Читать книгу The Best Kind of Trouble - Lauren Dane - Страница 9
Оглавление“SO REALLY, HE’S JUST... It’s like I keep telling myself I need to lose ten pounds before my high school reunion, but he’s a dozen doughnuts. Ooooh, Natalie, you know I’m delicious. Just one bite. I’m so good with coffee.”
Tuesday, Natalie’s housemate and best friend, broke out laughing. “I know how much you love doughnuts, too. So why not eat one? Or six? My point is, who freaking cares if you get a taste of Paddy Hurley? This isn’t Little House on the Prairie. You’re not going to get fired for premarital sex by the town elders.”
“It’s not that.” She made no bones about liking sex. Natalie considered good sex as important to her life as doughnuts and coffee. Paddy came with too many complications and too much noise. He had complicated written all over him.
“Then what is it?”
That wasn’t it, either.
“It’s just...” Natalie licked her lips. “He’s messy and complicated. He’d take so much time to handle, and I’m over handling other adults. I don’t want to be a nursemaid, a psychologist, and I sure have no desire to parent him while I’m fucking him, too. Ugh. I spent years and years stepping over people passed out in my house. I had to call the paramedics more than once because some random stranger, or my dad for that matter, had overdosed. I’ve had enough cleaning up puke and pretending not to smell liquor on breath at nine in the morning.”
She’d lived a life utterly out of control until she’d finally left home at seventeen, and even then it wasn’t until college that she finally got her shit together. Control meant everything. It meant you lived a life of your own choosing and not at someone else’s mercy, and it meant not being responsible for keeping grown-ass people from driving off a cliff.
It was the leaving that had been the key. The ultimate act of taking control of her life was walking away from that house. That pretty, solidly upper-class shell that was rotting inside. Just like her childhood had been.
“He comes with too much shit that pushes my buttons. Hot in bed or not, I just don’t want to chance it.” Paddy was a walking-talking advertisement for out of control.
Tuesday was careful to keep pity out of her eyes, but she sighed heavily. “All I’m saying is that life is made from chances you take. How do you know he won’t be worth it?”
Easy for Tuesday to say. Then again, her best friend sat in the house making gorgeous jewelry or hiking instead of going out on dates for her own messed-up reasons. Still, being someone’s friend meant knowing when to call bullshit and when to leave it alone. Tuesday wasn’t ready to confront those demons yet.
“I can’t deny knowing he lived here. I found out about six months after I bought the house here.” The fact that the dudes from Sweet Hollow Ranch lived in town and were locals who continued to make the city their home was a point of pride to Hood River. The town tended to be protective of the entire Hurley family. People didn’t call the paparazzi when one of them ate in their restaurants or shopped in their stores. There weren’t pictures sold to the tabloids of them going about their daily business.
When she’d discovered it, she’d been mildly worried, but she’d already begun to put down roots. She had no plans to run off simply because some old lover was in the same area.
And then Tuesday happened upon a storefront on Oak that she’d decided to run a business from and share half of Natalie’s house. Hood River had been a new start for both women.
“All this time I’ve lived here, and I never bumped into him or caught sight of him. I guess I had just hoped our paths wouldn’t cross.”
Tuesday made a dismissive sound. “Well, they have, and he’s clearly looking for a taste. I’m gonna guess he’ll eventually give up if you keep ignoring him. But what I’m saying is, why not see what he’s got to offer?”
Natalie wasn’t ready to admit out loud that maybe she was curious.
“Hand me the potatoes, and let’s change the subject please.”
Tuesday rolled her eyes but passed the bowl. “You did a pretty good job with these, by the way.”
Natalie’s cooking was an utter disaster, but over the years since she and Tuesday had roomed together in college, Natalie had developed a few not-awful dishes. Mainly easy stuff like sandwiches and soup, but she’d been working on mashed potatoes for a year or so, and she’d gotten to the point where nothing caught fire, and they actually tasted good.
“Now I can make canned soup, ham sandwiches and mashed potatoes. Maybe that’s what Paddy is after. He’s been waiting for a woman to make him mashed potatoes his whole life.”
They both cracked up.
“At least between the two of you, you have enough money to get takeout every night. Or maybe he can cook. That would be a bonus to the good looks and success stuff.”
“He’s probably spoiled. He lives up there on the ranch with his family. Maybe his mother cooks for him or something.”
“Maybe. But somehow I doubt it. But you won’t know unless you let him in.”
“I don’t need to know to mock him, duh. Just let me have my fun imagining him eating overcooked Hot Pockets or clinging to his mom’s apron strings.”
* * *
“SO HERE’S THE THING,” Paddy said as he sidled up to Natalie the next morning at the coffee shop. “I dig that you don’t have to be at work until nine.”
