Sweet Southern Nights

“Well, that movie won’t be showing, but I bet we can find something to do,” he said. Any other guy would have made the last statement sound sexual, but not Jamison. He sincerely meant they’d find something to do. That thought almost made Eva giggle.

“That sounds great,” she said, twisting the key.

“It’s a date, then,” Jamison said, moving toward her.

Okay, so now he’d kiss her. She turned toward him, but he merely gave her a quick squeeze of her shoulders. “See ya then. Thanks.”

Then he was gone, moving quickly down the steps toward the new Mercedes he’d parked in her driveway.

Eva watched him before giving him a quick wave as he climbed inside the car.

Maybe Jamison was gay, but she didn’t think so. But what man turned away from a kiss—twice? She didn’t know many who would, but perhaps it was one of those rules for dating that he professed to have. Maybe kisses on the first date weren’t allowed no matter what. Or maybe he wasn’t into her. Maybe he was—

“Hey.”

Eva jumped, dropping her keys. “Jake, you scared me to death.”

Jake grinned like the devil he was. “You look alive to me...and I must say, damn nice in that short thing you’re wearing.”

Eva bent over to grab the keys she’d dropped, holding a hand to her bodice so the fabric didn’t gape and show her boobs to the man she’d always wanted to show her boobs to. “Um, thank you.”

“Guess ol’ Jamie didn’t appreciate it, huh? No good-night kiss.”

“It’s not night,” Eva said, twisting the doorknob and pushing into the blessed coolness of her house. She didn’t bother asking Jake to come in—she knew he’d do so anyway. The only thing she cared about was going to the bathroom.

He closed the door. “But it was a date, right?”

“I guess,” she said, dumping her cross-body purse onto the piano bench, setting her keys atop the instrument. “You want a beer?”

“I always want a beer,” he said, checking out the picture of Eva’s mother, which she’d hung above the flowery club chair in the living space. It had been taken when her mother had graduated high school and was the way Eva liked to remember her mother—as a laughing girl. Not as the emotional wreck she was now.

Eva pulled off her sandals and padded barefoot through her small kitchen and into the bathroom, which she made quick use of. She then pulled two beers from the fridge, popped the tops and walked back to the living room, sinking onto the couch. “How was the sale?”

“What?”

“The rummage sale. Did they raise a lot of money?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t ask.” He walked over and grabbed the beer she held out before dropping onto the couch beside her.

Eva didn’t want him to sit next to her. Any other time it would have been fine, but at the moment a kiss sat between them. She’d spent all of last night and half of this morning berating herself for being a damn idiot.

She’d kissed a man who’d been trying to give her a noogie. Who did that? Especially when she’d been so successful in holding back her feelings for him for the past three years. But, like a valve bursting on a pipe, she’d gone and spewed forth the desire she had for him. It was another problem piled onto a plate that felt suspiciously full at present.

“So we gonna talk about what happened yesterday?” he asked.

“No. We’re not.”

He studied her for a few minutes as she pretended to be impassive. Finally, he reached out and picked up the TV remote control. “So you want to watch Ohio State and Notre Dame?”

“Do what?”

“Play football.” His voice was incredulous.

“Not really, but sure.”

Jake put the game on. A couple of announcers were discussing the OSU quarterback’s injury and how with one turn of an ankle, his college career was over.

Yeah, tell her about it. One innocent little misread and things could turn upside down fast.

About mid-beer, Jake looked over at her. “So you wanna talk about why you had to talk to my mom?”

“No.”

“Eva, this is ridiculous.”

“It’s not ridiculous. It’s none of your business.”

He actually looked miffed. Turning his attention back to the TV, he finished his beer and sat the empty bottle on the coffee table littered with health magazines and one copy of Parenting, which she’d snagged at the grocery store yesterday.

Charlie coming to live with her scared Eva silly. She knew nothing about living with a boy. Her half brother, Chris, had already been eight years old when she emerged on the scene, and since he lived with his mom, her father’s first wife, in Belle Chase, Eva rarely saw him. And by the time she could actually interact with Chris during his visits on random weekends, he was too busy for a snot-nosed girl. Not that Eva dealt with sinus issues or anything.

As a teen, she’d rarely babysat. And when her father had married his third wife, Claren, Eva had been in her twenties. The odd time they’d brought Charlie over to visit, she’d been at a loss for how to change a diaper or even how to entertain him. The only time her career put her into contact with kids was when she conducted a field trip tour of the fire station.

Mother material she was not.

She tucked her feet under her, careful not to touch any part of Jake’s naked leg. Unlike Jamison’s very put-together style, Jake wore athletic shorts, a T-shirt he’d cut the sleeves off, and his thick hair looked as if he’d raked his hands through it a million times that day. A five o’clock shadow finished off the gruff, sexy image. Polished wasn’t Jake’s vibe. Rumpled sex god was more like it.

“I guess I should go,” he said. Jake looked uncomfortable, something he never seemed to be. And it was her fault. She’d screwed up, and now she was acting as if things were different. If she wanted to erase the kiss and its repercussions, she had to go back to being herself.

“You don’t have to. The game’s nearly over, and I think Georgia plays South Carolina next. I could order pizza from Gumbeaux’s.”

See? Everything was normal. Just like always. They’d watch TV, share a pizza and never, ever talk about the kiss.

Ever.

“Sounds good but I don’t like this vibe between us. You’re acting weird after the ki—”

“Uh-uh. Don’t say it. Please. It never happened.”

But it did. She knew it. He knew it. But maybe—

“Fine. It didn’t happen. Erased.”

She breathed a sigh of relief. “Good. So pizza?”

“Yeah. Get extra olives on my half,” he said, toeing off his sneakers and propping his socked feet on her coffee table. As if he was her brother. As if he’d already forgotten.

Gotta love the single-mindedness of a dude.