Max stared at her for a few seconds, his head cocked to one side. “Okay, wait. It’s midnight. You guys are alone in the kitchen and you’re barely dressed and…he told you to put some clothes on?”
“Yeah. And ever since he realized I’m not actually one of the guys, he’s been acting weird. Not all the time, but a lot.”
“Probably only when he’s thinking about having sex with you.”
That gave her pause, because if Max was right, that would mean Josh thought about having sex with her a lot. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to have, I don’t know, kissed me or something, instead of criticizing my lack of clothing and leaving the room?”
“That’s probably how most guys would have played it.”
“So what’s his problem?”
Max gave her a good impression of a deer in the headlights, before shrugging his shoulders. “I don’t know. Maybe he’s afraid of mucking up your friendship?”
That’s what she figured, too. “It’s pretty mucked up already.”
“Maybe if you hook up, it’ll kill the awkwardness and everything will be normal again.”
“That’s what Hailey said, too.”
“Who’s Hailey?”
She held up her hands in total disbelief. “Max, how can you have lived here five years and not know who Hailey Genest is? She’s the librarian.”
“Which librarian? I’m really bad with names.”
“Whitford only has one. Blond. Attractive. A little older than me?”
“Oh, her. She seems nice. And we seem to be in agreement on you and Josh having sex.”
Katie laughed. “There you go. A consensus. You guys obviously have a lot in common. You should take her out on a date.”
He recoiled. “With the librarian?”
“Why not? You can have some dinner and get to know each other better. Talk about her work. Talk about your work. Maybe have a drink or two.”
The corner of his mouth twitched in an almost-smile and she guessed she hadn’t been subtle enough. “This is my busy season, but maybe I’ll at least say hello at some point.”
A clue! “So you get busy before Christmas?”
“Yup. Hey, grab that bag of pretzels on your way out, would you? And maybe for that Christmas Eve thing I hear you’re doing, you should wear a sexy dress and spike his eggnog.” And just like that he was gone.
Katie refilled the chip bowl and grabbed a new tub of dip out of the fridge, but she stopped to scowl at the alarm panel on the basement door before grabbing the pretzels. She’d been close this time. She was sure of it.
A few plays had already been run by the time she got comfortable again and normally Josh would have given her a recap, but this time he didn’t look away from the television.
This had to stop, dammit. If she was going to lose her best friend over sex, it certainly wasn’t going to be because they didn’t have it. That would be a waste all the way around.
Hailey’s advice echoed through her head. Seduce him, use the hell out of him, and then send the oversexed, possibly dehydrated husk of him out into the world.
To hell with it. She had one week to find herself a drop-dead sexy dress.
*
“If you could stop ogling your wife long enough to answer my question, that’d be great.” Maybe meeting Mitch for a late breakfast-slash-early lunch at the Trailside Diner hadn’t been Josh’s greatest idea, but at least he’d been correct in guessing they’d have the place more or less to themselves at ten-thirty on a Wednesday morning.
“You asked a question?”
“I asked what you think I should get Katie for Christmas.” He’d lost almost as much sleep worrying about that as he’d lost to picturing her naked.
“A vibrator, since you’re too chickenshit to get the job done yourself.”
Josh’s jaw dropped, and then he closed his mouth with a snap. “I can’t believe you just said that.”
“I can’t believe I left what I was doing to come and meet you so you could whine about shopping.”
“I’m not whining. I just asked for a suggestion. And what were you doing that was so important, anyway?”
“Working on Paige’s Christmas present.”
“Really? What are you making for her?”
Mitch nodded his head toward Paige, who was refilling the salt shakers around the coffee counter. “Can’t tell you. She has hearing like a bat.”
Josh glanced over and saw Paige looking back. Her mouth turned up in an apologetic smile. “Just for the record, I think a vibrator would be a really awkward gift to receive at a family Christmas party. Sorry.”
“Oh, for chrissake.” Josh slid down in the booth, holding his head. “I should have known better.”
“Fine.” Mitch angled himself in the booth so that Paige wasn’t in his line of sight. “What do you usually get her?”