Silent steps on my Craigslist-find rug bring me to the floor-length mirror that’s propped up beside the front door. Digging into the nearby bowl of makeup, I pluck out my favorite red lipstick and swipe it on.
I know there’s a secret part of you that loves my mouth.
“You are not dolling up for Nick Stamos,” I warn my reflection. I suck my thumb between my lips and let it out with a pop! Red stains my thumb, and I smile at the mirror for a teeth check. All clear. “Professional. You’re a businesswoman and he’s, well, he’s him. Agape comes first.”
I drop the lipstick back in the bowl, take one last glance at my simple boyfriend jeans and cable-knit, white sweater, and head downstairs to wait for my new handyman to arrive. It’s quarter to noon, and knowing Nick, he’ll be early.
Sure enough, by the time I’m entering the empty salon less than a minute later, he’s standing outside the large windows and peering in, one hand level at his brow. Even from my vantage point, there’s no missing the way his work clothes fit him to perfection. Jeans encase his long, lean legs, and instead of a T-shirt, he’s decked out in a navy, Boston Blades sweatshirt with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows.
He looks rugged and masculine and even a little dangerous, which is insane to think about because Nick earned his nickname the old-fashioned way: by being so nice, so kind, to everyone he meets.
It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that he brings his bed-partners tea after sex, but not until after he’s gathered a warm washcloth like some Victorian-era gentleman and gently cleaned her up.
I bet he doesn’t even make a sound when he comes.
Catching sight of me, Nick knocks on the glass window and mouths something I can’t make out.
Deep breath, girl. You can do this.
My lungs contract, and I catch the scent of dreams and must and dead flowers.
It’s official, the potted plants have to go.
Crossing the distance to the front door, I unlatch the key and slip the door open wide, poking my head out. “Did you bring the tissues?”
His full lips tug upward. “Something better, actually.”
My focus changes trajectory and darts down the length of him, to the plastic Walgreens bag he’s gripping in his left hand. “Forewarning, if you kill me and try to dispose of my body, I will never forget that you failed to uphold your end of the bargain.” I step back as he turns his big body to edge past me. His jean-clad ass grazes my stomach—our heights are so varied, and I suck in my belly to eliminate contact.
Damn all those cookies I ate last night, waiting for him to hit REPLY and make me feel less pathetic.
“I’m not going to kill you,” Nick says, coming to a stop as he hits the center of the room. The plastic bag hangs at his side, its contents hidden by the red logo, as he plants his free hand on his hip and slowly spins on his heel to survey the space. “Those plants look mutilated.”
I look to the pots in question. Remorse stings my throat as I cringe. “I tried to keep them alive.”
Nick’s throaty chuckle curls my toes in my shoes. “With what?” he deadpans without looking in my direction. “Bleach?”
“Water,” I mutter quickly, half under my breath. He’s not wrong. The poor plants look like they’ve attempted to mosey on through the Sahara Desert and haven’t come out the other side to tell the tale. “I hope you realize I’m not paying you for the chit chat.” The words are matter-of-fact, my tone teasing.
It catches his attention, and he swings around to look at me. “Keep talking about payment, and I’ll start collecting.” He winks—winks—and then stalks over to the old sinks that line the far back wall and sit cattycorner to the hallway leading to a few back rooms.
“What were you thinking for this area?” he calls out. Light invades the space when he flicks a switch, and I scramble to hurry over and meet him. “A bathroom? Maybe a separate room to wash hair instead of having it all out in the open? The salon next door to me, they’ve done a great job utilizing the square footage they’ve got.” Nick knocks a balled fist on the wall to his left. “We can do the same thing here. Play with the room size, the layouts.”
I think back to the initial sketches Jake the IOU Man himself drew up. Sketches that I feel do the job, even if they aren’t incredibly unique. “Did you get the plans I sent you? The ones attached to the email?”
Nick spares me a quick glance. “I trashed them.”
My mouth falls open. “I’m sorry, I thought you just said that you trashed our entire email thread?”
He sets the Walgreens bag down by his feet. Then, from the back pocket of his jeans, he pulls out his phone and swipes it open with a flick of his thumb across the screen. One tap, two taps, and then he’s turning the phone toward me and I’m staring at the layout of the salon Jake created before bailing with my money.
“This,” Nick murmurs, wiggling the phone in my face, “is the work of a man who doesn’t give a shit. He’s got a bathroom next to the kitchenette, and nobody, Mina, wants to shit where they eat.”
