“Ready to get your bedroom back together?” Rob snapped the dishcloth he had used to dry the breakfast dishes between his hands, raising an eyebrow suggestively.
“Not if you’re going to whip me with that towel, I’m not.”
“I wouldn’t.” He looped the damp cloth over her head and down her back, pulling her against him with it and giving her the lightest of kisses. It was the first spontaneous-seeming thing he had done all morning. His usual burble of jokes and offhand comments had dried up and his normally easy smile had been replaced with a mouth bracketed with lines and shadows under his eyes. He looked like he had slept like hell, if he had slept at all.
Guilt surged through Kari. She had slept so hard that she’d hardly moved all night, stiff yet rested on awakening at the sound of the curtain rings rattling across the rail as Rob got into the shower. Instead of following him in as she had done the day before, she had stretched and rolled over, noticing how the light in his bedroom was almost the same as it was in hers. It made sense. The rooms were ridiculously similar. Their houses were ridiculously similar, even though Rob’s was larger—a three-bedroom to her two.
When he’d emerged from the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his waist, wet hair slicked back from his forehead, Kari’s breath had caught in her throat. Then she noticed how tired he looked and carnal thoughts had fled.
Well, not quite fled. But they’d been suppressed.
Kari had pulled into herself a bit, retreated into a kind of concerned watchfulness. She wasn’t sure what was making Rob tense, but she didn’t want to add to it. And she had her own issues to think about. She needed to go grocery shopping, set up the meal, get her house tidied.
Oh, and yes, as he had mentioned, get her bedroom squared away again.
She examined Rob’s face again, her eyes scanning the dark smudges under his eyes and the tense set of his lips. She feathered a finger down the line that curved from his nose to the corner of his mouth. “Has Hugo put this here? Or me? Or something else?”
His eyebrows went up, then he laughed softly and sighed. “Everything. I woke up in the middle of the night. Thinking about everything. Mind racing, to be quite honest.”
“And there I was, dead to the world.”
His thumb traced her cheekbone and his eyes softened. “I was glad you could sleep.”
“It’s not a virtue. I can sleep through just about anything.”
“I’ve noticed.”
Kari looped her hair back over her ear, face flaming with furious heat. “I’m sorry.”
“For what? Not being awake when I was?” Rob’s face softened further, a tender smile tugging the corners of his mouth up.
She shrugged. “Maybe?” Had he not been able to sleep because she was there? The thought made her feel awful. “Anyway. I’m awake now. Can I help?”
“I don’t think so.” His eyes slid to the side. “Wait. Maybe you can. Can you take Hugo for an overnight visit in a couple of weeks?”
A chill seized her stomach. “You know I’ve never had a pet before, right? I don’t know how to take care of a dog.”
“Shh.” His hands came up to her shoulders, the dish towel dropping to the floor. “No. I’ll find a kennel to board him. It’s just one night.”
God, she was the worst person in the world. “No. I’ll have time to learn how to take care of him.”
“Only if you’re sure.”
“I’m far from sure. But I want to help. You’ve done so much for me.”
He cupped her jaw with his hands, tilting her chin so she would meet his gaze. “I haven’t done any of this because I wanted anything from you.”
“I know.” She swallowed, rested one hand on his chest. “I want to do it, though.”
“You sure?”
“No. But I want to try. God, that sounds so melodramatic.”
“No, being responsible for a life is a big deal. I get it.”
Panic skittered through her. “Responsible for a life. Oh. I take it back. Now it doesn’t seem melodramatic enough.”
Rob folded her against his chest, pressing her cheek to the worn cotton of his tee shirt. “Look. I’m sorry I’ve been weird this morning. This is all just…new to me.”
“New to me too,” Kari said.
Tenderness exploded in Rob’s chest. He stroked Kari’s back. “Good grief, I feel like a teenager.”
“How so?” Kari’s voice mumbled against his neck.
He searched for the right words. “I don’t know how to do this. I don’t think you know how to do this. But we’re doing it. Just like teenagers. Feeling our way. And we’re…not teenagers.”
She chuckled weakly. “No. Definitely not teenagers.”
Rob gathered himself. “So. Since we’re definitely not teenagers, maybe we should…talk about things?”
Kari rested her forehead against his shoulder, her nose poking into his collarbone. “That would be the adult thing to do.”
Fear shuddered through him. Fear of what he felt, what it meant, what it might mean. What Kari might or might not feel. “Or we could defer the conversation. We have a lot to do. Getting your house back in order. All of that.”
