Josh apparently read her thoughts, because he reached out a hand to stop her. Not touching her, but there was no question that he wanted her to stay.
She shouldn’t, and yet . . .
Heather glanced at his profile, taking in the sudden tension and the rawness that had replaced his easy cockiness. And though she didn’t know him, she ached for him.
And she wasn’t completely immune to the pain on Sue Tanner’s face, either, as she pressed her lips together and focused on ladling scoops of pancake batter into the now sizzling skillet.
“I just want you to be happy,” his mom said quietly.
Josh exhaled a tiny sigh that only Heather could hear before he stood and walked over to his mother, wrapping his arms around her in a hug that tugged at Heather’s heart.
Sue reached up a hand and patted her son’s cheek in reassurance that they were okay, and when Josh stepped away, Heather’s heart twisted even further when she saw his mother swipe a tear from her cheek.
What the heck had she stumbled into?
“Don’t do it, 4C.”
Heather glanced at Josh as he came and sat back in the chair next to hers, reaching for his coffee.
“Don’t do what?”
“Don’t go all soft on me now and let me think you’re nice. I won’t be able to handle it.”
“I am nice,” she insisted. “Super nice.”
“Excellent,” he said, back to his easy charm and wide smile. “So would now be a good time to tell you that my band’s coming over to practice tonight?”
Heather shoved her empty coffee mug his way. “Let’s just say that you making me more of that heavenly coffee is your best chance of me not strangling you with a guitar string.”
He scooped up her mug and stood with a wink. “Damned if I don’t like you a little bit, 4C, especially when you’re all pissy and shit.”
Heather ignored this, pointedly looking out the window as she waited for him to return with more of the insanely good coffee.
But damned if she didn’t like him a little bit, too.
Chapter Five
WHEN JOSH HAD QUIT his old life cold turkey, he’d figured that the best part of “new Josh” would be the lack of rigid routine. No more five a.m. wake-up calls after a two a.m. nights. No more seven thirty meetings followed by coffee obligations and lunch obligations and happy hour obligations and dinner obligations.
Hell, no obligations of any kind. No commitments. No routine. He’d be able to do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. To live each day free and clear of yesterday, and more importantly, to live each day free and clear of tomorrow, because if he’d learned anything, it was that tomorrow was far from a guarantee.
Which was why it was so annoying to realize that despite his very deliberate intentions to embrace the carefree musician lifestyle, complete with its odd hours, one-night stands, and don’t-give-a-fuck mentality, he was still very much a creature of habit.
Grocery runs on Sunday nights. Wake up at six without an alarm, regardless of how late he’d gone to bed the night before. Breakfast of smoothie and vegetable omelet to offset his penchant for pizza. Out the door by eight to get to the gym, followed by a stop for an extra large cup of coffee, followed by shower, followed by a lunch of protein shake and salad . . .
Fuck he was tired of himself.
Which was why, as Josh let himself out of his apartment at 7:55, the way he did every morning, he felt a slow smile creep over his face as Heather stepped into the hallway and pulled her door shut at the exact same time.
Sure, he could have done without her wince and sigh of dismay as she spotted him, but then again, maybe that was part of the appeal. Josh was desperate for a change—desperate for a challenge—and the neighbor in 4C with her determination not to like him was exactly what the doctor ordered.
“Morning, 4C,” he said with an easy smile, giving her a slow once-over as they locked their respective doors.
She looked . . . hot. White blouse tucked into a gray pencil skirt with sky-high blue stilettos. Nice if you liked the polished-career-woman look, and he normally did. And yet . . . Josh’s eyes narrowed a little because it didn’t seem quite like her. She pulled it off nicely, but he’d seen the inside of her apartment; he knew that she liked just a little bit of funk, and nothing about her clothing choices represented the quirky personality that he was pretty sure lurked beneath the surface. Still, he supposed he knew as well as anybody that sometimes you had to dress the part.