Page 7 of The Big Puck

Lainey takes her time looking the living room over and thinking about my offer when I would have sworn she would be thrilled and jump up and down with unrestrained joy.

I shift from one foot to the other. “Problem?”

“How about if you show me around? Where will I be staying?” Her smile is at half-mast, and that’s fine with me. Less pressure, less to live up to. I may have great determination and expectations for myself, but the thing I hate most in the world is when someone else sets expectations for me.

“Let’s start with the downstairs.” I stretch out an arm, inviting her to go ahead of me through the arched doorway into the living room. Before I moved in, I had all the hardwood floors re-finished and all the walls and ceilings painted white. It was a devil’s time to get rid of the old floral wallpaper but necessary to clean the place up. I walk ahead through another archway to the dining room.

“Are you still moving in?” she asks, standing in the middle of the living room.

“No. Why?”

“There’s not much furniture. I mean, it’s a gorgeous huge room, but it somehow seems empty and unfinished, with only one chair, a giant TV, and all these white walls.” She sweeps a hand around and up and looks like a dancer, a ballerina, with her long graceful limbs and the way she moves. But I don’t ask whether she dances because it’s none of my business. And I don’t care. I shrug.

She walks toward me, watching me like she’s waiting for me to say something, but I have nothing. I’m a utilitarian kind of guy.

“That’s it?”

I nod and move through the dining room, populated by a table and four chairs I ordered from Ikea to the kitchen. She follows close on my heels.

“I had the kitchen redone.”

She blows out a whistle and spins around, again looking like a ballerina, twirling. “So, this is where the living goes on in this house, where the real heart is. Do you cook?”

“I cook enough, so I won’t starve if all the take-out restaurants go out of business.”

“You had someone design this kitchen, didn’t you?”

“It needed gutting because it was mostly inoperable, so I pretty much told the contractor to knock himself out.”

“Knock himself out? How funny. You mean carte blanche, right?”

“I would, but I’m not that fancy.”

“Well, this kitchen sure is fancy. State-of-the-art range and refrigerator, with a farm sink and freaking marble countertops—”

“Not marble. They’re ceramic. Made to look like marble. I’m told they wear better.”

“Of course, they do.” She ponders me with a funny look, one half of her mouth quirked. “You’re a very practical guy, aren’t you?”

“What was your first clue?”

She rolls her eyes. “I can’t wait to see my bedroom. Take me there…Spence…Coach…Mr. Boss-man.” Her big smile quivers as she meets my gaze, and a slight pink flush rises up her neck. I don’t bother commenting on her unintended flirtation gone wrong.

“Boss-man sounds about right. Let’s take the back stairs.” I head for the narrow hallway off the kitchen, passing by a half-bath and the laundry room as I head up the back stairway, which I’m told was once the servants’ stairs, passing the second floor all the way to the top to the turret room.

“You’re going to make your Aunt walk up three flights of stairs with a bad hip?” she says from behind me, and I can’t see her face, but I can sure as hell hear her indignance. Should I admit that I had no intentions of having my aunt or her stay in the turret room, that I have a first-floor suite all set for my aunt and whoever the temporary nanny is? But in a rare spontaneous decision, driven by pure survival instinct, I changed my mind and decided to put Lainey in the turret, an isolated island in the house.

“No. But I thought you’d enjoy the view from up here.” I’m lying my ass off, but no way am I going to admit that I want her as far away from me as possible, and I wonder what the fuck? What the fuck am I worried about? I might find her attractive—if she were ten years older, gained twenty pounds, and cut back severely on the sassy Pollyanna imitation. As it is, she doesn’t come close to even a hint of temptation.

In fact, tomorrow, I’m going to call Shonda and see if she wants to come for a weekend so we can finally see if things are going to work out. I pause in my tracks. Better yet, maybe I ought to give up on Shonda and sign up for a dating app.

Lainey presses against me as she pushes past me through the narrow doorway into the room, her hands touching my back and arm.

She laughs as she stumbles into the room, and it sounds like pure joy bubbling up from an endless well as she rushes to the circle of windows and the uninterrupted view of the bay. She rips open a window with a forceful tug, impressing me with the unexpected strength in those fragile-looking arms.

“You were right, Spence. Abso-fucking-lutely right. I love this view. This room.” She spins around, taking it in. “It’s perfect.”

It’s the only room I didn’t have painted, so the tiny bluebell print wallpaper remains mostly intact, and the single bed with cast-iron headboard and white gilt-edged dresser, topped with a mirror and a determined pile of dust, also came with the house.