For Better or Worse (9 page)

Chapter Ten

E
XACTLY HOW MANY BANANAS
did I put on my shopping list?” Heather asked as she pulled out a second bunch from the grocery bag. “I only need a couple for the fruit salad.”

“Sure, but you're going to need a lot for the banana bread,” Josh said, moving some things around in her fridge to make room for the multiple cartons of eggs he'd picked up.

She turned and stared at his back. “I'm not making banana bread.”

“Well, not today you're not,” he said. “They have to get all ripe and brown first.”

“Sorry, I'll clarify. I'm not making banana bread ever.”

“Sure you are,” he said, pulling a bundle of Italian parsley from the bag. “As a thank-you.”

“Okay, I'll admit that I owe you a thank-you,” she said slowly. “But I don't know how to make banana bread.”

“Don't worry.” He winked. “I do.”

Heather rolled her eyes, even as she felt an odd little stab of happiness at the thought that they'd be making banana bread together in the near future. She didn't actually like banana bread, but she was pretty sure she was starting to like her neighbor. A lot.

Not in the romantic sense. She wasn't quite crazy enough to get involved with a man who had
heartbreaker
scrawled across his six-pack. But she couldn't deny that the guy was growing on her. Big-time. Nor could she deny that she was attracted. Big-time.

They unpacked the groceries, and Heather pulled up the coffee cake recipe on her iPad. Wow.
Wow.
Had it always been this complicated? So many ingredients. So many steps.

So little time.

Josh shoved his hands in his pockets, wandering around her apartment. “Table looks nice.”

The table did look nice, thanks to him giving her time to fuss with it. Heather had taken a speed shower, leaving her hair to air-dry as she'd carefully arranged the freshly cut flowers she'd picked up on her way home yesterday and made homemade napkin rings of sorts out of gorgeous silver ribbon left over from one of her summer weddings.

She didn't have fancy china, but her plain white plates contrasted nicely with the pink place mats, and she'd completed the look with silver glittery candles that were maybe just a touch fancy for a daytime brunch but gave her otherwise pedestrian apartment a flare of formal.

“Yeah, well, that's the easy part,” Heather said as she dashed around the kitchen, gathering the
necessary supplies. The metal bowl balanced on top of a million other things crashed to the ground, followed by the bag of flour, the wooden spatula, and a box of salt, which thankfully wasn't open and thus didn't spill everywhere.

Heather set the stuff aside, bending down to clean up at the same moment Josh did.

They both reached for the bowl, and she glanced up when he didn't let go when she tugged. He was searching her face. “4C, exactly how bad are you in the kitchen?”

She bit her lip. “Um, I make a mean chocolate chip cookie?”

He gave a little sigh as he stood, extending a hand down to her. “Somehow I knew you were going to say something like that. All right, 4C, let's do this.”

She frowned. “Do what?”

Josh pulled out two cutting boards and placed one in front of her. “You're on fruit salad.”

“Not a manly enough dish for you to concern yourself with?” she asked.

“Absolutely not. I don't suppose you're planning on serving steak? Just a big, juicy hunk of beef?”

“Big, huh? Compensating for something, Tanner?”

“Sorry, if you wanted to see the goods, you should have done so earlier this morning
before
I put my pants on.”

Heather rolled her eyes. “I'm confident it won't be the last time you prance around in your boxers. And no steak. But seriously, you don't have to help me.”

“Shut up, 4C. You've pissed me off enough in the past week. Okay, let's talk egg prep. You skilled
enough to do omelets, or you want me to just prep it all so that you can put it into one big scramble when they get here?”

“Scramble, I guess,” she said, unable to keep the glum out of her voice. “Not as fancy as I was hoping, but I've never made an omelet before, and I'm not sure cooking for five guests is the time to start.”

“Tell me about these people you're so determined to impress,” he said, cracking an egg into a mixing bowl with surprising aptitude for a man who had his mother make him pancakes.

“The women are my colleagues,” Heather said, flipping open the carton of strawberries and beginning to wash and slice them. “The rest of the Belles and our receptionist.”

“The Belles?”

“The Wedding Belles,” she explained. “That's the name of our wedding-planning company.”

“And these belles,” he said as he dug around in her drawer for a whisk. “They're the fussy quiche types?”

“For the record, quiche is delicious,” Heather said, pointing her knife at him. “And no, they're not fussy. Not really. Brooke is sort of bubbly and sweet, Jessie's a little firecracker and probably the most outgoing person you'll ever meet. And Alexis is . . .”

Heather broke off. How did one explain Alexis Morgan?

“Complicated,” she said.

“Is that your girl way of saying you don't like her?”

“No, I love her!” Heather said, scooping up a handful of the sliced berries and dropping them into
the bowl. “I mean, yeah, she's my boss, but she's become a friend, too. When I say she's complicated, I just mean more . . . I sometimes think that I don't know her. I'm not sure that anybody does.”

“A mystery woman,” Josh said as he began slicing mushrooms. “That's hot.”

“Says the man whose bedmates are all giggles and lip gloss.”

“You bashing your fellow kind, 4C?” he asked.

“Absolutely not, 4A. I've been known to giggle and rock the lip gloss myself. To be clear, I was bashing
you
.”

He nodded. “Sure, sure. Gotta keep up your walls, I get it.”

“Oh, I'm not the one with walls,” she said confidently as she opened the container of blueberries and went to the sink to rinse them.

