Page 16 of Suddenly Dating
“Whatare you doing?” he asked.
“Are you serious? Isn’t it obvious? I’m cooking my dinner. I made moussaka. It’s a Greek eggplant dish. With some mashed potatoes. Sort of a moussaka shepherd’s pie.”
He stared at her.
“It’s really good,” she assured him, taking his silent stare as doubt.
“Did it require using every pot and bowl in the kitchen to make?”
She snorted at his ignorance. “No. Not even half.” This happened to be one of the most well-stocked kitchens she’d ever seen. She’d have to make a double batch of moussaka to useeverypot and bowl.
He sighed a little, bent his head, and rubbed his nape for a moment. When he lifted his head again, he tried to smile. Sort of like she imagined the runner-up in a beauty contest would try to smile. “It’s Lola, right?” he said amicably. “I once had a dog with the name.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Good for you.” She picked up a knife and moved to his left to chop chives on the cutting board.
“Look...” he said, trying that loser’s smile again. “I’m hoping we can talk about this.”
His hair was dark brown, like coffee. He hadn’t shaved; today’s whiskers shadowed his jaw. Of all the men to pop into her fantasy summer to ruin it, it would be a guy who looked as sexy as he did. Handsome Harry. Lola had to look away. She pretended to be looking for an ingredient in the little spice boxes from Williams-Sonoma. Kennedy would call this kismet. Kennedy was studying psychology and had a name for everything. She often liked to diagnose her siblings around the dinner table.You know what you are, Ty? You’re borderline ridiculous. Jesus, Casey, how many more brief psychotic breaks are you going to have tonight?
The thought of Kennedy diagnosing this guy made Lola suddenly giggle.
“Something funny?” he asked.
“What?” She glanced over her shoulder.
He was frowning. “I guess I don’t see what’s even remotely amusing about this. We have a disaster on our hands.”
“A disaster?That seems a little dramatic.” She wasn’t going to allow an Adonis to drop in and tell her that her perfect summer was a disaster.This was her one chance to do something for herself. So Lola reached for her wine, took a long sip, and said, “It’s actually kind of amusing.”
He looked surprised. His gaze slid over her again, this time lingering a little too long on her chest. “It’s not funny to me,” he said flatly. “I have some very important work I’m doing here, and this is a complication I didn’t expect.”
“Oh, and I don’t have important work I’m doing here?”
He hesitated. “I didn’t say that,” he said carefully. “I obviously don’t know what you’re doing here. But I will point out again that I was here first, and I’m trying to achieve something.”
Now Handsome Harry was beginning to annoy her. Why did men always assume what they were doing was far more important than what a woman was doing? “So am I,” she said curtly. She put her wine glass down, threw the chives into her salad, and tossed again.
“Okay,” he said nodding. “Let’s talk about that. What are you doing at Lake Haven?”
“None of your beeswax,” Lola said instantly. She did not want to tell him she was writing a book, for fear she’d get the reaction she got from her brothers.A book?Followed by loud laughter. Not to mention she hadn’t been exactly hitting it out of the ballpark on the writing front.
Her response made Handsome Harry look a little too smug, as if he was congratulating himself on being right—his work was more important than hers. “You don’t want to talk? That’s cool. I don’t really care what you’re up to.”
“Ditto,” she said.
“Great,” he said, his gaze piercing hers. “Neither of us cares. Nevertheless, it’s pretty obvious we’re both a little stuck here. If Zach and/or Sara find out, we’re probably both out, agreed?”
“Agreed.”
“So we’re going to have to make the best of it.”
Why did he have to sound so condescending? Like he was the one who was clearly going to have to strive to make the best of it? “Alrighty then,” she said, and smiled. She swiped up her wine glass. “Here’s me, making the best of it.” She took a nice long swig, set the glass aside, and began to make her salad dressing.
“I think we should establish some ground rules.”
“Sure,” she said gregariously. “Like what?”
“Like... this is my half of the house,” he said, turning partially and gesturing to the living room and the hallway that led to the two guest rooms. “And you have the master, which frankly, is almost as big as this. We can work out a sharing arrangement for the living room and kitchen.”
