I Flipping Love You (Shacking Up #3)(55)
I decline another lemonade and decide I need to get to the cookie baking. I’m unsurprised when Muriel asks if I’m okay on my own.
I head inside and turn on the oven, annoyed that my attempt to butter up Muriel has been thwarted by Pierce and his majestic peen. At least now I have an opportunity to check out the house. The interior is in much better shape than the exterior, the appliances new. The furnishings are reflective of the person who lives here, but that’s easy enough to change.
I pull out the baking sheets and the parchment paper. It’s a nice oven, convection, so it’ll take less time to bake. I have to constantly rotate my cookie sheets at home so the bottoms don’t burn.
The first batch is in the oven when Pierce appears in the kitchen. It suddenly feels like the temperature has shot up another ten degrees. “You’re pretty transparent, you know that?”
He motions to the set up. “And you’re not?”
He has a point. “But you’re playing dirty.”
“I’d like to play dirty with you later.”
I chuckle. “I walked right into that one.”
Pierce leans against the counter. “She’s lonely.”
“And horny. And you’re capitalizing on that. I can’t figure out if you’re doing this to get something out of it or to be nice.” I roll another ball of cookie dough and drop it on the pan, flattening it with a fork.
“Why can’t it be both?”
“I figured it couldn’t be out of the goodness of your big, huge … heart.” I glance down, making it clear that’s not what I’m referencing. “Unless you have a thing for older women.”
He crosses his arms over his bare chest. “She lost her husband, Herbert, after forty-two years of marriage. They’d never spent more than a weekend away from each other in all that time. Very different from my parents, who’ve spent that last thirty plus years running away from each other. Half the time one of them is out of the country for some reason or other.” His expression darkens for a moment, and he rubs at his bottom lip. “Muriel has three children, all boys. The oldest is Christian, he’s forty and married to his high school sweetheart, Lizzy. They have three kids, Louis, Gabe, and Adele, and they live in South Carolina. The middle son is Mike. He’s thirty-six and recently divorced. He lives out in Tennessee with his girlfriend, Dana, who Muriel isn’t fond of. He has two kids and only partial custody.”
I’m impressed that he knows all of this in great detail. I could’ve told him about the deceased husband and her three sons, but not the names or where they lived, or how many grandchildren they have. “The youngest son is about to have twins. I get it.”
He cocks his head. “What do you get?”
“You invest time.”
“It’s more than that, Rian. It’s not just about investing time for personal gain. It’s about connecting with people. I’ve spent my life surrounded by people who are always looking for a way to get ahead or out of some shit they’ve stepped in. Being a lawyer means someone always wants something from you, or wants you to get them out of a mess. I love my parents, but they sure as hell didn’t give me a great basis for how relationships should work, or how to communicate. I had to figure that out all on my own. All Muriel wants is to talk to someone. She misses her family and her husband. She misses having someone to love.”
I don’t know if he’s indirectly referencing me and the way I guard myself around him, especially with what he said about his family. These seemingly innocuous revelations give me so much more insight into who this man is. I wish I could be more like him, able to let people in, to give more of myself so I can have more of someone else in return.
I cover his mouth with my palm. “You need to stop.”
He grips my wrist gently and flips my hand over, pressing his lips against my knuckle. “Stop what.”
“All this romantic nonsense.”
“It’s not nonsense. It’s true. She’s alone. Her family isn’t here, and they don’t visit very often because they all have young children and it’s not as easy to travel. People want to be heard. They want to feel like they’re important and cared for.”
“So it has nothing to do with seeing an opportunity and taking it.” It would be so much easier to maintain some kind of emotional distance with him if he fit my original perception of him, but he’s proving to be the opposite.
His expression hardens and softens as quickly. “Do I want this house? Yes. I can see the value where her family won’t, like you can. But I’ve been coming here long before Muriel even thought about selling.”
“Is that why you’re wearing this? Trying to seduce the elderly?” I gesture to his ridiculous body and his even more ridiculous lime-green Speedo. I’ll do anything right now to avoid making this serious. “You’re shameless.”
“You don’t think Muriel deserves to have nice things to look at?” He runs his hand down his chest.
This is what I need, this version of Pierce, fun, silly, the joker. The serious one is more than I can handle. “You’re lucky Muriel’s in good shape, otherwise you’d have done all that listening for nothing. She probably has heart palpitations every time you show up. If she had a pacemaker, you’d be wearing the battery out.” I gesture to the front, where the outline of the ridge is visible through the bright-green fabric. “She made comments about you and Trip being twins.”