Page 9 of Made for You
“Boo, she just broke it open for me. Can she please tutor me or something? She needs a job, anyway, and—”
“All right then, honey, get up to bed so your brain can cement all of this in place. We’ll see you soon.”
Rosie’s interruption left me a little surprised, and the deepening flush on Nikki’s face explained it.
“I—we’ll talk about it. Rosie’s right. Get to bed and have a good sleep.”
Kiley wandered past me with her armful of books, her dark hair sticking out at odd angles from her bun. She nudged me with an elbow on her way by. “Night, Boo.”
Affection burst open in my chest—that easy. “Night, Ki.”
The three of us watched her go, then I walked the ladies to the door.
“Thanks for hanging with her, and thank you for breaking open the mysteries of statistics. I’m pretty hopeless with math.”
One of Nikki’s brows raised. “I wouldn’t have imagined you being hopeless with anything.”
Rosie’s grin spread across her face in a flash, and she flared her eyes at me with a chuckle. “Nighty night, Bruce.”
“Good night, and thank you both,” I said, then shut the door before I could say what I really wanted to say.“Oh, yeah? Howhaveyou imagined me?” I wondered how that would’ve gone over, even though I knew I shouldn’t give it any more thought.
CHAPTERFIVE
Nikki
Bruce appeared on my doorstep the next day looking like he’d barely reached consciousness before he’d rolled out of his house and arrived at my bejeweled doorstep. Or, Rosie’s doorstep, rather, but since she wasn’t awake yet, it was me who swung open the door to reveal him in all his glory.
“Uh, hi.”
He gave me a nod with that ridiculous face of his leading the charge, and I swallowed hard. Exhausted or no, the man was outrageously good-looking.
“I wanted to get here early. These are to say thank you.” He handed me a pink box with white twine tied around it.
“What’s this?” I saw no hint of its contents, though I smelled something slightly sweet.
“They’re from Glazed, a little donut shop. My buddy’s sister, the owner, just opened it. You went the extra mile with Kiley last night, and I wanted to say thank you.”
His dark eyes pinned me in place, and the quickening pulse racing through me since the minute I saw him at the door doubled.
“This is so… unnecessary,” I said, more than a little baffled by the gesture. Not only had I enjoyed the time with Kiley, the interaction had given me the germ of an idea, and it’d taken root overnight. Fledgling still, and it’d take some time to percolate and develop, yet it had popped in to stay.
He huffed a laugh. “Well, you helping my sister understand a mathematical concept that is entirely opaque to me is a debt I can never repay, so let’s call it even. Oh—” He pulled a small envelope from the pocket of his jacket. “And these are for you and Rosie.”
I took the small packet and raised my brows.
“They’re tickets. To the film fest. There’s a pretty big screening tonight and—”
I gasped before I could stop myself. I’d just read an article about this in the small-town weekly paper Gram got. “Is it the Jack McKean movie?”
His lips pressed together, and his eyes narrowed. “McKean fan?”
Making no attempt to hide the truth, I grinned. “What a tautological statement…”
He blinked.
I cleared my throat, ignoring the familiar awkwardness and trying again. “Is there anyone who’s not?”
Recovering perfectly, he pressed a hand to his chest. “I can’t imagine.”
