The words were playful, but they hit him like shrapnel, cutting in multiple places. Of course she wasn’t hitting on him. Of course this wasn’t flirting. Of course she was inviting him to tour WorkAround to be helpful, not to ask him out. She was being nice. Everyone was being so fucking nice to him these days. He forced a smile. “I knew what you meant.”
She wiggled her fingers in a wave and stepped out onto the porch. “See you on the lawn sometime, neighbor. And let me know if you decide you want that tour.”
“Thanks. Will do.” He shut the door behind her and then pressed his forehead to the doorjamb, deflated. “Fucking pathetic, man.”
He was so out of practice with women that he didn’t even know how to distinguish a neighbor offering a favor from interest anymore. The old version of Hill would’ve flirted his ass off with Andi. He would’ve turned on the charm and had her laughing and would’ve gotten her to go out to dinner with him tonight—or better yet, let him cook for her. He would’ve taken her to his bed and shown her all the fun ways he could make her feel good.
Now he was left with none of the finesse and all of the wanting.
He needed to steer clear of his neighbor. He was trying to find ways to get out of this mental hole, not make it worse by reminding himself what he couldn’t have.
***
“She baked you brownies?” Ramsey said between shoveling french fries into his mouth. “Dude, that was a clear opening to ask her out.”
Hill dumped more spicy salsa on his plate of nachos and shook his head at his friend. He and Ramsey had a standing lunch date each week since it was weird visiting the fire station with Josh, the scumbag who’d slept with his fiancée, still working there. “It was not an opening. They were guilt brownies. She felt like she’d insulted me about my leg, and she’s too nice to let something like that go. If you’d met her, you’d realize there’s no chance this was an attempt at flirting with me.”
“Why not?” Ramsey asked, dumping more ketchup on his plate. “She married or something?”
“That’s not what I mean.” Hill grabbed his phone off the table. He wiped it on his jeans where the sweat from his beer had gotten his screen wet, and then typed Andi’s pen name into the search. Her author website came up, and he turned the phone toward Ramsey. “This is her.”
Ramsey wiped the salt off his fingers and took Hill’s phone, bringing it close to his face. “Whoa. Hot.”
“Yeah. And young. And definitely not in the market for some washed-up firefighter who spends most of his time in doctors’ offices and therapy appointments.”
Ramsey scrolled, his gaze still on the screen, the light of the phone illuminating the faint freckles that redheaded Ramsey denied he had. A probie firefighter had once called Ramsey “Freckles” and had ended up on solo toilet-scrubbing duty at the station for a month. “Shit, she writes horror novels. That’s kind of awesome—or concerning. I mean, she probably knows a hundred ways to kill a man. But she’s also at a higher probability for being kinky.”
Hill groaned. “That is one hundred percent a bullshit assumption.” He forced his mind not to go there, not to picture Andi in all kinds of fun, naked situations. “All it means is that she likes scary books.”
Ramsey set Hill’s phone down and lifted his hands in surrender. “Okay, got it, man. But I don’t see why you didn’t ask her out. I mean, the worst that could happen is she says no.”
“No, the worst that could happen is she has zero interest and I put her in a completely awkward position with a guy she has to live next door to. Or she could laugh—that’d be fun.” He shoved a chip in his mouth, chewing with more aggression than necessary.
“She wouldn’t laugh,” Ramsey said, going back to his fries. “And awkwardness never killed anyone. At least you’d be putting yourself out there. That’s better than this hermit routine you’ve got going on.”
Hill put more chips in his mouth, choosing not to honor the hermit comment with a response. He couldn’t deny his hermit state, but he also couldn’t justify venturing back into the dating world. Everyone came with a little baggage, but he had so much right now, he’d have to rent off-site storage to house all of it. No woman deserved that in her life.
“All I’m saying,” Ramsey said after taking a long swig of iced tea, “is that you need to look at the law of inertia.”
“Inertia,” Hill said flatly. “We’re having a physics discussion now?”
“Yes. I’m not saying you should go out in search of the love of your life. Or even go out and search for your next long-term career—though I’m sticking by my cookbook suggestion. All that stuff is really big, heavy shit. You don’t need more heavy stuff right now. But you also can’t keep doing what you’re doing because of inertia.” He took an ice cube out of his glass and set it on the table between them. “An object at rest will stay at rest unless acted upon by a force.” He pointed at the ice cube. “You are the object at rest. Your ass is going to sit there, unmoving, and let the rest of your life melt away.”
Hill gave him a droll look.
“Unless.” Ramsey flicked his finger, sending the cube sailing across the table and into Hill’s lap. “Some force acts upon it—like me.”
Hill brushed the ice cube onto the floor. “You’re a force all right. Newton’s fourth law—the law of pains in the ass.”
Ramsey smirked. “I will gladly be a pain in the ass if it means getting you out of this dark, depressing place you’re in. You need to get into motion, just a little bit, and then it will be easier to keep moving. Like asking your hot neighbor out would’ve put things in motion, even if she said no. It would’ve been easier the next time to ask someone else.”
Hill let out a breath, feeling exhausted all of a sudden.
“Look, I can’t say I’ve been there,” Ramsey went on. “I don’t know what you’re going through, but I’ve had times in my life when I’ve felt stuck. If you stop moving, you get more stuck, more hopeless. So even if moving forward is the last thing you feel like you have the energy to do, you have to force yourself sometimes—even if it’s little things. It’s like working out. No one wants to do it, but the more you do it, the easier it is. Then it starts feeling good. Then you’re running miles and can’t remember why you used to hate working out.”
Hill pushed his plate aside. “Right.”
“And believe me, remembering how great it is to get laid is a way quicker trajectory than learning how to love working out.” Ramsey picked up his burger with a flash of a grin. “Once you get past that first time, you’re going to wonder why you waited so long to get back out there.”