Julian moved to the door, wrapped his hand around the knob, and before opening it, he said, “I’ll do my best.”
But how he was going to stop Lecie from overreacting was anybody’s guess, since she was in America and he was here in France.
CHAPTER EIGHT
AFTER SPENDING THREE DAYS BROODING on Dean’s couch, Nick decided it was time to move his things from the loft above Hang Ten over to the house. It was clear that Ginny wasn’t coming back.
Nick backed his truck, the bed crammed full of his mother’s furniture, into the driveway and hit the garage door opener.
Dean opened the passenger door, but didn’t get out. “Where do you want to put the stuff?” he asked. “In the garage or inside the house?”
While the garage would be the easier thing to do, Nick knew full well that if he wanted help getting the furniture inside the house, he’d better do it now. “Let’s take it inside. It’s better not to clog up the garage.”
They bailed out of the truck, Nick went to the rear and dropped the tailgate. The piece closest to them was an old dresser that Nick’s mother had said belonged to her mother. Well, at least Nick would have a place to store his clothes that Ginny had seen fit to dump onto the middle of the bedroom floor.
Dean hopped up on the tailgate and grabbed the bottom of one side. “Get that end,” he said of the one nearest Nick.
Piece by piece, bit by bit, they unloaded the truck. The dresser, a matching headboard and two nightstands, a coffee table, and small bureau were all that would fit in Nick’s truck on this trip.
Nick stalled in the living room, sitting down on the coffee table, the last item they’d hauled in and deposited it in the middle of the living room.
“Well…” Dean laughed, leaning against the wall near the front door. “A few more trips like this one, and you’ll have a place to eat, sleep and watch TV,” Dean said, poking fun at Nick’s small short-bed truck.
Nick gazed around the living room, then peered into the dining room and kitchen off to his right. Every inch of this house, even though she’d completely emptied it, reminded him of Ginny.
Just looking at the place where the couch used to sit in the living room—that girly-looking flowery couch where Ginny used to snuggle up to Nick—left a bad taste in his mouth.
The memory of Ginny sitting at the dining table while he cooked, smiling up at him and waiting for him to serve her, wrapped around his chest like strapping vines, with thorns, tightening and squeezing until he could hardly breathe.
Dean stepped toward Nick. “You ready to go grab another load?”
“I hate this house.” Nick’s voice was flat.
“Yeah…” Dean shrugged and nodded. “It’s not exactly you. But then…what is?”
“I mean it.” Nick kicked his tone up a notch on the serious meter. “I really hate this house.”
“You sure this isn’t your anger at Ginny talking?”
Nick snorted a laugh. “Probably.” He glanced up at Dean. “But I still hate this house.” He paused, letting that notion sink into his own thoughts. “I…can’t live here.” His voice serrated the words. His fury at Ginny swirled with the disgust he was feeling over what she’d done to him. “She was the one who wanted to live here. Not me.” Heat flushed through his body. He wished Ginny would’ve left something behind so he could break it. He looked around for something. Anything. But everything here now was his mother’s belongings. He couldn’t harm any of those. “I was perfectly fine and happy living over the restaurant when she invaded my life.”
Dean started doing that little fidgeting dance he does when he wants to say, I told you so. Nick didn’t want to hear that right now, no matter how true it might be. Dean hadn’t liked Ginny from the get-go, but Nick had been too blind to see that she was a gold-digger—obviously—of minimal proportions. Seriously. There were tons of guys out there with access to way more money than Nick could scrounge up. So why him?
“She set her sights pretty low, didn’t she?” Nick laughed at himself. “I can’t believe she spent three years with me, just to get some second-rate furniture.”
“If it’s any consolation,” Dean offered, “she’s a second-rate gold-digger.”
They both knew Ginny liked to put on airs, Dean more so than Nick, but Nick was beginning to see the light. Funny thing was, the so-called second-hand furniture he’d inherited from his mother, that Ginny had made him store above the restaurant, was far more valuable, monetarily, than the furnishings she’d cleaned out from the house.
Dean was right. Ginny sucked at gold-digging. Somehow, that made Nick feel better.
“I’m gonna move back into the loft,” Nick said with a confident nod.
“That place is a mess.” Dean rolled his eyes.
“I like messes.”
Dean chuckled. “That’s true.”
“You suck at this friend thing.” Nick pushed himself up from the coffee table. “You know that?”
“You’re welcome.” Dean feigned innocence, then stepped forward. “Want to load this stuff up and take it back to the loft?”
Nick nodded. He had a direction now, and one he felt good about. He hadn’t felt this positive in months. Everything was going to work out fine.
Wasn’t it?
The next morning, Nick was back at work, tending to the needs of the restaurant before it opened at eleven—in two hours.
His first order of business was to check the inventory to make sure there were sufficient supplies for the weekend. He’d have to call today, if he wanted deliveries by Friday afternoon.
He left his office and cut through the dining room toward the kitchen. The storage room was located down a hall off to the left side. Before he got to the double doors that swung open into the kitchen, he was distracted by a knock on the front door.
Nick peered through the window next to the door, seeing Dean standing there looking troubled. Without hesitation, he pulled the keys from his pocket and unlocked the door. Dean scurried inside and waited silently while Nick relocked the door.
“What are you doing here?” Didn’t he have a community center to run?
“We need to talk.” Dean was fidgeting, but it wasn’t that rooster fidget he does when he’s proud of himself. This time, it was his coyote fidget, the one he does when he’s antsy.
“What’s up?” Nick didn’t know why, but his insides started to quiver.