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“Come on in, Wes. Make yourself at home.” I gestured to the living room.
Wes snickered. “Please. Like you don’t just walk in to my place.”
He had a point. And I didn’t really mind. “Have you heard from Tristan?”
“Yeah, he’s on the way. He didn’t elaborate, so I figure it’s something with a client.” Wes shrugged. “Where should I put the food?”
I spotted the grocery store bag in his hand. “What’d you get?”
“Just some pasta salad. They make it better than even my mom, so I didn’t see the point in slaving away in the kitchen.”
“Works for me. Then we know we’re going to live through the experience, too. So bonus.” I pointed toward the kitchen. “Just set it on the counter. I guess I’ll go fire up the grill. We’re all here except Tristan, and if it is work, who knows how long it’ll take him.”
Wes laughed.
I made my way through the kitchen, out onto the deck where my oversized grill took up a lot of the usable space. It was an indulgence, for sure, but I justified it based on the size of my friend group. And it seemed to keep growing. I didn’t bother grilling when I was cooking for just me. I had a grill pan that worked fine for that.
“This is nice.”
I turned at Megan’s words and smiled. “I like it.”
“Do you see your neighbors out here much?” She glanced around at the backs of the townhouses. All the decks were on this alleyway for residents to access their garages.
“You’d think, right? But no. Not really. It’s the area, probably. You know how it is. No one knows anyone else.” I shrugged and lit the grill. I didn’t necessarily love that about the area—for all Old Town was like a small town in the shopping and historic areas—the residential parts were still full of people driven by their careers. There wasn’t time to sit out on the deck and get to know your neighbors for most people. And I couldn’t even exclude myself from that.
“Hear anything from the Torpedo Factory?”
She was standing close and her perfume mixed with the smoke of the grill as it heated and burned off the residue from my last experiment. It shouldn’t have worked. But for me it did. I needed to get myself under control. She was one of the gang. An honorary little sister.
Completely off limits.
Her elbow bumped mine. “Where’d you go?”
“Sorry. No. Haven’t heard anything. Hopefully tomorrow.” I bit my lip and pulled the grill lid down before stepping back. “If I don’t hear tomorrow, I guess I need to explore some of your other options.”
“Okay. You want to come by the bookstore after work tomorrow?”
“Yeah. I can do that.” I cleared my throat. “What did you think of the basement?”
“I think setting it up for poker nights was smart. You could probably get a pool table in there if you wanted. Is it going to be a play room? Is that the plan?”
“Play room? You make it sound like I’m a kid.”
“Hey, if the shoe fits.” She grinned.
I scoffed. “Yes. I think the plan is that it’ll be a game room type space. I was thinking of setting it up for movies, too. But I don’t want it to be crowded.”
Megan nodded thoughtfully. “That’s more you than a pool table.”
I was a little surprised that she understood so quickly. But she was right.
“I’ll play around with it. I don’t suppose you have a floor plan?”
I lifted my eyebrows. “I don’t think so. But there might have been one on the listing. You could look it up online and see.”
“I’ll do that.” Megan looked around. “What can I do to help?”
“With dinner?” I lifted a shoulder. “Nothing. It’s easy enough to throw meat on the grill once it heats up.”
