might be. “Not old. Older than us but like, I don’t know, late twenties, early thirties? He had that old-soul look like he’d seen some stuff. But that’s not surprising if he’s a firefighter.”
Hollyn’s brow lifted. “Old soul, huh? Is he cute?”
Andi scrunched her nose, the question catching her off guard, and she forced another bite of cinnamon roll down. Was he cute? Cute was not a word she’d use for him. There was nothing “cute” about that serious face, those wide shoulders, and that deep voice. Sexy, yes. Hot, for sure. Her fantasy from the other night flashed through her mind, and warmth rushed to her cheeks. She cleared her throat. “I guess. If you like the big, bearded, dark, and broody type.”
“Please God, don’t let that be her type,” said a voice from the doorway.
Andi turned, finding Hollyn’s fiancé, Jasper, leaning against the doorjamb with an amused look on his face.
He stepped inside, adjusted his dark-rimmed glasses, and then spread his arms, Hulk-style, trying to widen his lean frame. “But if it is, I can be beefcake.”
Hollyn bit her lip, smiling adoringly at her guy. “What you are is exactly my type.”
“Goofy improv actor?” he confirmed and walked over to peck Hollyn on the lips.
“Obviously.”
“Sweet. I’m your man.” He turned to Andi after stealing a piece of Hollyn’s cinnamon roll and popping it in his mouth. “So, who are we talking about? What’s the word? Give me all the details.”
“Andi’s new neighbor is apparently a hot firefighter,” Hollyn said, tone playful.
Andi groaned. “I said no such thing.”
“Uh-huh,” Hollyn said.
“Fine,” Andi admitted. “He’s not…difficult to look at.”
Jasper propped a hip on the corner of Hollyn’s desk and grinned. “Uh-oh, Andi finally likes a boy. Fitz is going to be so bereft when I tell him. He’s harboring a mad crush.”
Andi gave him an oh-please look. Fitz McLane owned an investment firm that took up most of the fourth floor of WorkAround, and he was a nice enough guy, but he also could sell ice to an Eskimo. “Fitz acts like he has a crush on every woman in the building. He likes to be adored. And I don’t ‘like a boy.’ Neighbor dude is definitely a man. And I never said I was into him. I’m just objectively saying that he is a nice-looking human.” She pointed at them, narrowing her eyes. “Don’t do that thing.”
“What thing?” Hollyn asked, setting her chin in her hand and obviously enjoying the teasing way too much.
“That thing that people do once they’re a couple and want everyone else to suddenly couple up,” she said. “You become like gossipy grandmothers playing matchmaker.”
Hollyn shook her head and held up her own wagging finger. “Oh, no you don’t, Lockley. You were like my own personal cheering squad, trying to get things to work out with me and Jas. You don’t get to pull that couple card on us.”
Andi put her hand to her chest. “Me? I was simply seeing two people who obviously needed to be together and encouraging that. That was being a good friend. But you don’t even know this guy. I don’t even know this guy. He could be a crappy human. He could be married and not wearing a ring. He listens to country music, so we’re already starting off at a deficit.”
“Country?” Jasper cringed. “Yeah, sounds like a lost cause. I’ll tell Fitz his crush is safe.”
Hollyn offered the rest of her cinnamon roll to Jasper and cleaned her fingers on her napkin. “Look, I won’t be that person. You’re a grown woman who can make her own choices on who she’s interested in or not. But at the very least, it can’t hurt to get to know your neighbor a little, right?”
Andi frowned, that old tight feeling filling her chest. Just because someone was a neighbor didn’t mean they were someone worth knowing, someone worth trusting. But she didn’t want to go there with her friends. They didn’t know about her past. Didn’t know that the story of her first crush involved a guy currently sitting in a maximum-security prison. These friends knew her in the After—as the quirky horror writer, as the weird girl who finds comfort in the macabre, as the woman who wants to run background checks on all her friends’ dates but rarely goes on a date herself. She didn’t want them to know what had gotten her here.
“Sure. I mean, maybe I’ll need to borrow a cup of sugar one day,” Andi said noncommittally.
Jasper’s