To Heather's surprise, Josh came back with neither a defensive remark nor a quip. Instead he kept his focus on his mushrooms, almost as though relying on the fungi to provide a buffer from whatever dark thoughts had caused a little line to form between his eyebrows. Heather bit her lip as she studied his profile, torn between the urge to dig a little and the desire to respect his privacy.

She'd hardly spilled her guts to him; it's not as though she could fairly expect him to do the same. And yet, the more she got to know him, the more she wanted to really
know
him.

Because she suspected Josh was just as much as a mystery as Alexis. He just was a hell of a lot better at hiding it than Heather's reticent boss.

They fell into companionable silence as she finished up the fruit salad, and he set out the rest of the ingredients for the eggs. It wouldn't be quiche, but as far as scrambled eggs went, they'd be the high-class variety. Mixed mushrooms, scallions, and some grated Swiss cheese.

“Yes or no on the bacon?” Heather asked, holding up the package as she glanced nervously at the clock. There were only twenty minutes left.

“Seriously?” he asked, plucking the package from her hand. “The answer is always yes to bacon. Do you have a cookie sheet?”

Heather blinked. “For what?”

“The bacon.”

“You don't cook bacon on a cookie sheet.”

“Maybe
you
don't,” Josh said, shoving at her hip as he correctly guessed which cupboard she kept the cookie sheets in.

Heather watched skeptically as he placed foil on the cookie sheet, then placed a cooling rack on top of that before laying out the bacon in neat strips.

“You forgot to preheat it,” she said as he opened her oven door and slid the sheet in.

“It goes into a cold oven. Set it for four hundred degrees. Check on it in twelve to fifteen minutes.”

“Are you trying to sabotage my brunch?” Heather asked. Her mother had never cooked bacon—or much of anything—but when Heather's grandmother had been alive, she'd always done it in a cast-iron skillet on the stove.

“Guess you'll have to trust me,” he said, fishing
a grape out of her fruit salad, popping it into his mouth, and giving her a maddeningly smug grin.

“Yeah, because that's what smart women in New York City do. Trust strange men who prefer to walk around naked and bed a new woman every other night.”

Josh hoisted himself onto her counter. “Strange? Really? You've seen me in my underwear, you've listened to my band practice, I just went grocery shopping for you,
and
you've met my mother. I'd say we're well beyond being strangers, 4C.”

“True,” Heather said as she arranged the ingredients for her coffee cake. It wouldn't be done by the time they got here, but she could pop it into the oven after the bacon came out. “You know, now that I think about it, I don't think a boyfriend has ever done my grocery shopping. And I've certainly never met a guy's mother.”

“Really?” he asked.

She glanced at him as she measured out sugar. “You seem surprised.”

“I am. Beneath all the girl-power energy, you've got a little old-fashioned about you. I would have thought you'd have come close to the altar a couple times.”

Heather snorted.

“Come on,” he pressed. “You're telling me you've never lost your cranky little heart to a guy?”

“No,” she said slowly. “I don't know that that's for me.”

“Well, would you look at that,” he said with a little grin. “We have something in common.”

“What, the dedicated bachelor has never been in love? I'm shocked. Shocked I say!”

“Hey, I never said I've never been in love,” he corrected, “just that I don't have plans to be in the future.”

“Really? When?” she asked, curious as to what sort of girl could hold the attention of a committed bachelor.

“Second grade. Her name was Robin, and she let me play her Game Boy at recess.”

“However did you let her slip away from you?”

“I'm ashamed to say my eye was caught by another lady. Her name was Anna and she had a better game selection on her Game Boy.”

“A player even then, huh?”

“Then and always,” he said.

His voice was still teasing, but there was a slight intensity to his tone now, as though he were trying to tell her something.

Heather glanced up and locked gazes with him. “Josh Tanner, are you trying to warn me off right now? Give me fair warning not to fall in love with you because you'll never fall back?”

He laughed. “That obvious, huh?”

“Definitely,” she said, shoving his legs out of her way so she could pull a spoon out of the drawer and taste her coffee cake batter.

“And in case it wasn't clear, I'm confident my poor little heart is withstanding all of your
charm
just fine.”

“Glad to hear it, 4C. Because despite all your sass, you are a relationship kind of girl, and I'm not a relationship kind of guy.”

“Some girl will change that,” Heather said, digging her tasting spoon into the bowl.

Josh's fingers wrapped around her wrist, and she glanced up, startled by the firmness of his grip. “No,” he said quietly. “That won't change.”

“All right,” she said with a nervous laugh. “Take it easy, no one's trying to march you toward the altar.”

He smiled, but it seemed forced, and she was struck by a little stab of sadness at how resolute he was. Instinct told her this was more than just manwhore avoidance of commitment. Josh was deliberately holding himself back from the possibility of a relationship for something that went beyond a love of playing the field.

“I'm going to ask you something,” he said, his thumb brushing the inside of her wrist, his voice low and dangerous.

Heather swallowed. “What?”

His gaze dropped to her mouth. “Why'd you kiss Trevor?”

She gave a nervous laugh and tried to pull her hand free, but he held tight. “Because he's hot.”

Josh's eyes narrowed. “I don't think so.”

“Well, I hardly think a heterosexual male is the best one to judge another guy's hotness,” she countered.

Josh's gaze dropped to the spoon in her hand, and he pulled it toward his mouth, sliding it in between his lips in a gesture that was far sexier than it had a right to be.

“Delicious,” he said as he licked the spoon clean, holding her gaze.

“Quit flirting,” she said, trying to pull her hand back. “You
just
got done telling me how falling in love with you would be the end of life as I know it.”

“Oh, I don't want you to love me, 4C. Doesn't mean I don't want you to
want
me.”