Heat shot up from my neck and I laughed to cover my embarrassment. “So, you cook, huh?”
He shrugged, a move so endearing it was swoon-worthy. “I don’t starve. So is that a yes?”
You think? “Yes, of course,” I said. “What can I bring?”
He narrowed his eyes for a second. “Do you like steak?”
I cocked my head in amusement. “My brother-in-law is a butcher.”
Duncan laughed. “Good point. What’s your favorite cut?”
“Filet.”
He nodded. “I’ll pick out two of their best before I leave,” he said. “Any vegetables on the no-fly list?”
I had to chuckle. Men had cooked for me before, but none of them had asked me my preferences first. One had even made a whole Chinese feast, never knowing that I despised Chinese food.
“It’s all good,” I said, then held up a finger. “Wait. Asparagus.” I wrinkled my nose.
“No asparagus,” he recited, curling his lip a little as well. “I don’t care for it either.”
One point in his favor.
“Do you like chocolate ice cream?” I asked, hopeful. It kind of mattered. Not the flavor so much, but ice cream in general. People who didn’t do ice cream were not to be trusted.
“My favorite,” he said.
Oh, score. “Then I’ll bring some,” I said.
Duncan smiled. “It’s a date.”
And he asked me. I wanted to shout it out to Lily. To the caveman asshole back there. To open the door and yell it down the street. Duncan Spoon asked me! To dinner. At his house.
Oh, holy hell.
• • •
“Well, that’s good!” Lily exclaimed when I told her. She’d walked over to the barn on her break, antsy to hear how things went with Duncan. Which really meant she was checking to see if I was in self-destruct mode after encountering Ian, but that was okay. I wasn’t. “Wow, cooking for you, that’s real interest, Savi.”
I looked up from my laptop, where I was posting items on eBay. Something my dad still hadn’t fully embraced. He was still totally old-school in his methods. Sales were in person, on the floor, on the street, on-site. He’d say something was “on the Internet” like there was just some button bringing you to one big computerized chalkboard that everyone just went to scribble on.
“Why?” I said. “Why do you say that?”
“Because he’s putting his privacy on the chopping block,” she said. “Giving you his address right out of the gate, before he even really knows you—that’s an intimate move.” Lily snagged a peppermint from a dish on my desk and unwrapped it as she sat cross-legged on the small futon couch I’d hoarded for my office. “You could be a serial killer for all he knows.”
I smirked. “He has met me a few times, you know,” I said. “I’m in there all the time.”
“Exactly,” she said, popping the candy into her mouth. “He knows you’re either obsessive-compulsive about your dog or in serious need of a life, and still hands out his home address without a second thought.”
“Ha ha,” I said. “Remember when you wanted to grow up and be a therapist, and then changed your mind? Good decision.”
“I’m just saying,” she said, holding her palms up to me. “He must really like you.”
I grabbed my water bottle and slugged a third of it down. It was my fourth bottle in the last hour and a half, as every time I thought of the evening ahead of me or what was across the street from me, my mouth turned into a sand bar.
“I kind of wish we were going out,” I said.
“Why?”
“Because of that whole
intimate
thing you just said,” I said, gesturing at the air. “Puts all the balls in my court on when to leave.”
Lily grinned. “No pun intended?”
I felt flushed. “Yeah, exactly.”
“Look at you,” she said, pointing. “I’ve never seen you so nervous about a man.”
Yes, she had. We were just dancing around that particular elephant.
“I just—I don’t know,” I said. “I’m so not in control around Duncan. That’s—”
“Not normal for you,” Lily finished.
“Exactly!” I said, slapping my palms on the desk. “I’m terrified that if he kisses me, I might start flailing like a seal or hump his leg or something.”
Lily laughed, bringing me with her. It was nice—and kind of rare—these silly sister moments. Most of the time, Lily held back a little with me, almost motherly at times. Like indulging in anything reckless would just encourage me to revert back to my old ways.
And on that thought, I remembered why she was really pushing Duncan. Would she be so invested if a certain bad influence hadn’t arrived back in the picture? Not that Ian was in any picture. He was just a major distraction, like a buzzing fly. A sexy one, with really hot wings.
“There’s my pretty little ducklings,” Dad said, his voice booming from the doorway. “Love seeing you two giggle like old times.”
Lily smiled and got to her feet to hug him. “Those old times are getting more ancient by the day,” she said, sounding weary.
“Now, don’t be talking like an old woman, Lily-bug,” he said. “If you go getting old, my bones’ll just turn to dust where we stand.”
She stretched and rolled her neck, and I saw that certain something I’d seen the day before but was too worked up over Duncan to question it.
“I’m just tired, Dad,” she said, a small smile flitting across her pretty features.
“I know you are,” he said, sinking into the spot Lily had vacated. “You work too hard. Too long. I told you that the other day, you need a balance.”
“Well, when Leonard comes back, it’ll get better,” I said.
Lily averted her eyes, and before I could think too much on that, Dad rendered me stupid.
“There’s a lady from that Antique Nation place who’s coming by day after tomorrow,” he said, like he was commenting on the weather.
I tilted my head and blinked, giving him a look. “What?”
“What’s Antique Nation?” Lily asked, picking up one of my keys and using it to stir the others. “Sounds like a tribe.”
“Why?” I asked, ignoring Lily’s question. “Why would they come here? They filming us picking or something?”
“No, no,” Dad said, waving that off. “Although that would be interesting, wouldn’t it? Maybe we could ask.”
“Dad?” I asked.
“She’s just coming to talk,” he said, making all the little hairs on my body stand up and wave.
Lily put the key down then and looked back and forth between us. “Who’s coming to talk? What’s Antique Nation?”
