His Cinderella Next Door Page 5

  And then she was gone. Her bedroom door clicked shut behind her.

  Oscar resisted the impulse to lay his fingers across his cheek where her lips had touched. He went to his room, shut the door, shucked off his clothes and slid between the sheets. On second thought, he could not imagine being in the same apartment with her and having no clothes on.

  Annoyed with himself, he got up and rummaged through a drawer until he found something that resembled pajama bottoms. Something like what she would wear.

  He got back into bed, contemplating the strange, irrational restlessness he felt. Nothing had happened, really. They’d had dinner, visited, fallen asleep. The cat had thrown him over for her, completely, and Molly had shared a few harmless secrets.

  Nothing had happened.

  And yet it felt as if a wind were picking up, tossing a few items of his life around. Really, wasn’t that restless feeling the first warning that a tornado was about to strike?

  She was, Oscar reminded himself firmly, his oldest friend. They had known each other since they were five years old.

  He knew her better than he knew any other living soul on earth.

  And yet, when he thought of that long-ago moment, when their lips had touched, he was aware something had changed between them that could not be put back the way it was before.

  In some ways, Molly felt like a stranger to him now.

  Like he didn’t know her at all anymore.

  Yes, it felt like there was a tornado coming. He would just have to make sure to batten down the hatches. And avoid the worst of the storm.

  He was glad he had a nice safe bike ride planned for tomorrow.

  Oscar was shaken out of his spiraling thoughts by a muffled sound. It was her phone ringing. He willed her to ignore it. He willed her to be glaring at it.

  But no, she answered.

  Oscar was ashamed to strain his ears, listening. Breathless.

  Hello, James.

  Oscar pulled the pillow over his head. And then, even more ashamed of himself, took it off and listened some more. Just long enough to hear her laugh and say something about how she never wore dresses. Which was true.

  Except now, if he was hearing correctly, she was promising to wear one for James. He put in his ear buds. He told himself he was not jealous. There was no way he was jealous. He was feeling protective of her, that was all. She did have a tendency to jump into things with both feet. In Molly’s world, regret was for later.

  He was up early the next morning and felt as if he had not slept a wink. Grumpily, he threw a robe over his pajama bottoms and padded out to the kitchen.

  Molly appeared a few minutes later, looking annoyingly giddy, as if she had experienced a fantastic sleep.

  “Look,” she said gleefully, pointing at him, “matching pajamas.”

  “Huh,” he said.

  “I thought—” She stopped herself in the nick of time. She was blushing, though. It pleased him in some wicked way that she was blushing, thinking of him naked while she was planning on wearing a dress for James.

  “You look tired,” she said to him.

  “Do I? I’m not a morning person.”

  She cocked her head at him as if her lie detector was beeping.

  “I’m not sure what we should get up to today,” he said. “I was planning a bike ride, but look at the weather.”

  Molly went and looked out the window. “I love bike riding in the rain,” she said.

  “You would,” he said.

  An hour later, he found himself in a little store close to Stanley Park, waiting while Molly tried on raincoats.

  And galoshes.

  “I wonder if they have this in any other color than yellow?” she said, wrinkling her nose at the coat. “I don’t like yellow.”

  “Who doesn’t like a whole color?” he asked her, still feeling unreasonably crabby with her, especially with her standing there looking so utterly adorable.

  “Who doesn’t like a whole time of day?” she shot back. “‘When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive, to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.’ That’s Marcus Aurelius.”

  “‘Yellow,’” he shot back, “‘excites a warm and agreeable impression... The eye is gladdened, the heart expanded and cheered, a glow seems at once to breathe toward us.’ That’s von Goethe.”

  She considered. “My Aurelius trumps your von Goethe.”

  “How come you get to decide that?”

  And then they were laughing at how quickly this old game had come back to them and Oscar felt some tension he had been holding in himself slide away. She bought the yellow jacket and the rubber boots.

  Molly had awoken in the morning to find several more messages on her phone. Her plans were coming together so well for Ralphie’s memorial event that she felt nearly giddy with it.

  Or maybe that was a lie to herself. All that giddiness could be from spending a lovely evening cuddled up with Truck... She went out into the apartment, trying to tell herself she wasn’t feeling what she was feeling.

  But she’d felt excited to see him.

  However, it was quickly apparent that he didn’t share her feelings. Oscar was downright grumpy. He said he wasn’t a morning person, but she didn’t remember that about him. If she didn’t know better, she’d guess he had a hangover.

  He was making coffee, and had a selection of pastries out for breakfast. He had on a very posh robe, like the kind you got in expensive hotels, and he looked very sleep mussed and sexy. His stubble had thickened overnight and it was quite a roguish look. She had felt a funny little desire to touch his face and see what it felt like.

  She was aware he didn’t look as giddy as she felt. But after they had the little quote battle, whatever tension had been there seemed to ease off.

  Molly was thrilled to find, because of the rain, they had the famed Stanley Park seawall mostly to themselves. With Oscar slightly behind her, she aimed at a puddle. She hit it full force and the water sprayed out behind her. She looked over her shoulder and laughed gleefully at his expression when the water sprayed him.

