But that wasn’t what they were doing now though, was it? This was her real life. She was stuck, and had probably lost her mind to have brought Spiker to her peaceful place of rest. What else had she expected? An alternative world where Andy didn’t chat out his side window and Spiker didn’t find an asinine way to entertain himself?
Vanka needed to clear her head—but no. She had a fruit salad to pull out of thin air. Annoyed, she crossed the back porch. “Off to make my fruit salad.”
Spiker grinned as if he’d been privy to every thought she’d had since Andy opened the window. “World-class fruit salad,” he said, reminding Vanka of how much pressure she put on herself to make everything exactly as it needed to be. “The kind that makes your toes curl.”
Andy whistled around a laugh, teaming up with Spiker to troll her as though they’d been acting like this since college. “Can’t believe you’ve been holding out, Vee.”
“She does that sometimes,” Spiker volunteered.
Was it really that much of a surprise that she didn’t live in New York City? Vanka hissed under her breath, “I wasn’t keeping a secret from you.”
Spiker dropped his chin and speared her with a laser-beam stare, scanning her from head to toe and back up again. When his gaze stopped on her face, it lingered on her lips until he added, “Bullshit, princess,” in a way that made her shiver.
Andy didn’t hear a word of it. “Come over around six.”
She found her breath after a missing heartbeat. Anger arrived on its heels. She allowed that fire to build in her bones. What the hell was that look, that . . . whatever that had just been? That wasn’t the way they acted, and never had that been a way she reacted.
“See you then,” she managed, fighting for control of the night and their situation. Of everything. She could do this. Look how much she’d handled already. Integrating Spiker into her private world and handling an assignment that should have made her brain short-circuit. She could do anything. Her life’s motto. That certainly included a night of mouthwatering kabobs with Spiker, Andy, and whoever else had been invited.
And if it didn’t work out? No problem. She’d simply kill Spiker and explain to Buck that she couldn’t finish the assignment because they were a man down. Then she could be the one to take a freakin’ sabbatical. Vanka waved to her neighbor. “We’ll be there.”
Spiker lifted his beer in his universal silent greeting and goodbye.
“You’re an arse,” she muttered.
He chuckled, pleased to have wreaked havoc on her orderly world. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Walking inside took more effort than it should’ve. Vanka wanted to stomp (not usually her style) or jab an elbow into his ribs (definitely more her style), but she refused to be closer to him than mandatory.
He fell into step behind her but wasn’t close enough to catch the door she let slam just in case he hadn’t fully appreciated her level of irritation.
Vanka froze. The door slammed at her back. She remained a scant footstep inside her house, inside her kitchen, where something was wrong.
She could sense it, smell it, and she spun on Spiker as he entered. Their bodies stood inches apart in a space too small for anyone to congregate, much less anyone plus Spiker. Her chin jerked up. “What did you do?”
The corners of his lips toyed with her, not a smile but dangerously more. Testing and teasing, confident and cocky. He set the beer on the granite counter at their side. The bottle sounded hollow against the granite. Hollow, and as loud as the irritated heartbeat that now drummed in her ears.
“I wouldn’t throw you in the deep end without a lifeline.” His hand lingered on the beer bottle, his index finger tapping against its long neck, positioning his forearm entirely too close to her side.
“You already made the fruit salad?”
He nodded. “But you can take the credit.”
“I can take . . . ?” Head shaking, she took another step back. “First, Andy’s Friday night barbeques aren’t the deep end of the pool.”
“It’s something you do regularly?” His jaw tensed, contradicting the tease in his tone.
“Socialize with my neighbors? Yes, I do.”
“Socialize with Andy?”
He didn’t think she had a social life? Why not? Because she didn’t live like a lake house bachelor and spend her time off with a merry band of jet-skiing beer guzzlers? That didn’t mean she was a complete loner. “Andy makes it his business to know everyone.” Vanka smirked. “Case in point: you.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And as for my second point.”
He beckoned. “Let’s hear it.”
“Arse.” She smacked his hand away. “Secondly, fruit salad isn’t a lifeline.”
“It is when it’s the world-class, toe-curling kind.”
“Stop blabbering about toe-curling.” Heat shot up her neck. “I can’t believe you made this.”
Spiker laughed. “You didn’t say you’re welcome.”
“I didn’t say thank you.”
“But you will,” he promised.
A cocky Spiker was nothing new. She should’ve rolled her eyes and taken the raspy vow as her cue to leave. She did neither. The heat in her neck catapulted into her cheeks. “The only thing I’ll thank you for . . .” She wrenched herself a few feet away and stood in the kitchen. “For reminding me about your ego.”
Vanka glanced into the sink and noted the empty cans. Mandarin oranges. Pineapple. Peaches. All pantry staples but certainly not the ingredients of a world-class side dish. “Where is it?”
“In the fridge.”
Citrus hung in the air. Its freshness hadn’t come from a can, and growing more curious, she wondered how close to the hype he’d managed to come with what he’d found in her home. Her job didn’t allow grocery runs of produce purchased for more than a day or two. Vanka only stocked kitchen basics that wouldn’t spoil over time. Condiments mostly, including an eclectic array of mustards. The bars and jars were well organized, labels facing forward, just like she kept her dried herbs and spices in a cabinet.
She opened the refrigerator. A lone casserole dish sat on a barren glass shelf. She stared for half of a second. There was nothing else to see, other than the oddity of something that someone else had done inside her home. Even more odd, Spiker and fruit salad. Two things that she couldn’t imagine in her house.
Vanka looked over, bewildered not just that he’d managed to come up with a concoction from her scant pantry, but why he’d bothered.
“Try it,” he offered, as if this wasn’t a total mindfuck.
It totally was.
Vanka took her time. She removed the casserole dish and placed it on the counter as though she were removing a nuclear bomb as its countdown clock ticked close to zero.
“Or don’t.” Spiker sauntered into the kitchen and opened her silverware drawer. He removed a fork. “More for me and Andy.”
He knew the whereabouts of her silverware drawer. How long had she been in her garden? What else had he snooped through? “How much snooping have you done?”
“Not nearly enough.” He handed her the fork. “Honest opinion, yeah?”