In the Middle of Somewhere (Middle of Somewhere, #1)(75)

“DO YOU need to work?” Rex asks.

“Oh shit!” I run over to my bag. In my relief that there was no way my computer would be ruined by the rain, I didn’t think about all the papers I have in there. I pull open my messenger bag, which is sitting in a pool of rainwater just inside the door, and sure enough, some rain got in.

“Shit, shit, shit.” I pull out the stack of paper proposals from this morning, the papers clumped wetly together, and start to peel them apart, cursing myself for not springing for the bag with the roll-top. Fortunately, only the top third of the stack is wet and the ink isn’t smeared, but if I let them dry stuck together they’ll be unreadable when I pull them apart. I start laying out the wet sheets on the floor. Marilyn, curious, trots over and starts nosing at them.

“Here,” Rex says. He spreads two towels over the coffee table and moves the papers there, holding Marilyn off with a word.

“Thanks,” I say, grumbling at my bag and the papers and the rain.

Rex is laughing softly.

“What?” I say.

“You’re just cute, that’s all.”

“What? No way. Why?”

I put the last paper on the table, their wet tops fanned out to dry. Rex is grinning at me. He shrugs a little.

“You’re just…. Sometimes you’re so professional, and you look real intense while you’re working. Then, the next minute, you show up here drenched, with all your papers wet, and you’re a mess.” He steps closer to me, and the soft look is back. “Sometimes, you’re sweet and nervous and you look at me like you have no idea what’s going on. And the next minute you’re all… prickly.” He swats my ass.

“Hey!”

“And sometimes,” he continues, tilting my face up, “you’re so damn sexy I could just kiss you for hours.” He kisses me, and I can feel myself relaxing into his arms, when he pulls away and looks at me again. “Then, I don’t know. There are moments when I think you could kick my ass if you were mad enough.” He looks at me assessingly, but I don’t say anything. I wonder if I could.

Just to be sure it didn’t get wet, I take out my laptop case and look inside. Nope, my piece of crap computer is totally dry, thank goodness.

“So, do you need to work? I have the Internet now, if you need it.”

I look at him, curious.

“Why’d you decide to get it now?”

Rex looks a little embarrassed, but he says, “Well, you said you use it a lot, so I got it. I thought maybe you could do some work here instead of the library. And I know you don’t love your place, so….”

Holy shit, Leo was right.

“You bought me the Internet.”

“Well, in a manner of speaking.” He fidgets. “Is that—I mean, is it useful to you?”

“You….” I don’t even know what to say. I can hear Ginger in my head, yelling at me to just act normal, act like myself, don’t overthink every little thing. What would I say to Ginger? What would I say to Ginger?

“You’re so f*cking nice,” is what comes out. “Thank you. I really appreciate it.”

Rex laughs and grins at me. Yes! I said the right thing. Note to self: just pretend Rex is Ginger. Wait. That’s a terrible idea in several contexts.

“You’re welcome,” Rex says, and runs his hand through my drying hair, which probably looks like I got stuck in a thresher. “So, do you? Need to work, I mean?”

I do. When I regard the paper proposals drying on the table, though, my stomach growls.

“Well, they’re wet just at the moment,” I say.

“So, dinner?”

I nod and follow Rex into the kitchen. He starts pulling things out of the fridge and the cabinets. I never know what he’s making until he puts it on the table, but I kind of like not knowing. It’s like watching one of the cooking competitions he loves where you get the big reveal at the end.

“Can you cut things up and listen at the same time?” Rex teases. At least, I think he’s teasing. He pushes four apples, a knife, and a cutting board in front of me.

“Oh god, this isn’t one of those things where you’re going to put fruit in all the food, is it? I keep seeing, like, cherries in all the salads here. It’s disgusting.”

“Well, Traverse City is the cherry capital of the world. They find their way into almost everything up here. But, no. I thought we’d make an apple crumble for dessert. Seems autumnal. That’s the word, right? Autumnal?”

“Yeah. You bake too? Damn.” Why is that kind of turning me on? Something about Rex’s big hands and thick shoulders making delicate pastries in a white apron is crazy hot.

“Well, I don’t do anything fancy. But this is easy. So, just take the cores out and the cut them into chunks, okay?”

I nod, and he starts doing… whatever else he’s doing, cutting and sautéing and slicing a million things at once.

“So, how’d you end up here, anyway?”

“Huh?”

“In the cherry capital of the world,” I say.

“Oh.”

“Sorry,” I say when he doesn’t continue. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want.”

“No, it’s okay. I just—no one’s ever asked before. It was because of Jamie, actually. He was from here, originally. Well, near here. I’d only ever lived in hot places when we met and I used to complain about how I hate the heat. When it was really hot and we’d be in the park or have to walk in the sun, he’d tell me stories about the winter in Michigan. The snow, and how he and his brother would build forts out of it and drink hot cocoa in there. It sounded magical to me. I’d never even seen snow in real life.”