  That old competitiveness leaped up between them and he raced by her. She tried to slow down, but wasn’t quick enough. He shifted in front of her and she saw the puddle he was aiming for way too late for her to avoid it.

  “Bombs away,” he shouted, and a wave of muddy water cascaded over her.

  “Oh, yeah? Watch this.” She tried to pull out to pass him. He blocked her. She tried the other side. He blocked her again. She finally managed to squeeze beside him, and they raced side by side, like two Thoroughbreds heading for the finish line. Their breathless shouts of laughter filled the air. She saw a jogger coming. One of them was going to have to move or they’d be playing chicken with the poor jogger.

  As she had known he would, Oscar—ever the gentleman—reluctantly swung in behind her. She looked for a puddle. She chortled with glee when she saw the one coming. It was enormous. A lake! He was going to get soaked to the skin.

  She aimed right for it. She peddled hard and lifted her feet high in the air as the water grabbed her tires. She glanced behind her.

  Oscar had stopped, and was leaning on his handlebars, grinning. She realized she shouldn’t have looked back. The handlebars wobbled in the deep water. The tire wallowed. The bike abruptly slowed and veered left.

  Her pant legs snagged on the bike as it started to fall over. She came off with an ungracious plop and the bike fell on top of her. She heard a tearing sound, and then the water closed over her head.

  She emerged from the puddle laughing, sputtering and spitting out water, to find Oscar had abandoned his bike and was kneeling, heedless of the water, in the puddle beside her.

  “Are you okay?”

  She looked at the concern on his face. His glasses were covered in water from mud p
uddles and the rain. He hadn’t shaved this morning, and little droplets of water clung to his stubble.

  Something in her went very weak. She wanted him to pick her up, and carry her over to the grass, and tenderly touch the place on her ankle where it hurt. And she wanted to touch that damned attractive stubble!

  Instead, she splashed him, got out of the puddle and raced for her bike.

  “Hey,” he called after her, “just an FYI, you’re showing the whole world your panties.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  IT HAD BEEN such a long and wonderful day. They had spent most of it on the bikes, exploring Stanley Park, playful and then sedate. Oscar had given Molly his jacket to tie around her exposed behind. When she’d objected, he had said he couldn’t get any wetter, which was certainly true. Finally, soaked to shivering, they had headed back to his place.

  Despite her jet-lag strategy, Molly had come out of the shower and told herself she would just lie down for a minute. When she woke up, she could hear Oscar in the kitchen, and something already smelled good.

  Because of the ripped pants, she had only two choices left to wear, so she went with the stretchy black pants and white shirt tonight instead of her pajamas.

  “Come on over,” Oscar said, when she came down the hall. “I have a job for you.”

  He was freshly showered and changed. He was wearing the chef’s apron over his clothes again, and she noticed he had shaved, finally. She wanted to touch his freshly shaven face the same way she had wanted to touch his stubble.

  “A job for me?” she said, joining him at the island, ordering herself to focus on the task at hand. Unfortunately, the fresh scent that came off him was heady and masculine, and as good as whatever was cooking in the oven. And even more distracting.

  “Oh, Truck,” she warned him, “you know my culinary skill runs to boiling an egg, right?”

  “Right,” he said. “I’ve already taken that under consideration.”

  “Chefs are notoriously bad-tempered and temperamental,” she informed him.

  “This, to the man who rescued you from the mud puddle,” he said, aghast. “Who gave you his jacket to prevent your derriere from becoming public knowledge, who tried three different ice-cream places before we found one with licorice flavor.”

  “Okay, okay.”

  “Having said that—” he wagged his knife at her “—do exactly as I tell you, and nothing else.”

  “Yes, Chef,” she said with pretend meekness, and they both laughed at the impossibility of her ever being meek.

  He held out an apron, and he slipped it over her head, and she turned and let him tie it behind her back.

  His hands brushed the small of her back. His breath touched the nape of her neck. It was strangely and sumptuously intimate.

  Molly didn’t think of Truck like this! Except that she had been, all day, starting with his stubble.

  “What are you making?” she asked, turning quickly to look at the counter top.

  “A dish I looked up on the internet. It’s called How to Impress a Girl.”

  “That doesn’t sound very scientific.” She gulped when she realized what he had said. “Are you trying to impress me?”

  “I don’t have to, do I?”

  “No, of course not.” She recovered quickly. “But I can see it’s a good idea for you to practice. For when you do. Want to impress a girl, that is.”

  How wrong was it to have the dangerous wish that she were that girl? Today had been so much fun. What would it be like to have a life like that?

  “That’s going to be never,” he said, firmly. “I’ve decided I’m forever single.”

  “Me, too,” she said.

  “Ha.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It doesn’t take a psychology major to figure out there’s something behind that secret longing to take baby pictures.”

  Her mouth opened. Then snapped shut. Sometimes that was the problem with having a best friend. They saw things too clearly.

  “Here,” he said, deftly changing the subject. “Open the pomegranate.”

