"I'm not taking up for him," Opal protests. "I simply think that you've been here for months now and I'm your only friend."
"You're not my only friend," I huff.
"Okay. Name another friend."
"I talk to…" I rack my brain trying to think of a person I've spent more than five minutes chatting with outside of the bakery. "I talk to…"
"Go on." Opal crosses her arms over her chest, her expression smug.
What's the name of the guy who comes in at lunchtime and has an espresso and reads the paper? "I talk to . . . Bob," I say casually, avoiding eye contact with Opal as I skirt around her and back behind the counter to clean up.
"Bob." Opal snorts. "Bob who?"
"I see him every day at lunch and we talk about books."
Opal laughs. "You mean Marston? The man who's older than I am, the one who's half deaf? He doesn't talk to you about books, honey, he nods while you talk to him because he can't hear anything you're saying."
"What?" I ask. "He always talks to me."
Opal shakes his head. "He turns his hearing aid off. Used to do it to his wife, too, God rest her soul. And on Sundays in church. That's beside the point, though. The point is that the only person you could come up with as a friend was an old man whose name you don't even know."
"Fine. I have no friends. So what? I've been busy."
"Mmm-hmm."
"I have!" I protest. "This place isn't exactly the kind of thing you just put on autopilot. I've been working. Socializing isn't my priority. Besides, I have Chloe. There's no room in my life for hanging out with the girls, even if there were any girls in this town who wanted to hang out with me."
Opal arches an eyebrow. "We both know we're not talking about hanging out with the girls."
Heat rushes to my face. It's one thing to have Killian trying to get in my pants, but another thing entirely to have Opal pushing him into my lap. "And we're not talking about my romantic life either, Opal."
"What romantic life?" she asks.
I grunt under my breath. "You think I should hire Killian Saint because I need to get laid?"
Opal purses her lips and shakes her head. "You said it, not me."
"You do think that!"
"I'm just saying, it might do you a world of good. You'd be a lot more pleasant to be around. It would relax you."
"I am pleasant to be around now!"
Opal cocks her head to the side. "Let's not kid ourselves," she says, gesturing toward the lower half of my body. "That area is probably dustier and more filled with cobwebs than my attic."
"Oh my God. A sixty-five year old woman is calling my vagina cobweb-filled?"
"I beg your pardon. I'm seventy-three and not a day younger. And yes, you should take that as a sign of just how sad your love life is, that a seventy-three year old woman has a more active sex life than you."
Opal hums to herself as she unties her apron and disappears into the kitchen.
I grumble under my breath as I wipe down the counter around the espresso machine. Opal has no idea what she's talking about. Of course, she could have a point about getting laid. Killian Saint would be the perfect man for that job, with his rough hands and his muscular –
Nope. I shake off the thought. Out of sight, out of mind.
Then I remember the last part of what Opal said, and I push open the door to the kitchen. "Wait a second," I call. "Who are you hooking up with that your sex life is so active?"
15
Killian
Some guys drink when they're pissed off. Some guys get into fights. Me? I build shit.
So in the past few days since Lily fired me – more importantly, since I kissed her in the back of the store – I built a fucking porch. Or, to be more accurate, I'm almost finished building a fucking porch. I'm in the process of putting up railing on the sides. It wraps around the front of the cabin, following the entire length, which is pretty damn impressive for a weekend of work, if I do say so myself.
That says a lot about how pissed off I am.
Or about the giant case of blue balls I have, thanks to that girl.
I definitely should let this thing with Lily go. There are a million reasons to let it go: she has baggage, I don't even fucking know her, the whole kid thing. . .
Lots of reasons.
I chug a glass of water and survey my work from the side of the porch. Maybe I should build a deck behind the house too when this is finished. That will take my mind off of things. Things like the taste of her lips when I kissed her, or the moaning sound she made, low and primal, as she melted into me.
I hear a car headed up the road, the crunch of tires on gravel and dirt. Hardly anyone comes up this far, so I pause to watch the truck come into view.
Luke climbs out of the truck, a six-pack in hand. "Thought you might need some help."
"How'd you know what I was doing?"
Luke shrugs. "Just figured you were working on the cabin. Autumn has Olivia on a play date over at June's, so I was just hanging out. You need to get a phone up here."
"I like the quiet."
"You want help or not?" Luke asks. He pops the top of one of the bottles with an opener on his key ring and passes it to me.