“We have a lot to do?” Her head came up.
He realized he’d assumed she would want his help. Not cool. “Well, I’ll help you if you want the help.”
She looked at him for a moment, brows drawn together, then gave a decisive little nod. “Right. Getting my house in order. Dinner party.”
“Exactly.” He released her and bent to pick up the dish towel. “What time are you expecting them again?”
“Six.” She rubbed her belly as if it contained a flock of butterflies.
“Not a problem.” He grabbed a small notepad and a pen off the counter. “What do we have to accomplish in…” He consulted his watch. “Ten hours?”
Kari took the pad and pen from his hands. “Let me. I’m the organized one.” She tapped the butt end of the pen against her teeth for a moment, then slashed two horizontal lines across the paper. “Three categories of stuff that needs doing. One, get my bedroom arranged and normal again.” She made some notes. “Two. Clean. Three, groceries and cooking. I’d planned to do a slow cooker meal, so that should actually come first.”
“The last shall be first, then. Do you know everything you need to get?”
Kari nodded. “I’ve made this recipe a zillion times. Never make anything for guests that you’re making for the first time.”
“I’ve only ever had people over for burgers on the grill myself, but that sounds like a good strategy.”
Kari’s only response to this was an eyeroll.
“What? You’ve never had ten sixth-grade girls over for a birthday party sleepover?”
“Stop being adorable.” She didn’t even look up this time, writing a list as rapidly as her pen could cross the page.
“Adorable?” His mouth twisted as he tried to resist the smile that wanted to take over his face.
She looked up from her list-making, light blue eyes pinning him in place, pointing the pen at his chest like a blade. “You absolutely know that the idea of you voluntarily wrangling ten hormonal thirteen-year-old girls is next-level bullshit cute. Don’t even try to deny it.”
“It was terrifying,” he admitted. Mia had been a late bloomer and her serious drama had been deferred for a couple of years. But several of the girls in that party still gave him nightmares. He had expected them to still be children.
He had been right and wrong about that. They were like lethal children with wild mood swings and alarming opinions expressed in loud voices. The next year had been Liz’s watch for Mia’s birthday and after that, birthday parties were declared too “childish.” A dinner with a couple of very close friends was deemed more sophisticated and Rob was able to sigh with relief and easily foot the bill at a moderately priced restaurant, delivering the two other girls back to their homes for the evening and enjoying a quiet movie at home with Mia to round out the night. It was a nice tradition. He wondered if she’d come home to continue it this October when she turned twenty-six. God, she probably wouldn’t. His heart squeezed at the thought.
“Okay.” Kari straightened, ripping the top sheet with her notes off the pad. “Battle plans. Grocery first. Then, get the roast started. Then rearrange my bedroom. Then clean.” She gave him a speculative glance. “You don’t have to help with all of this, you know. Or any of it.”
If she’d co-opted him into all her plans, he might have balked. Perversely, her giving him an out made him want to be involved in everything. “Nope. I’m in. All the way.” He knew how nervous she was about reconnecting with Sam, about meeting the new boyfriend. “What’s the boyfriend’s name, by the way?”
“Graham.”
“And what does he do?”
“He’s a university librarian.”
“And here I thought I was a geek.”
Kari swatted him, a weak slap against his shoulder. “Behave.”
“I will. Let’s go.”
Kari picked up a set of tongs and turned the big hunk of chuck in the frying pan, the meat sizzling as it met the hot metal. Browning the roast was the key to this dish and it only took a little bit of time before throwing it in the crock pot with the vegetables and herbs. A gentle tapping from the dining room gave her a secret smile. Rob had noticed that she hadn’t yet put the art back up on the walls. She had only gotten so far as to set each piece down on the floor below where she wanted it to hang. So he’d offered to do it for her.
She finished browning the roast and turned off the gas before transferring the meat to the crock pot. Next, a quick gravy to go over the whole thing and leave it to simmer until dinner time. She added the ingredients, stirring as it thickened, then poured the gravy into the slow cooker and settled the glass lid on, giving it a pat. “You do your thing and I’ll check on you in a few hours.”
“You always talk to your appliances?” Rob’s voice came from the doorway, making her jump. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”
“I only talk to my appliances when I think I’m alone. It’s a certifiably goofy habit.”
“I get it, though. Easy to start talking to the appliances or the dog or the television when you’re on your own all the time.”