  “Who cooks with a pomegranate?” Molly groused, looking at the hard pinkish cylinder-shaped fruit he had placed in her hand.

  “We’re not cooking with it. It’s going in the salad.” Oscar put a small sharp paring knife in front of her.

  She glared at the pomegranate, the knife and him. “I don’t know how to open a pomegranate.”

  It was an unexpected reminder that this was his world: where people knew how to open pomegranates. She bet his mother knew how. And Cynthia.

  “For Pete’s sake, Molly, it’s not a test of your worthiness. We’re supposed to have fun.”

  Again, that reminder that Oscar knew her so well, and could see things others missed. Despite professional recognition, she still sometimes felt like that girl who was not good enough.

  “Anyone who can take photos like you does not have to be a domestic diva,” Oscar told her firmly, fishing his phone out from under that sexy apron. “It’s not rocket science. Here. Look it up.”

  “Domestic diva-ing?”

  “Pomegranate opening!” He was busy finely chopping herbs and the rich aroma of rosemary joined the other scents in the air.

  She found his phone in her hands. His screen saver was her photo of Ralphie.

  “Hey,” she said, scrolling through his phone. “Did you know every pomegranate is supposed to have exactly six hundred and thirteen seeds? Wow. It’s biblical or something. We should count them.”

  “Even I am not that scientific of a scientist,” he said. “Are you done opening that thing yet?”

  He was grating cheese.

  “The pomegranate,” she continued, “is revered for its beauty, flowers and fruit. It symbolizes sanctity, fertility and abundance.”

  Thankfully, he turned from her just then, placing a tray of bread rolls with cheese and rosemary sprinkled on them in the oven. She couldn’t possibly be blushing because she had said the word fertility in his presence!

  “Were you and Cynthia going to have kids?” she asked.

  “Did you know you have the attention span of a gnat?” he growled at her, coming to stand behind her, and looking over her shoulder at the pomegranate.

  “You’re being very disapproving,” she said. “I knew I wouldn’t like you with a chef’s temperament!”

  “In my defense, I’d like to eat sometime before midnight.”

  “Okay, okay.” She watched a two-minute video on sectioning a pomegranate. In the video, the correctly sectioned fruit fell open like a flower, and then the seeds could be easily scooped from it. “Were you?”

  “Wanting to eat before midnight?” he asked dryly.

  “Wanting to have children.”

  “Were you and your latest?” he shot back.

  “I asked first.” She held her breath and cut into the pomegranate. Bright red juice sprayed out of it, splattering on the cuff of her white shirt.

  “Yeah,” he said gruffly. We planned on having kids someday.”

  Oscar—her Truck—had contemplated having a child with a woman...who was not her. Molly and Oscar were friends. She hadn’t even seen him for six years. She knew he had been engaged. So why did it feel, oddly, like a betrayal?

  Probably because being here with him made him so real for her, all over again, as if six years hadn’t separated them.

  “Were you?” he asked. He had moved away. His tone was casual, but he wasn’t looking at her. “Going to have a child? Some day? Does longing to take baby pictures mean something?”

  What could she say to that? I don’t pick the kind of men anyone sane would ever have children with. On purpose. Because your mother told me I didn’t seem suited to raise a child.

  She slid him a look. He was looking at her now, reading her face for the cl
ues that only he would see. And she did not want him to see this one: Oscar was the kind of man a woman picked if she wanted to have children. Infinitely stable. Mature enough to put the needs of another human being ahead of his own.

  He was the kind of guy you wanted in your baby pictures.

  Not that she ever wanted to think about Oscar like that.

  “My lifestyle doesn’t give itself to having children,” she said carefully. “I can’t even keep a plant alive. I even abandoned poor Georgie.”

  “Not really abandoned. Ralphie loved him as much as you did. I always thought I’d have kids,” he said softly. “Until Ralphie died. Something changed in me. Cynthia saw it.”

  Molly looked at him. Nothing had changed in him. Oscar had always been that guy. The one with deep loyalties. The one who wanted to protect everything he loved. The one who was stable. The one who had an instinct for the right thing. It told her more about Cynthia than about him, that his betrothed had not understood his struggle with the death of his brother, the depth of his grief, the unending sea that would be his sorrow. How could anyone know him and not know he would take the death of someone he loved as an affront to his need for order and control and predictability?

  “She didn’t deserve you,” she said simply.

  He lifted a shoulder. “There was something missing, even before Ralphie died. She knew it. I knew it. We just couldn’t put our finger on it.”

  Passion, Molly thought, and was stunned at herself. She didn’t really know anything about Cynthia.

  Except that she’d seen a picture or two of her, in her designer clothes, and diamond tennis bracelets, her perfect makeup and hair. She’d seen this apartment.

  “Ah, look, Molly, you’ve gone and massacred the pomegranate.”

  She looked down. The pomegranate was in a messy heap in front of her. The bright ruby red juice had not only stained the cuff of her shirt but also her hands and the countertop. The precious little seeds—that stood for fertility—were mashed in with the pulp in a pretty much unsalvageable mess.