A Fresh Start (16 page)

Paige stood right beside him, tugging on his arm and directing his attention toward the shelves whenever she saw an unfriendly face.
 

The protective complex apparently ran in the Watsons family.

“Paige?”

“Mrs. Cassells.” Paige smiled brightly.
 

“Thank you for shopping with Jane yesterday. She looks amazing. She said you bought her the dress and paid for the hair cut.”

“It’s nothing. The dress looked so good on her, it’d be a waste not to get it.”

“Thank you,” Mrs. Cassells repeated. “And Justin! Finally seeing you in person. Celia has been talking about you nonstop. How are you?”

“Good.”

“Still a man of little words I see,” Mrs. Cassells said with a laugh. “All right, I just came over to tell you how much I appreciate what you did.” Mrs. Cassells covered her hand over Paige’s with the warmest smile. “See you tomorrow. And Justin, it’s nice to see you.”

“Tomorrow when you see Jane,” Paige said after making sure that Mrs. Cassells was out of earshot. “Please tell her that she looks good.”

“You sure have a lot of requests.”

“Thanks.” She beamed at him, then turned her attention to the shelves.

“Why did you help Jane?”

“You didn’t see how sad she looked. I felt so bad for her when she said she couldn’t pull off that dress,” she said without turning to look at him. “She needed some encouragement, so I thought I’d give her some.”

Justin smiled at her words. She was so easily affected by people’s feeling. “You know, everything you’ve done in town is going to make you an outcast.”

“Well, I have you to help me tie the bullies to a flag pole.”

“Do you believe everything that everyone says?”

“No. I don’t believe the commercials. I don’t believe it when food labels say it’s zero percent fat. I don’t believe in gossips—”

He put his arm over her shoulders. “Are you done?”

“With shopping or with listing things I don’t believe?” she asked with a mischievous grin.

Justin paid for their items and drove them back to his place. Paige hadn’t seen his place before, but the moment they entered the street, she could tell which house was his.

The one house on the street that was much higher than the rest and looked completely different. Instead of the inverted V roof that all the houses had, the roof was flat. The whole house seemed to be built out of combining several rectangular blocks together.

It was sleek and contemporary, but it stood out like a sore thumb in the neighborhood.

“Did you build this to piss off your neighbors?”

“You don’t like it?”

“It’s modern and beautiful. But a little too modern for this town, isn’t it?”

He shrugged, but couldn’t stop his lips from cracking a grin. He turned in to the short gravel pavement leading up to his house.

She got out of his truck and looked up at the house. Standing from the outside, she could look right into the house through the tinted long windows. “I’m ashamed of my house.” She moved over to the trunk of the car and reached for one of the brown paper bags.

“I’ve got it.”

She scowled at him and picked up the remaining bag. “It’s not that heavy.”

He gave in, closing the trunk and moving over to the door.
 

She followed Justin, taking another look at the long windows as she passed them by. “And I thought you’d be a more private person.”

He grinned and opened the door, stepping aside for her to enter. Once she did, he closed the door behind him and pressed a button on the wall, immediately fogging up the long windows.

“Wow.”

“I fog it up when I’m home.”

“I think it’s supposed to be the other way around. Why didn’t you just wall it up if you wanted privacy?”

“It looks much nicer with tinted windows.”

She laughed softly. Aesthetic purposes was justifiable only if he was going to sell the house. But she doubted anyone would buy a house that stood out so drastically from the rest of the houses in town.

Paige trotted behind him, glancing around as he walked toward the back of the house. “Wow. Huge kitchen. Everything looks new.”

“I haven’t cooked a single meal in here.”

“Right. Breakfast and dinner at the Seymours, and lunch with me.”

“Having junk food.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you sure you want me to cook here? I”ll clean up of course, but…” She turned to the dish soap on the sink. “Hmm…”

“No worries. You cook, and I’ll clean up. That’s only fair.”

“Fair? You seem to be on the losing end on all of our deals.”