“Our own portal to hell,” I said.
Dad scoffed. “Oh, it is not.”
“Yes, it is,” I said. “It’s a sellout and an insult to what we do.”
“What we do is sell junk, Savi,” he said. “So do they. We’re all in the same business.” He held out his hands. “And they have the means to take a big chunk of work off our hands.”
“I don’t want any chunks taken away,” I said. “I like my chunks.”
“Somebody please dumb it down,” Lily said, hands on her hips.
I rubbed my temples, trying to remember just a few minutes before when I thought I was stressed. “Antique Nation does those auctions on TV,” I said.
“And they want to auction some of this?” Lily said. “Wouldn’t that be a good thing?”
“For them,” I said. “Whatever they auction belongs to them.”
“So they’d buy it first,” Lily said.
I met her eyes. “No, they’d buy us.”
She flinched. “Buy—buy the barn? The business?” She looked at Dad with concern. “Dad, why would you want to do that?”
I folded my hands. “Yes, Dad, do tell.”
I was kind of impressed that Lily was that interested, but that was probably a little unfair of me. She had helped as a kid—we hadn’t had much choice in the matter. We were raised to participate, even if that was just helping to haul things from the side of the road, spraying down muddy merchandise, or sweeping the floor. It was a family business. Once we grew up, however, Lily invested more of her interest in her husband’s business. Which was fine. She just never loved it like I did.
For me, the smell of old, the dirt, the rust, the feel of something that had a use in another time, or the rush of finding a hidden treasure—it was the best job in the world. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.
Dad sighed as if we were small children tugging on his sleeve. “Y’all make this out to be a much bigger deal than it would be,” he said.
“They buy businesses like ours and auction off the merchandise,” I said. “That’s kind of a big deal.”
“They also will keep the owners on as pickers if they want, or to manage the local presence if we didn’t want completely out,” he said.
“Local presence?”
Lily said. “Who the heck’s been feeding you lines like that?”
“I’ll bet it’s whoever’s coming to
talk,”
I said.
“You want to be a picker in your own company?” Lily asked.
“Oh, geez,” Dad muttered, raking fingers through his hair.
“And I don’t want out at all!” I said, grabbing a key. I needed the cool metal to fill me with something. Something calming. I made a note on a Post-it and Dad leaned over my desk.
“What are you writing?” he asked.
“A note to buy double ice cream for tonight,” I said. “One for when I get home. I’m gonna need it.”
“Assuming you’ll go home,” Lily said with a smirk.
I blew out a breath and shook my head at her. “Don’t stress me out.”
“Home from where?” Dad asked.
“I have a date,” I said.
“I thought that was this morning,” he said, his brow wrinkling.
“It was,” I said. “You know it was; you talked to him. Don’t play. I have another one tonight.”
“Same guy?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Thank God.”
I sighed and leveled a look at him. “Can we get back to this stupid idea of yours?” I said.
“Not really,” he said, his knees popping as he rose to his feet.
“Dad,” I said, making him stop and look at me. “No. We’re not doing this. We’re not giving up our family’s business. The business you started. And we aren’t chipping away at it, either. What on earth are you thinking?”
“That maybe if we had a little help, you wouldn’t have to work so hard,” he said. “Maybe you could have a life. Get out of here more. Find some happiness.”
Find a husband.
“Do I look unhappy to you?” I asked, holding up my hands. “Dad, I
have
a life. I have a job I love. A family I tolerate.” I threw a paper clip at him. “Sometimes.”
“And you’re alone,” he said.
“I have a dog. And a date,” I said, after a pause.
“Savi,” he said wearily, flipping a hand at me as he walked past.
“Does anyone ever stop to think that maybe I like it that way?” I said. He stopped and gave me a skeptical eye, and Lily took her seat back. “Seriously,” I said. “You know, I like my private time. I like that I’m not accountable to anyone but myself and possibly Gracie, and by the way—I raised a pretty amazing human all by myself.”
“Yes, you did,” he said. “You didn’t ask for help then, either.”
I widened my eyes. “And the problem would be?”
“You don’t know how to delegate.” He pointed at Lily, who suddenly perked up and looked wary. “Even your sister and Jim know when enough’s enough. They asked for help.”
“Dad?” Lily said, eyes too wide and a grimace-like smile on her face. “Really?”
“What?” I tried to catch her eye, but she wouldn’t look my direction. “What help? What’s going on?”
“Dad’s selling me down the river, that’s what’s going on,” she said, getting up.
“Honey, you know better,” Dad said, using his
don’t worry
voice from when we were kids. The one that was supposed to dissuade all our fears.
“No, I know I asked you to keep it between us,” she said.
“Uh, somebody dumb it down for me now?” I said.
Lily held up a hand. “He’s in a sharing mood, I’m sure he’ll fill you in. I have to get back to work.” She patted his back as she moved around him, a stir of discord in the air.
Dad sighed as she left. “Well, that’s got to be some kind of record. Pissing off both my kids in under five minutes.”
“I’m not pissed,” I said, although it was a stretch. “I’m just saying we’re not doing it.”
The real kicker though, the part that rankled under my skin, was that it was just lip service. I could talk all that bravado I wanted, but at the end of the day, it was his decision. His business.
My life.
“Now,” I said, blowing out a breath and changing the subject. “What’s Lily talking about?”
Chapter Six
Getting ready for supper with Duncan had a bittersweet tinge to it. Besides Ian’s return, besides Dad’s latest urge to change everything we’d sweated for, Lily hadn’t trusted me. True, she could be motherly at times, but when it came down to the wire, we could always talk. I certainly shared my problems and failures with her. But she hadn’t.