“I thought the saying was ‘shit where they sleep’?”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.” Head cocking to the side and lips curving in a sly grin, he pockets his cell phone. “I told my mom once that I wanted to write a book with all the sayings I get wrong because she never understood them in the first place.” With a low chuckle, he teases, “First-generation problems, am I right?”
His self-deprecating tone pulls a laugh from me. It’s definitely true. My mom and dad certainly haven’t cornered the market on American colloquialisms, even after thirty years of living in Boston. “It’d be an instant bestseller,” I tell Nick, “something they’ll pick up right after they’ve watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding for the tenth time.”
“Only ten times?” His gray eyes flash with humor, and I’m momentarily struck silent with the realization that Nick and I have been talking for almost fifteen minutes and not once has our banter skated into dangerous territory. We’re actually, might I say, getting along? Hello, alternate universe. “How about twenty, at least,” he adds.
“I was trying to lowball it.”
“Speaking of lowballing it, we’re not doing that with your salon.”
“But the plans—”
“Are awful,” he interrupts, “and there’s no shot in hell I’ll ever put my company’s name anywhere near them.”
“Your ego is showing, Saint Nick.” I sing-song the words, unable to keep myself from making fun of him. Just a little. “You better watch out before I start thinking all that good-guy niceness was only a façade.”
Planting a hand on the wall to my right, he leans in, big body bending at the waist, lowering his face until we’re nose to nose. Up close, his pewter eyes are as mercurial as ever, with flecks of blue and green. His gaze never wavers from mine, and then he lowers his voice, the gravel pitch slicking through my limbs like I’ve been dunked in molasses. “You do realize that you don’t know everything about me, right?”
My breath constricts in my chest. “I think I know enough.”
One shift of his large frame and then the toes of his work boots are kissing the tips of my flats. I catch his scent, that musky combo of male and sawdust and something woodsy that shouldn’t be appealing given who he is—Effie’s brother, my old, teenage crush—but nevertheless succeeds in sweeping around me like forbidden temptation.
Entrepreneurial spirit that I am, I’d bottle up that scent and sell it by the boatloads. I’d make a mint off it. Change the lives of millions of women and men because I’m not kidding when I say this: Nick Stamos smells delicious.
His warm breath wafts across my forehead, rustling the baby hairs that have escaped my top-knot. My knees pin together, unwelcome lust spiking at his nearness, and I shift my focus from the breadth of his chest to his too-handsome face.
Nothing in his expression speaks to the same arousal flaring to life within me.
As usual.
“We’ve known each other a heck of a long time, Mina, but make no mistake”—his gaze drops to my mouth, lingers, before lifting once more—“we’ve never been friends.”
And welcome to that moment in my life when good reason disappears and need slips in. Licking my lips, I counter, “You’re lying.”
“Lying about what?”
“About us not being friends. We might not be besties”—he snorts derisively at that and I refrain from punching him in the solar plexus—“but I’ve known you my entire life. I know more than what Effie’s told me over the years.” I think back to the wooden sculptures in his office. Those took time and patience and an acute precision that most people lack. Not Nick, though.
“I know you’re a details guy,” I go on, refusing to step down and let him win this round. I would never consider him a close confidante—a frenemy, perhaps, more than anything—but to hear him dismiss our relationship riles me up in a way that leaves me feeling rattled. “I know that when you started Stamos Restoration, you lived off Ramen noodles for almost a year. You were twenty-three and full of dreams and Brynn hated that you put everything you had to give into a new business and not on dates and outings and the little trinkets she wanted.”
Controlled as his expression is, I don’t miss the flare of his nostrils. “I did it for her,” he growls, drawing ever closer still, “for us, for our future.”
“No.” I angle my chin in silent challenge. “You worked all those hours for you. Because you spent years as a kid holed up in your room building anything and everything. You interned at an antiques place in high school, restoring furniture, long before Brynn entered the picture. So, maybe I’m not your friend, but let’s not play it like I don’t know you. I know plenty.”
I’m breathing hard. You revealed way too much, my heart bemoans. I may as well have waved the I-crushed-on-you-for-years flag. A white flag, of course, for surrender and acceptance. Fact is, I spent my teenage years and early twenties collecting any and all anecdotes regarding Nick’s life that I could. I know more than I should because I once cared more than I should.