an opportunity to hide. To earn money.
“Well, where are you going to sleep?”
“You’re very concerned about me, as if I’m not a grown man who hasn’t spent a hell of a long time taking care of himself.”
“Well, then what do you want me to do?”
“I miss my grandmother’s cooking. I miss having the house a little bit tidier. If you could be my housekeeper for the next couple of weeks...”
“I’m not going to be able to cook like your grandma.”
She recalled Laz bringing in some of the things his grandmother had made to the bar. Gladys Jenkins’s cooking had Southern roots, and while Jordan was handy—especially when it came to baking—she didn’t know anything about food from Louisiana.
“That’s fine. I eat all kinds of food. Just know that I’ll appreciate it.”
“All right,” she said. “I’ll do it. Thank you. Because I just don’t know what else I would’ve done.”
“That’s what I do. I take care of people.”
And she couldn’t deny that, but there was something about that assurance that rang hollow to her, and she didn’t know quite what to do with it.
CHAPTER THREE
WELL, HELL. LAZ hadn’t meant to go and get himself a roommate. But, here he was. Engaging in a high level of torture that he hadn’t intended to fling himself down at the mercy of.
And as he drove down through the main street of Gold Valley, looking at the familiar redbrick buildings and pondering his life choices, he realized that there had never been a choice. Not really. He could be as irritated with himself as he wanted, but that didn’t make it... Well, any less than it was. He was going to be there for Jordan. Whatever she needed.
He just would. Because there were certain things that he... There were certain things he could give her. And certain things he couldn’t. And all of that was a tangle around what he wished.
Why hadn’t he asked her not to marry Dylan?
Because it would have been a self-interested demand. He wanted her. It was plain as that. He wanted her in his bed, but he didn’t know how to have someone else in his life.
And he wondered if he was like Gladys. Too stubborn and too solitary to ever really settle down. He had often wondered that about his own dad.
His dad was a faithful husband. He would never leave his mother. He had been dedicated to them, always. But he’d also flung himself into his work as a doctor. His practice had taken precedence over everything else. And it had caused endless issues between his parents, because his mother’s work as a lawyer had been extremely demanding and she had felt like his dad didn’t give enough at home. They had never fought. No. At least, not shouting and screaming.
It had been death by a thousand cuts.
Pinpricks of passive aggressiveness that marred every single day. And Laz himself felt like he was walking on eggshells constantly. Just trying to avoid all of that. But he knew firsthand how parents could be there for you physically, and yet hold everything back emotionally. How people could be in a marriage, and simultaneously not be in it. Technically doing all the right things, but emotionally not managing it. And he just... He had no interest in failing somebody that profoundly. And at the end of the day, that was his concern. That he would profoundly fail the person that he tried to enmesh in his life.
When he pulled up to the little house that Jordan shared with Dylan, he felt a strange turn of envy.
Well, she didn’t share it with him anymore. Now she shared his house with him. So what about that?
He walked up to the front door, and lifted the little pot with the geranium in it, grabbing hold of the key that was indeed there, and then he fit it into the lock. But just as he did, the door jerked open. And there was Dylan, looking enraged. Laz was no stranger to a bar fight—at least breaking one up. But it wouldn’t even be fair to engage in a scuffle with Dylan, who was about half his muscle mass and at least three inches shorter. Basically, Laz could kick his ass by breathing on him too hard.
“She didn’t think you’d be here.”
“Oh,” Dylan said. “She’s with you. I should have known.”
Laz had briefly met Dylan a couple of times over the years. On the odd occasion that they’d come into the bar to eat a meal.