Had I been that transparent? “What do you mean?”
Grabbing a water bottle, she took a drink, all the while not taking her eyes off me.
An inner excitement raced through me. I knew that look. She was interested, and for some reason that surprised me. All these years, I’d wanted her to see me as someone other than her brother’s best friend.
“You’re different than I thought you would be,” she said.
I could read a lot of things into that statement. I chose to believe by her expression that she meant it in the positive. “Well, I’m not at all surprised at the changes in you, Mandy.”
Her brows furrowed. “I’m surprised you even remember what I look like.”
Was she kidding? Her features had been etched in my memory. She’d been my fantasy for years and when she’d left Maple Creek for college, I’d been bummed out for weeks. “I remember when you were about fifteen, hanging with some friends at the county fair. You were wearing this yellow sun top and cut-off shorts with a little smiley face patch on the right back pocket. Toby and I followed you and went on every ride you did.”
“You were stalking us?” she asked, a playful grin on her face.
“Not stalking really. I just thought you were cute.”
She looked stunned by the declaration, then covered it by pressing her lips together.
Her eyes narrowed. “So basically you were eleven…”
“Yeah, but I wished I’d been fifteen that day,” I replied, unable to resist, having heard the sarcasm in her voice.
***
Amanda
Cute?
Had he actually said he thought I was cute? Settle down, Amanda. That was over ten years ago. Clearly he’d had a sort of crush on me back then, especially if he remembered what I’d worn to a fair so long ago.
Not knowing how to respond, I dropped my gaze to the floor between us. I was no longer that dewy-faced teenager with stars in her eyes. I was a twenty-six-year-old adult who had wasted seven years on a man who had then tossed me aside for someone more desirable.
I cleared my throat and once again made eye contact. Damn, the boy was easy to look at. “Life was a lot easier back then, huh?” I said, opening up one of the old cabinets and getting hit with a musty smell that had me wrinkling my nose. “So you’re thinking new cabinets versus painting them over?”
He walked up right beside me and reached out, his long-fingered hand tracing the edge of the cabinet door that I held.
Jesus, even his hands were beautiful.
“I think they have about ten coats of paint on them,” he said with humor in his voice. “I don’t know. We could do prefab cabinets. It’ll be cheaper—unless you had your heart set on custom.”
I tried not to smile. “My budget has to go a long way, so let’s go with prefab.”
We spent the next ten minutes talking backsplashes, countertops, sinks, lighting, appliances, and paint. Room by room we went, and I tried my best to stay focused as he went about jotting down notes and taking measurements. I liked the way he eyed everything and seemed to be into the process, telling me his ideas for design. His excitement was contagious.
“I’ll work up a detailed list tonight and I’ll email it to you.” His tone was all business. “If you decide to go with my bid, then maybe we can set up a time to pick out cabinets, tiles, flooring, paint colors, decking…the works.”
My eyes widened, and he laughed. “Don’t worry. It’s not as daunting as it sounds. And you can bring your mom if you’d like.”
I wasn’t so sure about bringing Mom along. Then again, maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea. She knew real estate. “Sounds like a plan.”
I approved Brax’s bid that same evening, and at eight fifteen the following morning, my mom arrived at my house and set about making herself useful by ironing my clothes while I blow-dried my hair. She had leapt at the chance to go with Brax and me to the cabinet store and had even printed out pictures of cabinets she thought would look nice in my house.
She always made me smile. Her once blonde hair had gone gradually darker and she wore it in a short but stylish shoulder length cut. I had always been used to her wearing jeans, but now with her new career in real estate, she had made a concerted effort to “dress up” as she called it. Today, she wore a pretty red blouse with black dress pants.