What alarmed him was not the handholding, or even the discovery by Mr. Stanton. It was that he was even having these thoughts about Robin Lear, and the very real fear that next time, he wasn’t certain he could restrain himself. Which was why he was going to work very hard to obliterate all thoughts of Robin Lear, grit his teeth and force these absurd images he was building in his head, images of her in various locations, like the back of his bike, or in his truck. In his bed.
Man, he needed to put some buffers between him and the house on North Boulevard before it was too late.
In the dining room, Robin was having similar misgivings about what she considered a near disaster, and while she could hardly tolerate Grandpa’s ribbing, he had saved her from a horrible, terrible mistake. She did not need any entanglements right now; she had enough trauma in her life as it was. Nonetheless, she couldn’t seem to let the hand incident go, and spent a fair amount of time studying the wall where Jake had been working, imagining his capable hands skillfully and carefully removing years from the brick.
And she wondered why this . . . this thing with Jake felt impossible, or what exactly it was she was afraid of. It baffled her—but Robin generally preferred to avoid any real introspection because she rarely liked what she saw. And men, well . . . they either wilted around her or tried to corral her. Usually, after the first few dates with a guy, she would begin to feel like she was searching for something. Something the guy probably didn’t have. But Robin never had understood what she was searching for.
She tried not to think about that, and tried to focus on the wacky world of packing materials. But when she drifted off to sleep that night, in that conscious point of no return, the curious question of why she couldn’t do this thing with Jake clouded her thoughts.
When she slept, she dreamed of pink flamingos and pickup trucks.
The next morning, she hauled herself out of bed at the ungodly hour of 6 A.M., put on her running gear, and headed outside before it got too muggy, determined to put this strange infatuation firmly behind her.
She did not succeed.
Coming back from her lame attempt to run and think about anything else but Jake, she entered the house through the back door, and damn near walked over a man she had never seen before, down on one knee, scraping up what looked to be the remnants of a breakfast taco on the floor. At least she hoped that was what it was.
The man looked up, jerked backward with surprise when he saw her, then said cheerfully, “Oh hey, how you doing?”
Only then did she notice his arm was in a sling. “Who are you?”
“Me? Oh! I’m Chuck Zaney. But you can call me Zaney.”
Zaney, Zaney . . . did she know him? Robin racked her brain, tried to remember where she had left the phone.
Before she could remember, the man offered, “I’m the dude behind Manning. Get it? Well . . . not behind him like that,” he quickly clarified, “but you know . . . like with him.”
“Zaney,” she repeated, the name registering in some deep recess.
“Yep. Spelled just like it sounds.” He suddenly laughed. “You know what they used to call me in school? Zany Zaney.” He waited a beat or two, then laughed in loud Foghorn Leghorn fashion. When Robin did not join in his jocularity, his laughter trailed off. “Yep, those were some crazy guys,” he said and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth.
“Where’s Jake?” Robin asked quickly before he detoured down memory lane again.
“Oh man, he had to go talk to his nephew’s teacher. The kid keeps running off, so Jakie, he’s gonna go knock some sense into him.” Zany Zaney finished cleaning up whatever it was and struggled to his feet. “I’m still trying to figure this out,” he said, waving his sling about. “Hard to manage the tacos.”
“I can see that,” Robin said and walked past him to the dining room. The clump of Zaney’s work boots followed directly behind her. “So when is Jake going to be here?” she asked.
“Dunno,” Zaney said, shaking his ponytailed head. He held up his good hand. “He’s gotta go see about the kid,” he said, folding one finger over, “and then he has to make up his class,” he added, bending the second finger, “and then . . .” He paused at the third finger.
Robin waited for him to finish his thought. Until she realized that he had. “His class?” she prompted, trying not to sound too interested.
“Oh, yeah! Jakie, he’s gonna be an architect! He’ll be done next summer if Cole don’t mess it up for him.”
This news surprised her. “He’s studying to be an architect?”
Zaney nodded again. “He’s real good.”