He gave her a half-shrug and cocked his head to the side. “Want a tour?”

“Sure.”

They went all the way up and he showed her the attic; it was his own personal gym with a few equipment and some dumbbells at the corner. Then they moved on to his room, home office, and the guest room.

There was minimum furniture in each room. There wasn’t any decorations or photos, simply whatever was needed for his stay there. The guest room furnished, but was especially bare. There wasn’t any sheets over the bed or any curtains on the window.

For a guy living alone, he was rather neat. There wasn’t any clothing on the floor, his bed was made, and his table clean of clutter.

“Did you clean up before this or are you always this neat?”

“I’m not at home a lot, and when I’m home, I rather the house not be in a mess,” he said. “So, what do you think?”

“It feels like a showroom.”

“And that’s not good because…”

“I didn’t say it isn’t good.”

He stared at her, waiting, she supposed, for an explanation.

“It doesn’t feel like a home. Probably because everything is so new,” she quickly added. “I’m sure it’ll look more like a home when you actually start living in it.”

Justin frowned and said, “I
am
living in it.”

“Like you said, you’re not around much.” She pressed her lips together. “It’s a nice house, I think it looks wonderful.”

“I was kidding,” he said, grinning at her. “Ready to start cooking?”

She nodded, glad that she hadn’t upset him.

“I’ll show you where the things are.”

Justin led her down the stairs and they went back into the kitchen. He took out most of the things she needed and placed them on the kitchen counter. “You want me to play some music?”

“Will you judge me if I play my Italian lessons on my phone?”

He stretched out his hand with a smile.

“Thank you.” She entered the playlist before dropping her phone into his hand.

He plugged the phone into a player and her Italian lessons began playing.

She gave him another grin and waved him off. “Go, I’m fine.” Turning back to the food, she took out the ingredients while considering the most efficient way to proceed.

Filling two pots with water, she set it on the stove for it to boil before washing up all the vegetables. Next, she cut up the vegetables and left them aside in the strainer. She had just cut the potatoes into smaller pieces when the water boiled. Picking them up, she carefully slipped them into the pot. Then, for the other pot, she dropped in two bundles of linguine.

Using a dry cloth, she wiped up the area, cleaning up the water that had dripped around the counter before moving on to the mushrooms; all the while answering the questions that her Italian course was asking her.

Stirring the sauce she’d just seasoned, she scooped up a little and tasted it. It had been a while since she last cooked, but thankfully, she hadn’t forgotten how. She gave it a few more stirs as the bubbles got larger, then moved it off the stove.

“Può averne se vuole,” she answered, wiping up the counter again.

“That sounds complicated.”

She looked over her shoulders and smiled. “Done with work?”

“How do you say that in Italian?”

“No idea.” She chuckled and turned to him. “I’m almost done, too. Just need to take the spaghetti out.”

While she transferred the food onto the plates and served them, Justin opened a bottle of wine and took two wine glasses.

“I don’t drink.”

“Don’t because it’s your principle or because you don’t like to?”

“I don’t like the taste.”

He poured half a glass of the white wine and handed it to her. “Try it, just a sip.”

She took it from him and did as told. Her brows rose as the sweetness swirled in her mouth. “It’s like apple juice.”

“But it isn’t, so drink it slowly.” He poured another glass for himself and sat next to her on the dining table.

“It’s quite good,” Justin said as he tried the spaghetti sauce.

“Maybe you should try that again without sounding so surprise,” she joked.

He reached over just as Paige was taking another sip of the wine. “Paige, it isn’t apple juice. Have some food before you take another sip.”

“Why did you open it if you didn’t want me to drink it?” she complained, twirling the spaghetti with her fork.
 

“I don’t want you to get drunk.”

She took a mouth of spaghetti and swallowed. “Then can I get a glass of water? I can’t eat without water.”

He stood and poured her a glass.

