“Deal.” He nodded toward the door. “Now drive your sexy ass home and put on something…” He stepped back and looked her up and down. “hot. Put on something hot.”
“This isn’t hot?” She twirled in front of him, her good humor seeming to return. He chuckled as she twirled like a little kid. Damn, she really was beautiful. He cleared his throat and looked away.
“You’d look beautiful in anything, but you need to be wearing a birthday outfit.”
Char’s eyes twinkled with amusement. “Okay. I’ll be back soon.”
Jake nodded as he watched the sway of her hips as she walked off. Once she reached the door, Char turned. “Jake…”
“Yeah.”
“Thank you.”
“Yeah, well, I still don’t like you.”
She laughed. “Yeah, I don’t like you either.”
The door clicked shut and Jake had to take a seat to gather his thoughts. The problem was, they were all over the place. He was growing a bit too attached to Char’s smiles.
And it killed him inside to know that she felt that alone. What kind of person did that make him? That he would sit there and complain about his lot in life when she barely had an oven that worked and a family that could care less that it was her birthday?
If anything, his family cared too much.
And he’d never appreciated it until this moment.
With a shaky hand, he pulled out his cell phone and dialed Travis’s number.
“Hello?” Travis answered gruffly.
“I’ll do it.”
“Huh?” Travis coughed. “Did you mean to call me?”
Jake rolled his eyes. “Stop being difficult. I said I’ll do it, and I’ll stand by that.”
The phone went silent.
“You still there?” Jake asked.
“Yeah.” Travis laughed. “I was just checking the time to see if it was happy hour or something. You drunk?”
“I’m not drunk!” Jake yelled, getting more irritated by the minute. “I just wanted you to know I thought about it and I want to do it. I want to walk Kacey down the aisle with Dad.” He hadn’t meant for his voice to crack at the end. Hell, how many times would his past haunt him? He envisioned Bill’s smile, the way he’d looked at Kacey, and his gut clenched again. It was the least he could do for family—for hers and for his.
“Thank you.” Travis’s voice was hoarse. “It’s… it will just mean a lot.”
Needing to lighten the subject, Jake laughed. “Yeah, well, consider my good deed done for the year.”
“Done.” Travis sighed. “Everything else good?”
“Yeah.” Jake looked around the empty house and for the first time in his life felt guilty about what he had. Guilty that he had taken it for granted. “It will be.”
“You okay?”
“Great.” Jake cleared his throat. “Listen, I gotta go. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Bye.”
Chapter Fourteen
Char took more than an hour to get ready. Nothing looked good, and she at least wanted to look good if she was going to be seen with a celebrity. What was she supposed to wear, anyway? The way Jake had been looking at her made her shiver. Well, everything was confusing the crap out of her, and making her suddenly thankful that she took an hour rather than her usual twenty minutes. She had to keep reminding herself that he probably just felt sorry for her. He wasn’t really that altruistic. He was Jake Titus, for crying out loud. When he passed mirrors they got jealous if he didn’t look at least once.
She drove her beat up Ford Escape down the driveway to his house, alternating between full-out panic, wanting to turn around, then determination. It was her birthday. She should have fun. She deserved that much and right now the only future she had was a four-book series on her Kindle and a bottle of wine.
If she turned around she’d just fall asleep to Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake doing their seventh history of rap, and then awaken to Carson Daly’s two o’clock in the morning ramblings.
Depressing. To say the least.
Jake was already waiting for her when she pulled the car to a stop in front of the house.
Her jaw nearly dropped to the ground. What the—she’d only seen a car like that on TV and even then she wasn’t sure they were actually real.
One thing was for certain: she was clearly in over her head. Suddenly it felt wrong to have her old Ford parked next to his car.
She grabbed her purse and stepped out of the SUV.
Jake had on fitted jeans, aviator sunglasses, and a pale blue shirt with a few buttons opened at the top. He completed the effect with a fitted camel-colored leather jacket and well, to be honest, he was almost too much to stare at. But it wasn’t as if she could look at the car. It was practically blinding her. It was… it was incredible. No words would come.
“You like the car?” He asked, throwing the keys in her direction. She nearly stumbled as she caught them out of the air.
“Is it real?”
Jake laughed. “Is what real? The car?”
Char could only nod.