If This Was a Movie (Evergreen Park #2)

Chapter 18 – Jules

EIGHTEEN

JULES

The next morning, I wake up to a text from Nate asking me over for coffee, and I know I can’t do it. I can’t be with him early in the morning before I’m awake enough to put my defenses up, not when he’s apparently adamant about trying to break through the wall I’m desperately trying to keep up between us.

I shouldn’t have stayed to watch a movie with him last night, even if he was sweet, saved me a plate for dinner, and subscribed to every streaming service under the sun because he knew I couldn’t bring all of my movies. I need to keep things professional and friendly and, most importantly, keep my heart out of it.

Sorry, I can’t, I’ve got so much to iron out at the community center today. I’ll be back before 2 to get Sophie off the bus, though.

He gives me a thumbs-up in reply, and my mind has to remind me eighteen thousand times he is a man, so a thumbs-up isn’t a weirdly passive-aggressive move, and even if it was, it doesn’t matter.

Nate isn’t mine.

So instead of sitting in his kitchen and drinking coffee with him while he gets ready for his day, I chug an energy drink on the drive to the community center, teach an adult dance fitness class, and spend the rest of the morning making sure everything is ironed out for the final rehearsals before our winter recital on Tuesday.

I get back to Nate’s with plenty of time to get Sophie off the bus, give her a snack, and play Ashlyn dolls with her for two hours, but as soon as Nate gets home, I head out, telling Sophie I’ll see her tomorrow and barely giving Nate a wave. It works so well that I decide this is going to be my routine, because the easiest, if not the most childish, way to keep things completely professional with Nate is to simply avoid him.

But the next day, when he walks in an hour early and Sophie is still eating her snack, I’m foiled by a meddling five-year-old with a wickedly effective pouty face.

“Can you stay for dinner, Jules?” Sophie asks as I start to close my laptop. I was doing administrative work, which I usually put off until the last minute.

“Oh, I don’t think your dad—” I start, but Nate cuts in quickly.

“If you stayed, it would actually be a huge help,” he says, and I glare at him as Sophie smiles next to me. He has to know that my wanting to help is going to make me cave, since no matter what he says, getting Sophie off the bus occasionally is not equivalent to fixing up my place and giving me somewhere to stay.

“Pleassseeee, Jules?!” She begs, pouting at me.

“I…”

“I have to fix this sink,” Nate says, tipping his head to the kitchen sink that definitely works just fine. “And I don’t want Sophie to get all the parts mixed up.”

“And we’re having pizza for dinner! We each make our own pizza, and we put on the toppings ourselves. It’s so much fun! I use extra extra cheese because that’s the best part.”

“Well, I’m sure your dad doesn’t have enough?—”

“I have more than enough. Do you have a class tonight?” he asks, and before I can lie, Sophie speaks.

“She doesn’t! I asked her when I got off the bus!”

The way Sophie is looking at me with big, blue puppy dog eyes, I can’t find it in me to say no, so I sigh and nod. “Yeah, I guess I can stay if it’s cool with you guys.”

“It is!” Sophie shouts. And it sounds crazy, but the way Nate and Sophie look at each other when I agree, it’s like this was, in fact, planned like some orchestrated exchange to…what? Get me to stay for dinner?

You’re out of your mind, Jules. Be realistic, I tell myself, sighing as I settle back to open my laptop and respond to another email.

“What are you doing?” I ask a few minutes later when Nate sets a worn tool bag and a box on the kitchen island. “I didn’t realize the sink was broken.”

His forearms flex, the sleeves of his long-sleeve tee pushed up to the elbows as he opens the box, pulling out instructions.

No one should have forearms that good-looking. Add in a fading tan and the perfect light sprinkling of hair—it’s actually criminal.

“Jules?” he asks, snapping me out of the forearm porno running through my mind, my head snapping up to look at him. His lips are tipped up like he knows what I was thinking about, and a blush burns over my cheeks.

“Yeah?” I ask, fighting the urge to shake my head out, to dislodge my thoughts from the incredibly inappropriate place they had wandered.

“You zoned out.”

“Sorry, I, uh…” Think, Jules! Think! “I saw the tools, and my mind went straight to how much work my place probably needs. What did you say you’re doing with the sink?”

He looks at me, eyes dancing with humor, and I know he knows I’m full of shit, but what else can I do?

“Replacing this sink faucet. It drips, and I’ve meant to swap it for months.” I remember this: him telling me the sink drove him crazy back in January, and once again, in the way Nate always seems to be able to do so, I think he reads my mind, knowing what I remember because his lips tip in an embarrassed smile before he shrugs. “Never got around to it.”

“Huh,” I say, then watch as he starts to take parts out of the box, the instructions spread on the counter. “I’m surprised you use those.”

“What?”

“Instructions. I would have thought a real manly man like yourself would just jump right in, figure it out as he goes.”

Unexpectedly, his lips tip up, a full grin taking over his face.

“You know, a real man isn’t afraid of a little instruction. In fact, he might find a step-by-step tutorial is quite…enlightening.” The glimmer in his eye has my face burning with a blush as I recall the first time I was in this kitchen, spread on this very counter, and showing him how I liked to be touched before he took over.

