Act Your Age, Eve Brown (The Brown Sisters #3) - Talia Hibbert Page 0,57
fact, it was Castell Cottage procedure, enshrined in his personal handbook. He’d had his previous chef’s number too, in case he needed to call her to investigate lateness, or some such.
Of course, with Eve, he could always just go and knock on her temporary bedroom door.
Not that he had, in the days since discovering her presence there. Because what if she was—what if she was changing? Or lounging around naked, painting her toenails pink, which seemed like something she would do. Or . . .
He pressed the heel of his hand against his cock, not for any particular reason. Just because.
JACOB: YOUR own home, is it?
EVE: Squatter’s rights.
He laughed—actually laughed out loud, and felt the accompanying spark of warmth that had become so familiar around her. He didn’t think he’d ever been this easy with someone so quickly, didn’t think he’d ever learned another person’s rhythms enough to joke around like this without months of observational research first. But she was so open, and so reliably kind, that he couldn’t help himself.
And since she’d called it friendship, he didn’t even have to worry that all this warmth might mean something else.
EVE: Am I being too loud? I didn’t mean to disturb you.
JACOB: You’re fine. Just making me curious. You’re not using my weights, are you?
EVE: Is that not allowed?
JACOB: It’s allowed. I just don’t want you to break your own foot.
EVE: Because it would increase your precious insurance. But it would also be payback for the wrist, so . . .
Truthfully, he’d been thinking less about insurance and more about keeping Eve safe and uninjured. If she hurt herself, she might cry, and if she cried, he might die.
Or something.
At the hospital, they’d told Jacob his concussion was mild. But after a week of thinking increasingly strange thoughts about his chef, he was beginning to suspect they’d misdiagnosed him.
JACOB: Making you change a thousand beds this week was payback for my wrist. So no foot-breaking please. What are you doing?
EVE: It’s a surprise.
A surprise? Jacob turned those words this way and that, examining them from every angle, before deciding that—yep. They kind of suggested she was doing something for him. Or something that would impact him. Maybe she was painting his original antique end table a hideous shade of orange.
Or maybe . . .
EVE: It’s a friendship thing. Are you free this evening? For a friendship thing?
Or maybe that. Maybe that.
* * *
Eve was, not to put too fine a point on things, bricking it.
She stood, arms outstretched, in the center of the sitting room (as if her body could hide the “surprise” directly behind her) and waited for Jacob to come. He hadn’t texted her back, but she could hear him shifting around next door, could hear the springs of his bed creaking as he got up.
Her phone buzzed in her hand, and she looked quickly at the screen. She had five unread messages from Flo—Pinterest links and theme ideas and various other party-related things that, for some reason, made Eve’s stomach drop. She didn’t want to think about why, so she ignored Flo completely and checked the sisterly group chat instead.
You can’t ignore Florence forever. You can’t ignore your future forever.
No, not forever. Just . . . for now. While she was here, waiting for Jacob. Just for now.
DANI: Who’s up for a phone call tonight? I just finished a horrifically limited essay about the future of feminism and require a palate cleanser.
CHLOE: This is Red. Chloe says she can’t talk right now because she’s playing comp. But I reckon she’ll be done in fifteen.
Eve tapped out her own answer in a rush as she heard Jacob’s bedroom door open.
EVE: Can’t, about to have a meeting w my boss.
DANI: At eight o’clock in the evening?!
EVE: Could last all night, he’s a sticker for details.
And she was looking forward to hearing him nitpick.
A gentle knock sounded at the door. Eve threw her phone onto the nearby weight bench and called, “Come in.”
The door swung open to reveal Jacob in the jeans and shirt he considered casual, his expression uncertain. But there was a relaxation about his mouth, a smile about his eyes, that had developed over the last few days of cooking and bickering and scrubbing bathrooms together. She liked that relaxation. She liked that smile.
Because they were friends, obviously. As she was about to prove.
“Ta-dah,” she said, giving him jazz hands as he looked around the room she’d rearranged. “Friend stuff.”