He looked around. “It looks completely different in here.”
“Yeah, well, it’s been over a year and a half since you’ve been inside.”
“And you’re a famous surfboard artist now,” he said.
She frowned. “Why do you look flushed? Are you sick?”
“Can I have some water?”
Only then did she realize he had a box tucked under his arm. “What’s that?”
“Water, please.”
She eyed him for a second, then motioned for him to sit down on the couch. She grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator and walked it back into the living room. One big, open floor plan made the cottage feel a lot more spacious. Never mind that her lofted bedroom was also in plain view.
The cottage suited her. And it was rare that she had company. Especially male company.
She sat down in the armchair across from him. “Do you want to skip the tree lighting? This really isn’t that important.”
“No,” he said. He chugged half the bottle of water. “I just need a minute. And it is a big deal. They’re lighting the tree you designed.”
She glanced at the box. “You gonna tell me what’s in there?”
He didn’t look at her. “I don’t think I’m supposed to.”
She frowned. “Then why did you bring it?”
He found her eyes. “Because maybe I want you to accidentally open it?”
“Is there something dead inside there?”
“What? No.” He stared at her for long enough to make her insides quake.
Which infuriated her because she knew better. She knew this man, of all men, was not going to ever—ever—look at her as anything other than a friend.
But he was her person. And she was grateful he was in her life, in whatever capacity she could have him. In the only capacity she could have him.
Her mind began to wander, probably because she was thinking the words “have him” after an already heightened awareness that he was practically in her bedroom, which inadvertently led her thoughts down a very long and winding road from which she wasn’t sure she wanted to return.
“Pru.”
His voice called her back to reality. She really needed to get a hold of herself. This crush was worse than she thought. She looked at him. His brow was knit in a straight line, and he looked genuinely concerned. Happy-go-lucky Hayes McGuire was . . . worried?
“Why do you seem so shaken up?” she asked.
“Open the box.” His knee was bouncing—a surefire indication that he was panicked.
Her imagination ran off, and before she could catch it, she’d decided he’d found proof of his adoption or a death certificate with his own name on it or maybe a map that led to a sunken ship full of gold.
Instead, what she found inside the box was a small scrapbook, a stack of papers, some photos, and a small notebook labeled “The Rules.”
“What’s this?”
“That is from my Aunt Nellie,” he said. “Who has decided to pass down a very special tradition. To me.”
She thumbed through the scrapbook. Photos and names of various couples looked back at her. “What tradition?”
He waited until she met his eyes, stopped bouncing his knee, and leveled his gaze on her. “The tradition of Noni Rose.”
Pru frowned. “The matchmaker?”
“Yep.”
“I don’t understand.”
Hayes took a breath, then unloaded the most unbelievable story she’d ever heard. Not nearly as dramatic as his being adopted or discovering a lost treasure would’ve been, but unbelievable because What on earth was Aunt Nellie thinking?
He stopped talking and looked at her.
“Did I say that out loud?”
He nodded.
“It just seems a bit crazy, doesn’t it? I mean you—the notorious bachelor. You’re not married. You’re not even in a relationship. Have you ever even had a real relationship? Would you even know how?”
He eyed her. “It’s nice to know you think so little of me.”
There was something about the way he said it that made her wonder if she’d hurt his feelings. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine,” he said. “And I don’t completely disagree with you. It does seem a little crazy.”
“Then why did you say you would do it?”
He sank into the couch and let his head rest on the wall behind him. He released a heavy sigh. “She guilted me into it.”
Pru shook her head. “How?”
“She flattered me and told me she had a sense about me. Said I could read people. That I could disarm them. Said I was the only person she’d even considered asking to do this big favor for her.”
“Ah, so she stroked your ego,” Pru said.
“I guess.”
She grabbed a pillow and tossed it at him, hitting him square in the face. “Then it serves you right. You let your pride get you here, Hayes McGuire.”
He stuffed the pillow on his lap and leaned forward over the top of it. “This is crazy, Pru. I’m not a matchmaker.”
She watched him. “So, don’t do it.”
He frowned. “I can’t back out. I gave her my word.”
It was odd to see him so conflicted over something that didn’t really seem that important.
“When a McGuire gives his word, he means it,” Hayes said.
“Your dad said that, right?”
He shrugged. “Who else?”
Hayes might be a commitment-phobe, but he was a good person. His parents had seen to it that he was. And now, as he looked at her with those big hazel eyes, it nearly left her undone.
“Will you help me?”
“Me?” Prudence knew even less about relationships than Hayes did.
“Yes, you’re the only person who knows.” He reached for her hand and she forced herself not to think about how it felt to touch his skin. “The only person who can ever know.”
She leaned forward and whispered, “Are you going to get struck by lightning for blabbing this to me?”
He leaned forward too, close enough that their faces were only a few inches apart. “I hope so,” he whispered. “Then I won’t have to become a matchmaker.”
They sat like that for several seconds, both leaning toward the other one. In other circumstances, had they been different people, perhaps they may have ended the exchange kissing furiously on the couch.
But because they were who they were, they simply grinned at each other and pretended there was absolutely nothing electric in the air between them.
Well, she pretended. It was likely Hayes didn’t feel that spark at all.
“Pru.” He scooted over to the loveseat where she sat and faced her, practically on the same cushion as she was. “I’m not a matchmaker.”
He was close to her now, like a friend, she told herself. But if she happened to fall just a few inches, their faces would end up dangerously close to each other again.
“You know I can’t do this without you.”
“Hayes, as terrible as your relationships have been, mine have been worse,” she said.
“Like you and that Hawaiian surfer?”
She straightened. “What Hawaiian surfer?”