I clear my throat.

“Yes, well, I’m also quite the do-it-yourselfer these days. I just find it more…satisfying, you know?” I flutter my lashes at him, attempting to ignore the absolute need to hide away. Backing down means Nate wins, and I hate losing.

He looks at me, his tongue tracing his teeth in a way I tell myself I would not like to feel before he speaks. “I think I’d like to see you do it yourself sometime, dollface.”

I stare at him slack-jawed, unable to think of a witty or a biting remark, instead once again flashing back to almost a year ago on this counter. “Show me,” he had said, and I’d be lying if I didn’t occasionally bring that memory out of storage to use on particularly lonely nights.

“Do you like my picture?” Sophie asks, pushing a coloring book into my arm and breaking the moment. I don’t know how I had forgotten the little girl that sat next to me, but when I look down, there’s a princess colored in wildly, the lines of the page mere suggestions, but it looks perfect all the same.

I clear my throat before answering. “Oh my goodness, it’s beautiful!” I say with a big gasp. “You’re an amazing artist!”

“Thanks, I know,” she says with a confident little shrug and a smile. I let a small laugh out and wish I had a third of her confidence. “Do you want it?”

“Me?” I ask, and she nods.

“To decorate Aunt Claire’s cottage.”

“Oh, my goodness, yes! I’d love it. That’s a great idea, thank you so much.” I watch as she carefully tears out the photo, a look of fierce concentration on her face. “I can’t wait to hang it up,” I say, meaning it.

She smiles and then gives me a big hug before returning to her coloring.

“Now I need to make one to send to Aunt Claire. She probably misses me, like, a lot.”

I nod my head and go back to attempting to reply to emails and ignore the man working at the sink.

My plan is ruined just few minutes later when I watch as he reaches behind himself with both arms, grabbing the back of his sweatshirt and tugging it over his head, leaving just a tight fitted white T-shirt underneath before opening the cabinets beneath the sink and looking in there, fiddling with pipes or whatever it is he’s doing.

I wouldn’t know, I’m too busy watching the muscles of his back shift beneath that tight T-shirt.

It’s incredibly distracting. So much so that less than an hour later, I get exactly zero of the emails I needed to send and reply to done. Instead, every moment was spent trying to sneak coy looks at Nate’s arms and back. A few times, he even reached up to grab something, his shirt shifting up and revealing a line of smooth skin, a hint of light hair leading to a happy trail on a toned stomach, and I think I swallowed the moan that almost left my lips.

I hope.

Either way, I am so totally fucked.

And when Nate turns the tap on, looking satisfied with his work, then turns to me, arms crossed on his chest with that same self-satisfied look on his lips, I know I’m fucked.

“So, tomorrow,” he starts, looking at me. “What’s your schedule look like?”

My brows furrow trying to remember what day of the week tomorrow even is since my mind is still muddled, watching his arms pull at the sleeves of his white tee. Shaking my head, I click a few things on my laptop and open my calendar.

“I…” I start reading the day’s schedule. “Just a rehearsal at five. We have to redo the dress rehearsal at the community center before the recital.”

“Oh, I forgot about your recital. When’s that again?”

“Tuesday, so I won’t be able to help much with Sophie early next week.” He shakes his head and waves at me in a don’t worry about it gesture. “And then, for the most part, the season will be done until January. Hopefully everything will be…done by then,” I say, biting my lip.

I try to close up the kids' practices after the winter recital and start back up mid-January once the chaos of the holidays and winter break end. Each year I think about doing a one-week intensive camp to help with the parents who have to work while the kids are off because I miss them, but I’m glad I didn’t do it this year.

“Hmm,” he says, looking at his daughter then back to me. “Well, tomorrow, in the morning, would you want to go tree shopping with us?”

“What?”

“Oh, Jules, you have to come! Daddy and I go to the farm and we pick the perfect tree and Daddy chops it down and then we go into the shop and get hot cocoa! With MARSHMALLOWS! And lots of whipped cream.”

“Well, you can’t have cocoa without marshmallows,” I say with a smile.

“Exactly!” she exclaims, hands tossed in the air. “And then we go to get new ornaments and bring the tree home and put up our decorations. You have to come!”

“It kind of sounds like something you and your dad do to bond, sweetie. It should be just you two, I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

She groans aloud. “No way! How are you ever going to fall in love with my dad if you keep avoiding him?”

Nate’s head pops up and he looks at his daughter, and I expect him to argue or to tell her that’s not cool, but he doesn’t.

Instead, he smiles.

“Yeah, Jules. How are you ever going to make a Christmas miracle happen if you keep avoiding me?”

My mouth drops open at his open taunt.

“I…I…” I start, looking from Nate to his daughter. “I’m not avoiding you!”

“Then prove it. Come with us tomorrow,” he says.

I glare at him, knowing I am so screwed.

He smiles wider, and then, because I have seemingly no choice, I nod tersely. “Yes. I would love to come get a tree with you two tomorrow.”