“Yeah.”
My mind flashes back to Jenna up close and personal. Things are different now. I’m twenty-seven to Jenna’s twenty-nine, and the years don’t matter much between two fully adult bodies.
I blink a few times. Dammit, I still have a thing for Jenna Larsen.
Jenna
I do not have a thing for Eli Robinson. I tap the steering wheel rapidly as I drive home, fresh from our fender bender. That was just…a weird moment. A weird angry alpha-male moment—his eyes hot on mine, his sexy earthy scent, the deep timbre of his voice. A hot shiver races through me at the memory.
Up close he didn’t feel like the Eli I grew up with. How is it I never noticed how filled out he is? Thick with muscle from his corded neck to wide rounded shoulders. He used to be a skinny scrappy kid. Now he’s got five-o’clock shadow on his square jaw. I knew he grew up, of course. I’ve seen him around town, doing his cop thing. Sometimes I see him from a distance at The Horseman Inn, the historic bar and restaurant that my best friend Sydney owns. He plays acoustic guitar occasionally on Saturday nights. I never got up close though, eye to eye, a breath away. There was something about his bristling authority as he confronted me that turned me on.
Gah. I can not be turned on by Eli Robinson. He’s Sydney’s irritating little brother. Worse, Sydney’s overprotective of her two younger brothers, Eli and Caleb. She helped raise them after their mom died when she was twelve. Eli was ten and Caleb eight at the time. With her two older brothers, she’s hands off—they helped raise her. The two younger brothers, she’s a mama bear with. Still.
Sydney and I are as close as sisters, joined at the hip since kindergarten. And that sisterly bond means a lot to me since my own sister dropped out of my life. Fallout from my parents’ nasty divorce.
Okay, so no more weird thoughts about Eli Robinson. He’s not a guy I could ever be with casually, which is all I can handle. Sydney would freak if I did. She knows exactly why I avoid relationships. I don’t have to look any farther than my parents’ horrendously drawn-out divorce to know a committed relationship isn’t for me. Even so, I did try a couple of times to make it work with a guy. My longest relationship was a month in college. When the guy wanted me to meet his parents, I felt like I couldn’t say no, but it was too much too fast, so I broke up with him. He got clingy after that, trying to win me back, and the harder he tried, the less I wanted to go back to him.
Then there was the time I really tried with Brian, a year after college, but it ended after three weeks when he said I was always distant. I didn’t see that at all, which only made him feel sorry for me. He said I was incapable of being close to someone, and I believed him. The evidence was staring me in the face, after a long history of nothing ever working out for longer than a month. I just stopped trying. The problem is me. I’m not relationship material.
I get out of the car and walk to the separate side entrance to my apartment over the bakery I own, Summerdale Sweets. I took over the old café in town from one of the original hippy founders, Rainbow, last summer. I’d previously lived in Brooklyn, commuting to Manhattan for a soul-sucking job in IT. I miss the lively dating scene of Brooklyn. Here it’s harder to meet single guys. Summerdale is mostly families or guys I grew up with, like the man who’s currently pissed at me. Men and their cars. I’m sure they can fix it at the auto shop no problem.
I go straight to my bedroom, plug my phone into the charger on my nightstand, set my small purse on the floor next to it, and head into the bathroom to get ready for bed. Other than the shock of running into Eli’s car, it was a blah night. I know I shouldn’t let it bother me, but of my three best friends—Sydney, Harper, and Audrey—two of them are married now. Only Audrey and I are single, and she’s determined to find her Mr. Right sooner rather than later. I don’t begrudge my friends their happiness, but I’ve known for a long time that marriage isn’t for me.
Now that my closest friends are getting married, probably starting families soon, I can’t help but think they’re going to leave me behind. They’ll move on to new married-couple friends or mom friends, and I’ll just be the second-rate “aunt” they invite to their kids’ birthday parties.
I brush my teeth vigorously as I rethink my life choices. Maybe I shouldn’t have quit my job in IT. It paid well.
Maybe I shouldn’t have followed my passion for baking back to my hometown.
Maybe I should just leave.
To go where? To do what?
I spit out toothpaste and rinse. I don’t know why I’m so unsettled. Here I am having a quarter-life crisis on a beautiful summer night after enjoying the moonlight regatta with friends. It’s basically a floating party—all our boats tied together on the lake—with fireworks. It was a good night, all things considered.
I change into my summer pajamas of an old T-shirt and sleep shorts and climb into bed. I close my eyes, and the accident comes back to me. The jolt of my car hitting something. The jolt of Eli up close. Then another memory comes back. A sweet one. Eli stopped by my house the day I was leaving for college in North Carolina. He was sixteen, not filled out yet, but tall. As soon as I answered the door, he thrust a bouquet of red roses in my hand and told me he’d miss me. I thanked him, and he left just as quickly as he arrived. At the time I was surprised but thought it was a nice gesture.
My phone rings. I turn on the nightstand lamp and lean over to check the screen. It’s a local number, but I don’t know who. Eli? I flush hot, my heart pounding for no reason at all. Just because I felt the tiniest bit of lust one time doesn’t mean I can’t talk to the man. It’s just Eli.
I let it go to voicemail.
After a few moments, I hear the notification and pick my phone up. A text pops up.
Hey, it’s Eli. I got your number from Sydney. Let me know your insurance info. I’m taking the car into the shop as soon as I can get an appointment. Here’s my info.
There’s an image attached of his insurance card. It’s nothing personal, but my heart won’t stop racing. Why does texting feel so intimate suddenly? Is it because I’m in bed?
I unplug the phone, prop myself up on the pillows against the headboard, and consider what to text back. Sorry I missed your call and ruined your new car? Long time no see? He’s never visited my shop, and I’ve been there for a year. It almost seems like he’s been avoiding me. Everyone I know stopped by within the first month.
I’ll just call. This is so not a big deal. I click on his text, and the phone icon pops up. See? Easy. My finger hovers over the button. Just press it. Adrenaline fires through me. I press the button anyway.
“Jenna,” Eli says brusquely in his deep authoritative cop voice.
I hang up.
Crap. I set the phone back on the nightstand and stare at it. Maybe I should just turn it off. I can call him back tomorrow and say we got disconnected because my phone died.
The phone rings, and I grab for it, accidentally knocking it to the floor. I scoop the phone up and jab it a few times, so eager to recover from my earlier hang-up that I manage to hang up on him again. Dammit. Now it looks like I’m avoiding him. I’ve known Eli practically my whole life. Well, there was a big gap there from when I left for college and didn’t come back until last summer. The gap where he morphed into a gorgeous swaggering man. Exactly my type.