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  Her hands flew to her chest, flattening there. “You’re going to redo my fireplace?”

  “If you don’t make me clean,” Travis said, crossing his arms.

  Georgie threw open the cabinet beneath his kitchen sink and started rooting through whatever cleaning supplies the last tenant had left behind, since he sure as shit hadn’t bought any. “I’ll clean this whole place top to bottom if I’m getting a fireplace out of the deal. Does Tuesday sound good for our appointment?”

  “Tuesday, fine. But do you understand the ass kicking I’m inviting from your brother, having you cook and clean for me? Not happening.”

  She straightened, examining a bottle of Windex. “You seem to be suffering from the delusion that my brother cares how I spend my time. He just wants me out of the way.”

  None of his business. None. “He cares about you.”

  Her mouth moved into a little O, and Travis found himself staring at it longer than he should. Apparently this was what happened when he didn’t get laid for months. The closest woman started to look good. That was the only reason his fingers were tingling to unsnap Georgie’s overalls and get a good goddamn look at her. Relieved by that iron-clad reasoning—almost—Travis turned away.

  “Fine, let’s both clean this fucking place. That’s the only way this doesn’t bite me in the ass.”

  Georgie tilted her head. “You mean rats. It’s the only way rats don’t bite you—”

  “Shut up, Georgie.”

  “Done.”

  She got started shoveling garbage and takeout containers into a black garbage bag while Travis ate yet another round of her amazing cooking, not bothering to hide his exasperation when she snuck A League of Their Own into his DVD player. A few times, when she caught him watching the screen and lifted her chin in sarcastic reproof, Travis got the urge to tickle her. Or ruffle her hair. Things he never would have hesitated to do when they were younger. Something made him keep his hands to himself this time, though. Intuition told him an innocent touch could lead down a distinctly not innocent path—and he wouldn’t be questioning that instinct or exploring it any further.

  “Have you managed to avoid the dating competition?” Georgie asked while shoveling old magazines into a trash bag.

  “Sort of,” he droned, catcalls from the construction site echoing in his head. “Come to think of it, how do I know you’re not a spy? Or worse, a contestant.” When she came up sputtering, Travis winked to let her know he was joking. “What about your dating situation?”

  Before he could berate himself for asking Georgie about something that was damn well none of his business, she laughed. “In a word? Dire. Most of the men I come into contact with are off-the-market fathers. Not a lot of young single men hanging out at princess parties.” She picked up a petrified sock and tapped it against the wall, raising an eyebrow at him. He shrugged. “Maybe you should let the dating competition contestants take a tour of your place. Problem solved.”

  “If you’re suggesting we stop cleaning, I’m in.”

  “You wish,” she said, dropping the sock into her garbage bag. “We soldier onward. Especially now that you’ve drawn attention to my lack of dates. I have to keep busy now or wallow in pity.”

  “Stop.” Travis wiped an unknown substance off the coffee table. “I’d say the problem is everyone in town knows your brother and doesn’t want to piss him off.”

  “Again, I assure you, my brother wouldn’t even notice if I started dating.”

  Travis watched her work for a moment, remembering not only brunch but the conversation with Stephen in the minivan. “Is it that bad, Georgie?”

  She straightened, looking so young and vulnerable that he wondered what was wrong with him, spending time alone with her. Noticing things about her. “Is what that bad?”

  Why the hell was he involving himself in this? Travis didn’t know, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. “You, uh . . . seem to get left out a lot. Or not considered as much as you should.” He went back to cleaning the table. “Starting to think you weren’t exaggerating.”

  When Georgie was silent for a few beats, he looked up to find her staring into space. “Remember when you were at my house the other day and you said it’s no one’s fault, you made yourself a joke?”

  “Yeah,” he rasped.

  “It’s a little like that for me, too. The family was already solid when I was old enough to be part of the conversation. Like all little kids, I got shushed a lot, so I had to be persistent and annoying to be heard. A pest.” She shrugged. “I’m older now, but the dynamics are the same. I guess it’s easier to let them remain than to try to change them. Because what if I failed? Or what if I really am a pest?”

  Travis wanted to tell her she wasn’t a pest, despite his own treatment of her. The words were right there on the tip of his tongue, but what if saying so made her comfortable around him? Made her rely on him or view him as a friend? He didn’t want a friend right now, did he? Didn’t want anyone too close. “Families are complicated,” he said, even though it didn’t sound good enough. Wasn’t reassuring in the way her words had been for him. “They probably don’t even know they’re hurting your feelings, baby girl.”

