

  “I’ll get to it,” I told him.

  “When?” he asked.

  “When I have the courage to go up in the attic,” I shared, and he stared.

  Then he asked, “What?”

  “The attic creeps me out. Spending a lot of time up there…” I shook my head then informed him, “This is an old house. It’s seen a lot. There might be ghosts. And ghosts congregate in attics.”

  Jacob said nothing but he did this continuing to stare at me, now like he thought he might need to take my temperature.

  So I kept talking.

  “I’ll give on the windows before the kitchen, which sucks since I’m about saved up for the kitchen and my kitchen sucks and I really was looking forward to a new one. But the insulation, I’ll wait until summer when the days are longer and, incidentally,” I leaned toward him and finished, “brighter. Ghosts don’t like bright.”

  Jacob kindly ignored my comment about ghosts and stated as a question, “You’re gonna install insulation in the summer, when you don’t need it, instead of the winter, when you do?”

  “I’ve lived here three winters, Jacob, I’ve been fine.”

  “And your heating bill has probably been astronomical.”

  I couldn’t debate that because it was true, so I shut my mouth.

  He watched my mouth close.

  “Fuck,” he muttered, shaking his head. “I’m already planning to be here on Sunday. You break up with your moronic dick, I’ll install insulation.”

  It was my turn to stare. “Are you serious?”

  “Didn’t hear the beat of the drum to announce the end of the joke, babe.”

  At his quip, I grinned at him but shook my head. “I couldn’t ask that. That’s a big job. I have a big roof.”

  “And I’ll bring Chace. Got some other buds. We’ll see to it.”

  I held his gaze.

  He actually thought he was going to see to it.

  “I don’t know what to say,” I said softly, still holding his eyes.

  “Say you’ll be here on Saturday when I’m gonna have the insulation
delivered.”

  I waved my hand in front of my face. “Don’t worry about that. I’ll order it tomorrow.”

  “Installin’, Emme, and payin’,” Jacob declared, and my mouth dropped open. “You need your money to order new windows.”

  “I… you… I can’t… you can’t pay for that,” I blathered.

  He turned away, mumbling, “Late housewarming present.” Then he started walking toward the back of the house asking, “Do I gotta wait until work’s done Sunday to get a beer?”

  I didn’t answer.

  I was standing there, speechless, staring at him disappear.

  When I got over being speechless, I rushed after him to get him a beer.

  * * *

  “Leave it to a woman to put a guest room and kitchen before insulation and windows,” Jacob remarked.

  It was after dinner. We were in my somewhat-habitable (Jacob’s words) family room at the back of the house. Jacob had started a fire in the fireplace, doing it mumbling under his breath about the state of the chimney and how he hoped he wasn’t creating an eventual smoke out.

  Earlier, he’d had beer. I’d had beer. I’d given him a tour of the house. Through this, he’d verbally lamented my choice of dwellings and feared for my safety. He did this teasing so I only got mock upset. We had dinner and conversation, which, as always with Jacob, was titillating. Talking with Jacob, as I remembered and as I again experienced over our back-to-back dinners, was like foreplay except the mental kind.

  And way better than any of the real kind I’d ever had.

  Now we were in my family room with more beers and Jacob was back to teasing me.

  He was lounged in one corner of my couch, his long, long legs stretched out in front of him, his long, long arms curved around the arm and back of the couch, a beer in one hand. I was in the other corner, sitting on a calf I’d folded under me, my chin on my opposite knee that I had bent and I’d wrapped an arm around, my fingers curved around a beer in my other hand.

  “Considering the fact that every time I flipped a switch, a fuse blew or sparks flew, I’ve had the entire house rewired too,” I pointed out, trying to be funny but failing when I noticed my words made Jacob’s hazel eyes flash and his jaw go hard. So I hurried on. “And I have a new boiler. Hot water heat can’t be beat. And I redid the master, the master bath.” I reminded him then continued, “And the garden. Honey, in summer… wait until you see. It’s magnificent.”

  “Gotta have somewhere to sleep, somewhere to shower,” he replied, his eyes moved the truncated length of me in a way that made my skin feel warm, “and you did a good job with that, babe. Looks phenomenal. But now you gotta stop lookin’ at this as a whole project. You gotta break it down and prioritize.”

  “I know that,” I told him.

  “Then why do you have the chandelier down in the front room, cleanin’ it, at the same time you’re reskimmin’ the walls in the dining room, at the same time you’re refinishing the floor in the conservatory?”

  Unfortunately, he had a point. It seemed I had a schizophrenic style when it came to my restoration efforts.

  “I see something, I get the urge to fix it and give in to the urge,” I told him.

  “Emme, in this heap, everywhere you turn, you’ll see something to fix. You gotta have a plan. And that plan is, Sunday, insulation. You get contractors in here to give you bids on the windows. Next up, repointing the brick so the place doesn’t fall down around your ears. After that, outside lighting updated so you cut through that dark and give yourself more safety. Then you focus on the inside, one room at a time, starting with that avocado nightmare that’s your kitchen.”

  That was the fourth time he called my kitchen “that avocado nightmare.” An apt description that meant that was the fourth time I grinned at him when he said it.

  Then I informed him, “The work outside is work I can’t do, Jacob. The work inside is stuff I can do, outside the electrical, which cost a small fortune and I narrowly avoided five years indentured servitude to get it done. If the project is contracted out, it’s a case-by-case basis and you know, those windows are going to cost thousands because it isn’t just the broken ones that need replacing. All of them do.”

