Page 29 of Suddenly Dating
She leaned back against the counter, watching him lap up her food as she munched on her apple. Her scrutiny made him feel conspicuous; he slowed the shoveling. “So. You’re here to write a book,” he said, taking a breath. “The mystery has been solved.”
“Yep.” Her sunny smile was completely incongruent with the pages he’d read.
“Are you a published author?” he asked, wondering if he ought to know who she was. Not that he would know—he rarely read fiction. His reading consisted of magazines and manuals.
“Not yet. I’m trying to be. Sara offered me the place to see if I could do it.”
“You’re definitely doing it,” he said, glancing uneasily at the mess on the dining room table. “I wouldn’t have guessed writer.” The last part sort of slipped out before he realized it.
“Oh no? What would you have guessed?”
Harry shrugged. “I don’t know... maybe a teacher,” he said unconvincingly.
Lola blinked. And then she laughed. “Why? Because women are supposed to be teachers and nurses?”
“No. Just because.” Because he could picture her in front of a group of kids, in a cute dress with strawberries on the hem, handing out cookies. So sue him.
“I amsonot a teacher. Now you have to tell me why you’re here.”
“I’m trying to get a bridge construction firm off the ground.” Lola had very thick, dark-brown lashes, he noticed, that framed pool-blue eyes. Which, incidentally, sat above a slight smattering of freckles across her cheeks.
“You’re like a builder or something?”
“Or something. I’m a civil engineer,” he said. “I sold my apartment in New York so I could buy the heavy equipment I need to make bids. Zach offered me a place to stay until I could get the business off the ground.”
“Wow,” she said, nodding as if she were impressed, and Harry’s Y chromosomes puffed up a little. “What kind of bridges are we talking?”
“You know, bridges that attach roads over water or rail yards or what have you.”
“Huh.” She tilted her head to one side. “That’s not what I would have guessed, either.”
He put down his spoon, leaned back. “Okay, I’ll bite. What would you have guessed?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe laundry operator?”
He smiled. “Interesting,” he said, nodding. “While it is true I like clean, folded clothes, I’m not sure what I’d be doing at a lake house if my business was laundry.”
“Maybe because you intend to open a laundry facility around here,” she suggested. “A big Laundromat with posters around the walls warning customers of the dangers of mildew.”
Harry’s smile widened. “There’s already a laundry facility. I pass it every day on my way out of town. I doubt East Beach could support two.”
“Oh, is there?” she said breezily. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve been too busy writing a book.”
“The freckles on your face would argue that you’ve been hanging out at the pool. But okay, someone wrote the pages about a woman who’s going to kill some guy because he didn’t answer her text.”
“Oh come on, Harry,” she said airily. “Admit it—you don’t like it either when you text someone and they don’t answer right away.”
She was enjoying this conversation. And he was enjoying looking at her. She was prettier than he’d given her credit for in the beginning. She was a little quirky, definitely a hot mess, the author of a very strange book, and definitely, definitely pretty. “I admit it,” he said. “But would I kill them? No.”
“That’s why I’m not writing a book about you, Humdrum Harry.”
“Very funny,” he said, smiling. His gaze strayed, down the lapels of her bathrobe.
Lola took another bite of her apple. “Well, okay then, now that we’ve confessed our true occupations, I have to get ready for the party. By the way, I want to be a good roommate and formally acknowledge that I know you will totally flip out if I leave the kitchen like this,” she said, and pressed her hand to her heart and bowed. “There is no need to leave me a note. I promise to do it when I get home—”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “You fed me, and for that I am very grateful. I’ll clean up.”
“Really? You don’t mind?”