  She sighed. “No, I think you’re right about that.”

  “I’ve been on teams where one voice always seems to get passed over. When I played on the Hurricanes, they brought a guy up from the minors. A vet. I mean, this guy was in his forties and still grinding. He was dismissed by all the new talent, including me, as an old man. A guy who took decades to be relevant.” He rolled his shoulders. “Right after the injury, I sat beside him in the dugout for several games, and I realized . . . this guy knew more about the game than all of us combined. Pointed out things I never would have seen on my own.” Georgie watched him silently from across the room. “You shouldn’t give up or stop demanding to be heard,” he said, needing to leave her in a better place and having no idea why. “Maybe you just need a different way to make them listen.”

  Georgie gave a slow blink. “Thank you for that.”

  Refusing to acknowledge his relief that he’d apparently said something right, Travis grunted and went back to tidying. A couple hours later, the credits rolled on the movie to the sound of Madonna’s voice, and Travis realized he’d been standing in the middle of his living room, broom forgotten in hand, for the last twenty minutes. The apartment was pretty damn close to spotless. Where was Georgie?

  He found her sprawled facedown on the foot of his bed. Fast asleep.

  Travis expected to be annoyed. Instead, he stood there noticing her lack of one sock, as if she’d kicked it off in her sleep. No toenail polish. Her face was pressed to the bedspread and turned to one side, smooshing her face into a pout. If he had any kind of functioning heart left in his chest, he might have found the whole picture she made kind of adorable. Since he didn’t, though, he really needed to figure out how to get her the hell out of there. They had already spent way too much time together. Letting her stay the night at his place crossed a line—and no one on God’s green earth would believe Two Bats had done nothing more with Georgie than clean.

  “Hey.” Swallowing a surge of guilt, Travis nudged her shoulder. “Georgie. Wake your ass up.”

  “Have you seen Dale?” Georgie muttered in her sleep, clearly nowhere near awake. “I need Dale.”

  “Who’s Dale?”

  Georgie’s eyes flew open. Her legs scrambled, but she was too close to the edge of the bed, so her knee found no purchase. She flopped onto the floor before Travis could drop the broom and catch her. “Ouch.”

  All right. There might have been a dime-sized portion of heart left rattling around inside of him, because the sight of a sleepy, disoriented Georgie with half her ponytail loose had him kneeling before he could think better of it, one of his hands lifted to run over her hair. “You all right, baby girl?”

  She yawned so big, he could see her tonsils. “Are we done cleaning?”

  For the second time
that night, he got the urge to laugh. “We’re done.”

  “I should go.”

  He swallowed hard. “It’s for the best.”

  Travis helped Georgie climb to her feet, having no choice but to grip her waist when she swayed. Not speculating on what’s under her overalls. No, sir, not me. He was ready to insist on driving her home, but she reanimated by the time they reached the front door, like she’d never been asleep at all. It was kind of freaky, actually. Before she could walk out, she turned back and threw him a smile. “I saw you watching the movie.”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “Good night,” she called, going down the stairs. “The rats should leave you alone now.”

  He sighed. “Thank you, Georgie.”

  “Me and my fireplace will see you Tuesday.”

  When Travis closed the door, he could feel the grudging smile trying to mar his face.

  Shaking it off with a curse, he stalked off to bed.

  Who the hell was Dale?

  Chapter Five

  Georgie circled a garment rack, browsing through hangers of old clothing. When she came to a gray T-shirt with the Port Jefferson High School logo, she tugged it out of the jam-packed row and held it up to face the woman behind the register.

  “Hey, I think this used to be mine!”

  She got a thumbs-up in return, before the thrift shop owner, Zelda, went back to reading her romance novel. Thus was their dynamic. Sometimes Georgie wondered if Zelda would rather have a completely empty store than have to deal with a customer interrupting her book. In a few minutes, the older woman would finish her chapter, dog-ear the page, and be ready to talk. That was just her process. Georgie was well used to it, considering Second Chance Zelda’s was where she’d been buying her clothes for years.

  Being the youngest of the Castle family meant Georgie’s wardrobe growing up consisted of hand-me-downs, from Bethany and Stephen. She’d attended school in patched-up jeans, faded sweaters, and sneakers from five seasons ago. Not that her parents couldn’t afford to buy her new clothes, but Morty Castle came from humble beginnings and didn’t believe in fixing something that wasn’t broken. His credo was what made him so successful in the house-flipping business. Making necessary changes only, focusing on curb appeal and sprucing existing features, had served him well.

