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“No.” Cody’s shoulders hunched slightly. “I really was just in the neighborhood. Noah and I went to look at that historic home that’s for sale a few streets over.”
“Seriously? Jenna was talking about that on Friday. She’s drooling over it, but can’t swing the nearly six mil they’re asking. I guess that’s not a big deal for Noah.”
What would that be like? None of the guys—well, maybe except Wes—threw their money around or made a big deal out of the fact that they could drop six million on a house without blinking. But it was a fact that was never super far from my mind. It would be so easy—so nice—to just ask Austin for a cash infusion for the bookstore. But then where would it stop? I was already pretty sure he’d bought the building from Grandma. Neither had said anything, but Grandma was a lot less interested in how things were going these days and I couldn’t chalk it all up to me taking over the whole thing instead of having employees.
Cody’s cheeks were pink. “There’s that.”
“Is he going to buy it?”
“Not sure. He likes the lot. And okay, I can give him that the backyard is pretty impressive, especially for a place in Old Town. But I don’t know what he’d do with eight thousand square feet of house and a half acre of yard. It’d be great for a family of twelve or something, you know?” Cody spun his seltzer can on the table. “I rattle around in my place, and it’s what? A quarter of that? Maybe a little more. No yard.”
I nodded. “I get that. Since Austin and Kayla got married, I’ve been wondering if I should have agreed to let them live here and taken over her apartment. I don’t need this whole place to myself.”
“Did they want to do that? Swap places?”
“I’m not sure what their preference would have been. They gave me a list of options they were okay with and let me choose.” And I’d chosen to stay here. Why?
Cody frowned. “Why’d you pick to stay?”
I chuckled. “Mind reader. I was just asking myself that. I guess because change is hard and moving is a drag.”
“Fair.” He grinned. “You know, you can probably tell them you’ve changed your mind, and they’d be willing to trade.”
Would they? They were closer to the learning center in the apartment. On the other hand, it was a one-bedroom apartment for the two of them and Kayla’s two cats. Not that cats took up a lot of space or anything, but they were still creatures sharing the place.
I blew out a breath. “I like walking to work. Not having to deal with parking, all that. But yeah, I’ll think about it a little more. It’s probably the right thing to do.”
“Driving and parking—any other cons? It would cut down on the rattling around.”
I bit my lower lip. “I’ve never actually lived in an apartment. So there’s the whole going into the unknown thing. What’s it like to have people on the other side of basically all your walls?”
“It’s not so bad. Most places are pretty well soundproofed.” He frowned. “Although Kayla’s in an older building, so don’t quote me on that.”
I laughed. “If it was bad, we’d be hearing about it from Austin. Improving the barriers between our shared walls was the first thing he did when we took over this place from Grandma. He doesn’t like neighbor noise.”
Cody grinned, and I thought my heart was going to stop.
I looked away. “So do you regret buying your house?”
“Nah. I love it. I love being able to see the water and watch TV whenever I want at whatever volume I want—being mindful of the neighbors, of course.” He winked.
My face heated again and I quickly took another drink to ease my suddenly dry throat. I needed to get over this…whatever it was. Crush? Infatuation? I tried to keep my voice natural when I spoke.
“Of course. I’d expect nothing less.”
Silence settled between us. But it wasn’t strained or weird—at least not to me—it was comfortable. Pleasant, even.
I got another little mental flash of him as I imagined he looked when he woke up in the morning, and with it a subtle yearning from somewhere in the vicinity of my heart.
“Can I ask you a question?”
I pulled my thoughts back from flights of fancy and focused on Cody. He was leaning forward, arms on the table. He looked serious. My heart sank a little. He’d noticed and was going to let me down easy. Because of course he was. What else would he do?
“Sure. Always.”
He licked his lips and his gaze darted around before returning to settle on me. Was he nervous? Cody made a quiet sort of throat-clearing sound. “How would you define our relationship?”
“Our relationship? You and me?” I gestured to the two of us, like a moron. I was buying time, because I wasn’t sure what the right answer was. “I don’t understand.”
