Page 60 of Stay With Me

I’m not even sure if I want to have children of my own, but watching Charlie with the students makes my ovaries happy—thrilled. So lost in my own thoughts, I forget Linette is still standing next to me until she releases a long sigh and I glance over at her. She’s smiling and staring at Charlie, too.

And I don’t like it. Not at all.

* * *

CHARLIE

As I run a towel over my wet hair, I look around Emily’s guest bathroom, impressed with how our work came out. It’s been a week since we re-tiled this shower and updated the vanity and flooring, and I assume I’m the first one to shower in here.

I felt a little weird about it initially, but Emily has a realtor coming over this evening and she wanted Trina and me here for that. Then we’re having a celebratory dinner since the work on her house is all done. I could hardly stay for all that as sweaty as I was from the last of the work on the house today.

We dragged a ton of stuff out to the garage from her attic storage for donating and the things she wants to throw out, we took to the trash.

After drying off my body as well, I get dressed in shorts and a clean T-shirt so I can head downstairs. Just as I pick up my phone, it dings with a text message.

Linette: Hi Fitz. It’s Linette again. Just checking if things have settled down for you and you might be up for getting drinks.

I don’t even answer. Instead, I slide the phone into my pocket.

“Damn Trina, giving my phone number out,” I mutter to myself as I leave the bathroom and head downstairs.

It’s been a month since Trina and I did the presentation at Emily’s school. When I got a text a few days later from the woman, Linette, asking if I wanted to get together, I was totally confused about how she got my phone number. Turns out, Trina gave it to her when we were at the school. Apparently, my meddling best friend thinks I need to be dating. She’s one to talk.

Anyway, I dodged the first few invites by telling her it wasn’t a good time since I was working on my house and Emily’s. In retrospect, I should have just been more direct from the start—I’m not interested—because she didn’t get the hint when I declined her first two offers. Honestly, I barely remember her, even after Trina described her to me.

When I get downstairs, I find Emily sitting on the back patio, her hair still damp from her shower and hanging well below her shoulders. I move to sit in the seat next to her and when she turns and smiles at me, I almost lose my breath. Damn, she’s so pretty. She’s wearing a T-shirt dress that makes her gorgeous sapphire-colored eyes pop even more than usual and she has very little makeup on. Absolutely fucking stunning.

When I realize my mouth is hanging slightly open and I’m staring, I regroup. I clear my throat, then point toward the bottle of beer on the table next to a glass of wine. “This for me?”

“Yep, it’s my thank you for all you’ve done around here. That and all the meals over these last few months. Since you wouldn’t let me pay you cash.” She narrows her eyes at me.

“We’ve been over this so many times. I’m never, ever, going to take money to help you with anything. I do it because I want to. Now, am I going to turn down an Emily Flynn home cooked meal? Hell no. The food is too good, and the company isn’t bad either.”

I wink at her and watch as her full cheeks turn a pale pink color, and she smiles sweetly.

Before either of us can speak again, Trina’s voice drifts through the screen door of the patio from in the house behind us. “Em? Where are you?”

Emily looks over her shoulder toward the patio doors and hollers, “We’re on the patio. Grab yourself a drink before you come out.”

About a minute later, the faint scraping of the screen door sliding on its track alerts me Trina is coming out onto the patio.

“Hey Em. Hey Fitz. I hope you don’t mind that I brought company,” Trina says. She comes around me to take a seat opposite us.

“Of course not. Welcome.”

The surprise in Emily’s voice makes me turn my head to see who it is. Unfortunately, I’m in the middle of taking a drink of my beer when I do, and I’m barely able to prevent myself from spitting out the mouthful of cold liquid. Ben Donley is thelastperson I ever would have expected Trina to bring along.

Ben shakes my hand, then steps past me to hug Emily before he moves toward the fourth chair to sit.

I lift a questioning brow at Trina as she sits, while Ben’s back is still to me. She shakes her head subtly. Ben and Trina have some kind of history—one that precedes my friendship with her—and, though she’s never given me details about what happened between them, she vacillates between barely acknowledging him to completely ignoring him at social gatherings with our mutual group of friends. Showing up together? Absolutely unheard of.

“Emily, I didn’t mean to crash your appointment with the realtor and your dinner. Trina and I had some things we were working on, and it ran late so we didn’t have time?—”

“Oh my gosh. Don’t be ridiculous. You’re always welcome here.” Emily swats at the air in his direction to wave off his comments.

After that brief exchange, we all spend about fifteen solid seconds looking at each other, silent, the air filled with awkwardness. Then a throaty laugh escapes Ben.

“Really? Neither of you are gonna acknowledge that you’re totally wigged out seeing Trina and I show up together? I’m really disappointed by that.” He laughs even harder, and Trina throws him a stern glare.

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