  “So bid it out,” he returned. “And I’ll ask around. Been in Chantelle a few years, know a few guys. We’re comin’ out of a recession but all of them felt that sting so they’ll be happy for the work. I’ll see if I can swing you a deal for a marker or your promise of a discount at the yard.”

  This kind of brought us around full circle so I rolled with it.

  “I’d appreciate you doing that, honey,” I told him quietly, holding his eyes, lifting up and taking my chin from my knee. “But this reminds me we have to finish our conversation about you paying for the insulation.”

  He shook his head, saying, “I’m payin’.”

  “Jacob—”

  “Emme,” he cut me off, leaning toward me, “I’m paying.”

  I unwrapped my arm from my leg to throw it out to the side. “That’s crazy.”

  “Nothin’ crazy about it,” he replied.

  God, his thinking it wasn’t crazy was also crazy.

  I dropped my leg so I was sitting cross-legged in the couch and leaned into him. “Honey, you remember everything so I don’t have to remind you I haven’t seen you in nine years. I dig it that we reconnected and I love having you back.” I again threw an arm out, this time toward him and back to me. “This is great. You and me spending time together, shooting the breeze. I missed that. And I get it that friends make gestures, but this is too much.”

  His eyes warmed during this speech and he took his arms from the couch, bent his legs, leaned into them, and me, and put his elbows to his knees, never releasing my eyes.

  “Baby, I want you warm and liquid. The first bein’ physically, the second bein’ financially. You stop payin’ so much for heat, you’ll have more money for the rest of the shit you gotta do.”

  This made sense.

  But he’d again called me “baby.”

  And I needed to address that.

  So I asked, “What is that?”

  His head cocked and his eyebrows drew together. “What’s what?”

  I drew in breath and on the exhale, stated, “You calling me baby.” Then I went on quickly, “Not that I don’t like it. It’s sweet. It’s just not…” I hesitated, “us.”

  Something happened to his eyes, his face, his whole big body and that something made me brace at the same time it made my heartbeat escalate.

  “You know what it is,” he said softly.

  I didn’t.

  “I don’t,” I shared.

  His eyes stayed locked to mine and I knew him relatively well, or I used to. But even if we hadn’t been separated for years, I still would not have been forewarned to the fact he was about to blow my mind.

  “Before, we had Elsbeth between us. My head was fucked about that, about her, and it took almost a decade to get it unfucked. Lookin’ back, havin’ you back, I now know and I reckon you know, that’s the way it was. She was between us. She knew it too. And she didn’t like it. But it didn’t matter. My head was fucked so I couldn’t see clear of her and not doin’ that, I didn’t see you.”

  I knew my lips had parted. I also knew my eyes got big. And last, I had no clue what to say.

  So I said nothing.

  “Now she isn’t between us,” he finished.

  It was then I knew what the “baby” business was.

  I just had no idea how to react to it because I never considered it. He was beautiful. He was kind. He was smart. He was funny and interesting and affectionate.

  But he was my best friend’s boyfriend.

  That didn’t mean my mind didn’t go there in vague ways, not stupid enough to wish for something I could never have, just silently covetous of what Elsbeth had. And, because of all that he was and that Elsbeth had it, in the end, infuriated she threw it away. Angry enough to end an important friendship beca
use of it.

  Sitting there, all that was Jacob, and all that being spectacular sitting across from me, holding my eyes, I finally understood that the reason I was angry at my friend was because, in throwing Jacob away, she took him away from me.

  And now I had him back, but also, he was saying I’d always had him a different way, we just didn’t go there and he was going to take us there.

  Yes. I had no clue what to say but my body had a clue how to feel. Warm and there were a lot more tingles.

  “Jacob—” I started on a whisper.

  But he interrupted again.

  “You saw me, asked me out to dinner that same night, no fuckin’ around. Since then, you’ve called twice for no reason except to connect, and, baby, before you freak that I noticed that and what it said, I’ll tell you, I’m fuckin’ glad you did and I’m also fuckin’ glad about what it said. The boyfriend you were on the fence about, you got off the fence in less than twenty-four hours after seein’ me again and decided to get shot of his ass. And you didn’t waste any time gettin’ me right where I am tonight. That is not friends reconnecting. You know it. So do I.”

  “I—”

  “Don’t deny it.”

  I shut my mouth.

  When I did, the skin around his eyes got soft and his mouth twitched and I’d seen that before but not during an intense discussion where Jacob Decker was essentially telling me he was into me. So although before I liked it, now it made my hands start shaking. Therefore, I clasped them both around my beer bottle in my lap.

  “Now, layin’ this shit out for you, I fucked up,” he continued. “In a big fuckin’ way that I been dealin’ with since summer. Hung up on a bitch, and Emme, honey, I know you two were once tight and women don’t like men referrin’ to women as bitches but there’s no denyin’ what Elsbeth pulled this summer exposed her as just that. I thought she was what I wanted and my only shot at gettin’ it and to be the man I felt I needed to be, I’d selfishly let that go. I been kickin’ my own ass about that for fuckin’ years then kickin’ my own ass when it hit me I shouldn’t have been.”

  He stopped and it appeared he wanted a response from me and the only one I had was to nod, which fortunately was all he needed for he kept talking.