“Because he is my friend! They’re all my friends!” she shouted back at him.
A red light flashed before them and Jake slammed his hand into the steering wheel at the same moment he slammed his foot into the brakes. They went screeching up the intersection, bouncing back with the force of the stop. Robin braced herself against the dash and slowly turned to look at him. “Calm down.”
Jake laughed, shook his head. “I’m calm, baby. I’m real calm. I’m too numb to be anything else, because for the life of me, I can’t figure out why someone as special as you would have friends as shallow as that.”
That silenced her. Not because she felt indignant, but because she didn’t know why.
When they got to her house—at a reasonable speed—Jake didn’t say much other than good night, tossed her the keys, and walked purposefully to his motorcycle, taking off without even a glance backward.
Robin watched him disappear before wandering inside. She dropped her things on the dining table, made her way to the back terrace. There was a soft breeze blowing across the lawn, making the herd of pink flamingos bounce a little. She lowered herself into a lounge chair, pondering the evening.
Jake was right. Evan had been horrible, the jealousy practically oozing from him. And Mia, well, Mia had been a snob as long as Robin could remember. At the same time, while she could see Evan and Mia’s faults as Jake saw them, she could also understand them. She could understand how they viewed the world because it was the same way she had viewed the world up until a few short months ago, and now . . . well, now, she was seeing things a little differently. She was seeing the world through Jake’s eyes.
And she was beginning to really despise what she saw.
Which is why she changed into cutoffs and a T-shirt and drove to the Heights. When she pulled up into Jake’s drive, she could see the flicker of a light deep in the back of the house. She tiptoed up the steps, rang the doorbell. After a moment, she could hear movement. A second later, the porch light flicked on, blinding her as the door swung open.
Bare-chested, barefoot, and wearing jeans that rode low on his hips, Jake stepped up to the door frame and leaned against it, one arm draped across his hard belly, the other loosely holding a beer bottle, the barbed wire tattoo around his bicep stark against his skin.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi.”
“Can I come in?”
Jake inhaled deeply and released it slowly as he stood behind the screen, taking her in. “Don’t know if I should,” he said at last. “I think maybe I should send you back to your little group so you can sit around and laugh at the rest of the world with them.”
Ouch. “Come on, Jake, you know I’m not like that—”
“Oh yeah? Does Burdette ring any bells?”
Ouch again. “Okay, that’s fair. But I’ve changed—and before you list all my faults, let me please say I am sorry. I shouldn’t have put you in that situation.”
“Why? Because I don’t belong with your rich and snooty pals?”
“No, because Evan was an ass,” she said.
“Is,” he said, his voice softer.
“Is.” Robin sighed. “Come on, Jake. Let me in, please?”
He shoved a hand through his hair and released another long sigh. “I don’t know, Robin. I’m not sure about things anymore.”
That sent a shot of panic right up her spine. “You should let me in,” she said, nervously tracing a line across the screen door, “because I owe you an apology for not seeing your side of it.”
He nodded thoughtfully, took a swig of his beer, then pushed the screen door open a crack. “I think you really don’t see how they are.”
“You may have a point.”
Jake pushed the screen door a little wider. “And maybe I’m a little biased—I haven’t liked Clownpants from the get-go.”
Robin couldn’t help herself; she smiled. “Those were the worst pants I have ever seen.”
Jake smiled a little. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”
Robin grabbed the screen door and pulled it wider still. “Prepare yourself, Handy Andy, because when I make an apology, there is no mercy.”
And it was fabulous make-up sex, if Robin did say so herself. She made sure he understood just how sorry she was. Early the next morning, before the sun had completely risen, she felt his hardness pressed against her hip, and rolled over, into his arms. They made soft, lazy love as the sun rose to cast a shaft of light across the floor of Jake’s bedroom, and then lay sated and drowsy in one another’s arms, drifting in and out of sleep.
Jake was the first to rise, quietly disentangling himself from Robin’s arms and kissing the top of her head. She opened her eyes long enough to see him stretch his arms high above his head and display his magnificent backside to her. He continued on to the shower and she rolled over, the sound of running water on the fringes of her consciousness.