“Why?” She handed some money to Bobbi, who took in the daily Paddy show with apparent glee. “So you don’t have to get up so early to come down here and pester me?”
He laughed at that. “I’ll have you know I’ve been up since six-thirty when I helped my oldest brother deal with a fence problem. Have you ever dug a post hole? It totally sucks. Ezra is sort of insane because he seems to actually like it.”
Natalie moved to grab some honey for her latte, but he kept talking. “It’s good because I can get my work done and come down here in time for you to actually have breakfast with me sometime.”
“See you tomorrow, Bobbi.” Natalie waved and started for the door, which Paddy now held open for her.
“I don’t like getting up early. Also, I don’t eat breakfast very often.”
He took up beside her, and she didn’t stop him. “You have a muffin in that bag.”
“That’s not breakfast. Bacon and eggs with toast and maybe hash browns, that’s breakfast.”
“You’re serious about breakfast.”
“Not really. If I was, that’s what I’d be eating. Mainly I have doughnuts or muffins or a toaster-pastry thing.”
He wrinkled his nose. “Really? Those are like cardboard. Also, you don’t look like you eat doughnuts all the time.”
“I’m serious about doughnuts. But my favorite kind I have to go to Portland for. Which is why I don’t eat them all the time. And my housemate is sporty. She drags me to hike and bike and windsurf. It’s gross, but it enables me to keep my doughnut habit.”
“You cut your hair. It was long before.”
“You’re good at the non sequiturs.”
He snorted. “I’m not sure when you’re going to run off, so I’m trying to get in as much chitchat as I can before that happens.”
She stopped, turning toward him. “Why are you so persistent? I’m not even that nice to you!” It was hard for her not to be friendly to him. She liked him, for heaven’s sake.
“You don’t want me for my status.”
She shook her head, trying to understand. “Status?”
“The celebrity thing.”
She rolled her eyes. “You didn’t have any status when I met you.”
He grinned. “Nope. Just a shitty van that broke down a lot and some instruments my brothers and I played.”
She paused for long moments and then started walking again. “I cut my hair years ago. Tuesday, that’s my housemate, she went through a phase when she wanted to be a hairdresser. It lasted half a quarter. But she cut my hair, and I liked it short. Plus, I look great in hats, and short hair works that way.”
“Did that hurt? You sharing that little fact with me?” He winked, and it was cute, and she ruthlessly tried not to show how amused she was but probably failed.
“So you two have been roommates since college?”
“No. We shared an apartment in college, and then she got married and I went to grad school. But three years ago, she came to visit and wanted to set up a business here, so I offered her a place to live for a while. She never moved out. Which is good because I can’t cook, and she does and thinks it’s fun.”
“Like hiking?”
Natalie curled her lip. “Yes. Ugh.”
“No husband?”
“I would not be allowing you to walk me to my job if I had a husband, Patrick Hurley.”
Paddy’s laugh made her tingle a little. It was a bawdy laugh. “You said that like you were going to paddle me or slap my hand with a ruler. You should know that’ll only encourage me.”
She pressed her lips together and then gave up, laughing.
He kept pace, but she noted his smile from the corner of her eye. “I meant your friend.”
Duh. Of course he did. “She’s a widow.”
“Oh, damn. That sucks. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah.” They approached the library, and she handed him her coffee. “Hold that, please.” She rustled through her bag until she found her keys. “Thanks.” She took the coffee back and tucked the pastry bag into her purse.
* * *
PADDY REALLY DIDN’T want that moment between them to end, but he’d enjoyed a victory nonetheless, so he’d take that small step forward and get more next time. “Wow, I feel like we’ve turned a corner here, Natalie.” He bowed. “Thank you for letting me walk you to work.”
She appeared to be looking for something to say, and he didn’t want her to say something about him not doing it again.
“Will you let me take you to dinner?”
She sighed, but it was a sigh of longing, so he pushed ahead.
“I mean, I was aiming for breakfast since it’s the least datelike of the meals—unless you slept over, of course—and if that happens, I’ll make you bacon, eggs, hash browns and toast. Maybe even biscuits. But since we’re not at that stage yet, and you don’t eat breakfast, dinner is a good alternative.”
“Not lunch?”
Was she teasing him? That was a good sign. “I’ll take what I can get. But usually during the days when I’m here in Hood River, I’m working. Either on music or on the ranch. Summer is a crazy busy time and my brother does so much when we’re on tour, I like helping him out.”
Natalie sighed long and then shook her head as she looked him over. “Why you gotta be so human, Patrick Hurley?”
“Is that good or bad? I don’t know with you.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know for sure yet, either. You can pick me up from here tomorrow night. I’m off at six.”
With that, she unlocked the door and went inside. “Have a good day, Paddy.” She waved one last time, locked the door once more and disappeared into the building, leaving him standing there with a dumb smile on his face.
