Page 33 of A Better Place

“Carly. Don’t be sorry. I get it, okay?”

“I’m going now, before I can act like even more of a doofus.”

I bark out a laugh. “Doofus, huh? I haven’t heard that one in a while.”

“Yeah, well, I can’t think of a better word to describe myself at this moment.”

“Oh, I can think of a few.” I wink at her.

She smiles at me. “Bye, James.”

“Not goodbye.”

“See you later?”

“Better. I’ll see you soon, Carly.”

“Did you find a gym?”

“Oh yeah,” I reply with a note in my voice that hopefully lets Barrett know there’s more to the story. We’re chopping wood in his back yard for his fireplace, and he places a newly cut log on the pile behind the house.

“That sounds interesting.”

“Carly was there.”

He pauses in lifting a large log and looks at me out of the corner of his eyes. “Carly, as in Harper’s teacher Carly?”

I nod my head and reach for the log to place on the wood splitter that he apparently has already forgotten. “The one and only.”

“Oh boy.”

“Oh boy what?”

“Tess is gonna have a field day with this one.” He snickers and shakes his head.

“Tess doesn’t need to know,” I tell him with my eyebrows raised.

“Ha! Right.” He laughs again. When I don’t respond, he does a double-take and looks at me. “Shit. You’re serious? No. Nuh-uh. No way. I don’t keep things from Tess. Besides. I’m a terrible, terrible secret keeper. Everyone knows this. I’m the guy people tell a secret to hoping that I’ll spread the word.”

I bust out laughing because it’s so true. I can’t believe he was able to keep the whole re-proposing thing from Tess until he actually did it. “Alright, well, I’ll amend that. Let’s just not make a big deal of it. I don’t really think Carly is interested in dating, anyway.”

“Captain James Cole? Surely not!” He gasps. “She was what Tess and Lauren say, swooning all over you before the football game. Hotty McHotPants, remember?” He waggles his eyebrows.

I bite back a laugh. Tess and Lauren have been friends since they were kids but even more, she’s married to Barrett’s business partner, Josh. They’re rarely apart.

“You’re such a jerk.” I roll my eyes. “And, be that as it may, she definitely isn’t interested.”

“She’s interested. I saw the way you two looked at each other at the game. The entire game.”

“Did you also happen to see her bolt from me when I was walking her to her car?”

“Oh, that was classic. Maverick crashed and burned,” Barrett says using his hand to simulate as he picks up another piece of wood.

“I thought I was Captain?” I brush some sawdust off my flannel shirt and move the newly split piece to the neatly stacked pile of wood.

“Ah, potato po-tah-to,” he says turning his head side to side.

“You are so weird. Besides, when I saw her at the gym, she basically told me I was in the friend-zone,” I argue.

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