LITMIR.BIZ

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his expired card created a bigger snafu than he was letting on. “Where are you staying tonight?”

      “I don’t know. I guess I’ll drive back to San Diego. I was going to stay at a motel, but…” He shook his head and laughed in exasperation. “I’m supposed to meet Amber pretty early in the morning over at the studio, so if I go home, I won’t have time for much more than a short nap before I have to turn around and come back to L.A.”

      “If you want, you could sleep on my couch,” Britt offered.

      He looked at her, and his blue eyes were somber. “You may want to learn to be a little less generous with men you just met.”

      She laughed. “Oh, come on. I’ve been hearing about you for years. I seriously doubt you’re a serial killer. I mean, the word probably would’ve trickled down to me by now. Besides, what are your other options? Are you going to, like, sleep in your car?”

      That’s exactly what he’d been planning to do. She could see it in his eyes, in his smile. “Seriously, Brittany. You really don’t know me.”

      “I know enough,” she said quietly.

      Wes sat there looking at her for many long seconds. She couldn’t read the expression on his face, in his eyes. If she were young and foolish and prone to thinking that life was like a romance novel, she would dare to dream that this was the moment when Wes Skelly fell in love with her.

      Except they’d agreed that there wasn’t going to be anything romantic between them, she wasn’t his type, he was definitely connected in some way to the wife of his good friend Wizard, and Brittany didn’t really want anyone to be in love with her. She had too much going on with school and Andy’s college and getting used to living on the west coast and…

      Maybe the man just had gas.

      “Okay,” he finally said. “Your couch sounds great. Thank you. I appreciate it very much.”

      Brittany stood up, briskly collecting her purse and her sweater. “You can’t smoke inside the house,” she told him as he followed her to the door.

      “I told you, I quit.”

      She gave him a pointed look, and he laughed. “Really,” he said. “This time is going to be different.”

      Chapter 3

      “Hey, Andy,” Brittany called as she opened the door to her apartment.

      “Hey, Britt,” her adopted son called back. “How’d it go with the load?”

      Brittany looked at Wes, laughter in her eyes. “Um, sweetie?” she called to Andy. “The, uh, load came home with me.”

      Wes had to laugh, especially when she added, “And he ain’t heavy, he’s my brother.”

      Her place was extremely small, but it was decorated with comfortable-looking furniture and bright colors. A living room, an eat-in kitchen, a hallway off the kitchen that led to the back where there were two bedrooms.

      Britt had told him on his way over that even though the place was significantly tinier than their house in Appleton, Massachusetts, it had the essential ingredient to shared housing—the bedrooms were large, and she and Andy each had their own bathroom.

      Andy emerged from the hallway, dressed down in shorts and a T-shirt, his feet bare, and his dark hair a mess. He was trying to play it cool, but the kid practically throbbed with curiosity.

      “Hey,” he said to Wes. He looked at Wes’s overnight bag, and then at Brittany. “Isn’t this outrageously unusual.”

      “He’s sleeping on the couch,” Brittany told him in her refreshingly point-blank manner. “Don’t get any ideas, devil child.”

      “Did I say anything?” Andy countered. “I didn’t say anything.” He reached out to shake Wes’s hand. “Nice to see you again, sir. Sorry about the load comment.”

      “It’s not sir, it’s chief,” Wes corrected him. “But why don’t you just call me Wes?”

      Andy nodded, looking from Wes to Brittany with unconcealed mischief in his eyes.

      “Don’t say it,” Brittany warned him, as she went to a living room trunk and removed sheets and a blanket for the couch.

      “What?” Andy played an angel, giving her big, innocent eyes. But beneath the playacting was an honestly sweet kid, who genuinely cared for his mother.

      Jeez, that was who Andy reminded him of. Ethan. Wes’s little brother. Ah, Christ.

      “There was a credit card mishap,” Brittany told Andy, putting the linens on the coffee table. “And Wes needed a place to sleep. Since we have a couch, it all seemed to line up quite nicely. I have an extra pillow on my bed that you can use,” she told Wes, before turning back to Andy. “Wes is not a candidate.”

      Wes couldn’t keep from asking. “A candidate for what?”

      Andy was watching Britt, too, waiting to see what she was going to say.

      She laughed as she led the way into the kitchen, turning on the light and taking a kettle from the stove and filling it at the sink.

      “This proves it,” she said to Andy. “I’m going to tell him the truth, which I wouldn’t do if he were any kind of real candidate—not that there are any real candidates.” She turned to Wes. “Ever since I adopted Andy, he’s been bugging me to ‘get him a father.’ It’s really just a silly joke. I mean, gosh, who’s on the candidate list right now?” she asked the kid as she put the kettle on the stove and turned on the gas.

      “Well, Bill the mailman just came out of the closet, so we’re down to the guy who works the nightshift at the convenience store….”

      “Alfonse.” Brittany crossed her arms as she leaned against the kitchen counter. “He’s about twenty-two years old and doesn’t speak more than ten words of English.”

      “But you said he was cute,” Andy interjected.

      “Yeah. The way Mrs. Feinstein’s new kitten is cute!”

      “Well, there’s also Dr. Jurrik from the hospital.”

      “Oh, he’s perfect,” Britt countered. “Except for the fact that I would rather stick needles into my eyes than get involved with another doctor.”

      “That leaves Mr. Spoons.”

      “The neighborhood bagman,” Brittany told Wes. “Be still my heart.”

      Wes laughed as he leaned again the counter at the other end of the kitchen.

      “The reason the list is so lame,” Andy told Wes, “is because she won’t go out and meet anyone for real. I mean, once every few years someone sets her up with the friend of a friend and she grits her teeth and goes, but other than that…” He shook his head in mock disgust.

      “The truth is, most men my age are loads,” Brittany said.

      “The truth is,” Andy told Wes, “she was married to a real load. I never met the guy myself, but apparently he was a piece of work. And now she’s gun-shy. So to speak.”

      “I’m sure Melody and Jones completely filled in Wes as far as my tragic romantic past goes,” Britt said to Andy as she rolled her eyes at Wes. “Don’t you have studying to do?”

      “Actually Dani just called,” Andy said. “She’s coming over.”

      “Oh, is she feeling better?”

      “I don’t know,” he said. “She sounded…I don’t know. Weird. Oh, by the way, the landlord called and said he was replacing the broken glass in your bathroom window with Plexiglas.” He grinned at Wes. “There’s a group of kids down the street really into stickball and they’ve managed to break that same window three times since we’ve moved

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