He did get it. The thought sent a little spark of nervous happiness through her. They had such different backgrounds in so many ways, but at the same time they were so compatible. It was all too easy to let herself just lean into it.
But those dark shadows under his eyes were still there, even though his casual smiles had returned. She had to remember not to just let herself lean on him. If nothing else, Sam would lose her mind. Sam had always taken Kari’s parents’ messages on independence and self-reliance a little too far in Kari’s opinion. And she would think less of Kari for accepting so much help.
She gave herself a little mental shake. There was still a lot to do before her guests arrived. Accepting his help was just good sense. She joined him at the doorway to the dining room and peeked in. “Oh, wow. It looks so great in here. Thank you.”
“I just tapped in a few nails and re-hung your stuff. Definitely not rocket surgery.”
“And you would know, being that world-famous rocket surgeon.” But the color made the artwork pop in a way that it hadn’t when the walls had been plain and white.
“Time to do rocket surgery on your bedroom.”
She nodded and he followed her to the newly-painted room. The smell had almost completely faded, but it was hot and stuffy, and Kari opened a window to let fresh air in. When she turned back, Rob was examining the bed, visually measuring the distance between it and the wall. Without a word, she joined him and they heaved it backwards, stopping short of actually letting the headboard touch. “The paint may still be a bit tender for a day or so,” Rob said. “Don’t want to screw up all that hard work.”
Kari nodded and went next door to the guest bedroom and carried a nightstand back to set it in place. Rob followed with its mate and set it down on the other side of the bed. They shifted the dresser back in together and when Kari fetched fresh linens, Rob helped her make the bed, pulling his side of the top sheet into a tight hospital corner.
“I always kick those out,” Kari confessed. “Half the time I sleep with at least one foot hanging out from under the covers.”
Rob shook his head. “Not me. I like having my feet all snugged up.”
Kari shuddered. “I’ll bet you like those weighted blankets too.”
“I’ve never heard of this but it sounds intriguing.”
The conversation reassured Kari a little. Too much compatibility would be disturbing.
Rob looked around at the walls. “No art to hang in here?”
“Not yet.” Kari looked at the smooth expanse of pale green. “This is restful for now. I’ll have to decide carefully on what I might want in here.”
“Why don’t you make something yourself? It would be just what you wanted.”
Kari tapped her chin, thinking. “Hm. Maybe I will.”
Rob helped Kari clean for a while longer before she shooed him out, telling him to go take a nap. “You’ve got circles under your eyes and I feel guilty. Get some sleep and let me scrub my toilet in peace.”
He kissed her on her forehead and went without an argument. His house seemed quiet and empty. Setting the alarm on his phone, he stretched out on top of the bed and was asleep almost instantly. When the alarm went off, it dredged him up from a dark, dreamless void, and he blinked in confusion at the angle of the sun. He hadn’t slept that long in the middle of the day, well, ever in his adult life unless he was ill. He sat up slowly, turning and putting his feet flat on the floor, his hands on his knees, trying to pull his conscious mind together.
His stomach rumbled. He had forgotten to eat lunch, but he only had a half hour to pull himself together before going over to Kari’s for dinner.
You’re going to get hangry, Dad. He could practically hear Mia’s voice in his ear.
I’m about to have dinner, kiddo.
He could also practically see her skeptical look. Sure. Right. Have a granola bar anyway.
Ignoring the daughter in his head, he heaved to his feet, padded to the bathroom, and turned on the hot water. He washed, then shaved and brushed his teeth, examining his face in the mirror. The dark circles Kari had noted were still there, but much fainter. He didn’t look like he was about to keel over because he’d only had a few hours of sleep followed by a few more hours of staring into the darkness. The hot water had revived him almost as much as the nap.
Returning to the bedroom, he snagged a button-down shirt and chinos from his closet. He doubted if Kari expected him to dress up, but considering the occasion, he almost pulled one of his rarely-worn ties from the rack. But no. That would look like he was trying too hard. He huffed a little laugh when he realized that instead of being Kari’s support as she met her niece’s boyfriend, he was now in a mirror image situation. Though he had met Sam once before, it probably hadn’t been for more than ten minutes, at most. She was a virtual stranger to him, aside from what Kari had told him about their relationship. And Sam was important to Kari, therefore he wanted Sam to approve of him.
Returning to the bathroom to check in the mirror, he gave a little nod at his reflection. About as good as it got for an almost-fifty guy, he guessed.
Time to meet the family.