“How did you get into this house flipping thing?” Paige asked as he set the glass of water in front of her.

“I started working in construction. I had just graduated from high school, that was all I could do.”

“Were you working to save money for college?”

“No,” he answered. “I didn’t go to college. Is that important to you?”

“Going to college?”

“That I didn’t go to college.”

“Why would that be important?”

“I don’t know. Ivy league students like you have a reputation to uphold, right?”

“What made you think I went to an ivy league?”

“You’re hardworking. Most people don’t bother with learning new things at our age.”

“You make it sound as if we’re eighty.”

“Which ivy league did you go to?”

“Princeton.”

“On a scholarship?”

She nodded slowly. “I promised myself that I wouldn’t get myself or my family in debt just to study. Drew was already in the army, I knew he might not get a job when he came back, so I wanted to start working and start saving immediately instead of paying off student loans.”

Prudent.
“Why did you choose teaching over auditing?”

“There was so much politics at work. I grew tired of trying to decipher the hidden knives behind the smiles and got tired of having to watch my back.”

He nodded.

He hadn’t tried his hand at the corporate ladder, but he’d heard enough from Travis to understand what she was talking about. Honest and hardworking didn’t count for much. After slogging for the company for over six years, Travis was let go because his company was ‘changing directions’.

Paige was too kind to survive in those situations. She had to stand up for the weak, help those she thought needed.
 

“And the plan to help your brother?”

“I saved enough. I told you, I had two pretty well-paying job, and I don’t spend a lot.”
 

He arched a brow. “There must be something you indulge in. Bags, shoes…”

“I have four bags. One black, one brown, and one light beige. Granted they were expensive, but I’ve used them for the longest time and they’re versatile enough to go with all my clothes. The last one is a black clutch; that was a gift, though.” She lifted the glass of water. “Same goes for the shoes. Then a pair of sneakers and a pair of track shoes.”

There couldn’t be too many women like her.

She raised her finger, getting his attention. “I did indulge in some Pottery Barn furniture that I fell in love with the moment I saw them online. I should never have looked.”

He laughed, shaking the wine in his glass.
 

He had never been this relaxed with anyone. There was such ease being around her.

“And you? How did working in construction ended up in flipping houses?”

Maybe it was the trust she had in him that brought about he trust he had in her.
 

If it were anyone else, he would’ve shrugged off the question or changed the topic. He didn’t like speaking about what he did. After all, most people who asked were only interested in how much he made.

“After years of working in construction, I learned everything I needed to flip houses. I thought if people are willing to buy old houses and hire people to fix it up, a newly renovated house will be even more appealing.”

“True.”

“Basically, I took a gamble and it paid off.”

They continued chatting until they finished everything. He had watched her while she drank the wine, making sure she wasn’t drinking it too quickly.

But he didn’t really have to worry. In between every sip, she reached for the water and drank a few mouths before continuing, and he didn’t refill her glass until the food was completely gone.

He was sure she didn’t drink much, and since the wine did taste like apple juice, he was afraid she would forget it was alcohol she was drinking.

“So, are these all the dishes you know how to cook?” Justin teased as he washed up.

Paige stood beside him, helping him dry the dishes. “I can probably cook more stuff as long as I have the recipes.”

“Do you have those? Because there are nine more dinners to go.” He handed the last of the plates to her.

“You didn’t say I have to cook all 10.”

“I did say I get to choose.”

She stacked the plate neatly, making sure it was perfectly lined up. “Then choose something else.”

“I like home-cooked meals, but,” he said, moving closer. “I’m willing to make a deal.”

She turned from the cabinet and looked up at him, wide-eyed, waiting for him to speak.
 

“One kiss, in exchange for everything.”

“But I’ve already cooked one of the ten meals.”

“Then I’ll owe you one meal.” He leaned in closer.

Paige smiled and tiptoed, moving her cheek close to his.

She smells amazing.
He could feel her warm breath against his cheek and was so tempted to pull her lips to his.