  Had that logic served Georgie well? Classmates had definitely poked fun at her oversized or unfashionable clothing more than once, but as with most small towns, the past popularity of her siblings had helped curb the bullying. It didn’t hurt that local phenom Travis Ford was a close friend of the family. And finally one day, Georgie reached a point where there were no more hand-me-downs. They’d literally all been handed.

  Almost five years had passed since she’d ridden shotgun in her mother’s station wagon on the way to Zelda’s for the first time. The back of the wagon was loaded with decades of Castle kid clothing, ready to be donated. They’d planned to venture to the mall afterward to finally buy Georgie some threads of her own choosing, but she got no farther than the overloaded racks of Zelda’s. It was too late. Secondhand clothes had become her comfort zone. Soft, old camp T-shirts, flannel, discontinued jeans. What could be better?

  Lately she’d begun to wonder this very thing. What could be better?

  Georgie had two uniforms: a clown costume and thrift shop rejects. Was that part of the reason her family didn’t take her seriously? Because she still dressed the same way she had in elementary school?

  She ran her finger down the pleat of a floor-length skirt, letting it drop.

  After chewing her lip for a minute, she slipped her cell out of the pocket of her jeans and pulled up her contacts, running her thumb over Bethany’s name. Asking her effortlessly chic sister for fashion advice wasn’t high on her to-do list, but she didn’t have anyone else to call. After graduating from high school in Port Jefferson, people had two options: stick around and marry someone local, or leave for college, club your mate over the head, and drag them home. If you were Port Jeff born, you always ended up back on its shores. Unfortunately, both of Georgie’s closest childhood friends hadn’t quite managed to club an unsuspecting gentleman yet and were still living single in vastly different zip codes.

  On the other hand, Bethany worked as a stager/decorator for Brick & Morty, meaning she got the bat signal only when a house was completed. Most of her time was spent ordering materials online or hunting down unique pieces at antique malls on Long Island. There was a good chance she’d be around.

  Georgie bit the bullet and tapped Bethany’s name.

  G: Hey, can you meet me? I need help.

  B: With what?

  G: Clothes. For . . .

  Georgie’s thumbs paused on the screen. She should have had a better game plan. Her reason for wanting new clothes had more layers than a Super Bowl Sunday snack dip.

  Most importantly, the clown business was waning. Those phone calls she’d returned last Saturday? She’d booked only two jobs out of them. Her birthday parties were top-notch, those eight noes had assured her, but they were looking for something . . . bigger. Georgie knew it would take a lot of hard work to turn a fledgling one-woman operation into something respectable. An actual business that advertised and made bids. As of now, she relied on word-of-mouth referrals and repeat customers who knew her, knew her reputation, and, in most cases, were friends of the Castle family.

  The Castle family. They didn’t take her seriously. How could she expect anyone else to?

  She looked down at her faded 501 jeans that had probably belonged to a deceased lumberjack. Her scuffed boots peeked out under the frayed hems, taunting her. What did people see when they looked at her? Not a businesswoman.

  Not a sexually desirable woman, either. And maybe, just maybe, when Travis came over to measure her fireplace on Tuesday, she wanted him to see one. Someone worth polishing the family jewels over. Georgie shot a cautious glance at Zelda, as if that inappropriate thought had occurred out loud. She’d been saying a lot of things out loud lately.

  Have you seen Dale? I need Dale.

  Had she really called for her vibrator in front of Travis Ford?

  She buried her face in a fleece-lined jacket. Oh God, that had simultaneously been the best and worst night of her life. Her intentions had been pure. She’d only wanted to drop off some leftovers for the man who had no family left in town and had just watched his career burn to the dust. Even if she hadn’t been nursing an infatuation with him for a long, long time, she would have done that.

  Instead of doing the noble thing and leaving, she’d spent two hours watching a shirtless Travis Ford bend over to pick up trash and stretching to dust off high surfaces. There was no movement he could make where something didn’t flex. There was nigh constant flexing. She’d meant to lie down for only a few seconds after changing his sheets, because who can resist freshly laundered sheets? Turned out all that athletic muscle observance had revved her subconscious, because she’d dropped right into a sex dream. As with all her naughtiest fantasies since time began, they starred Travis Ford. However, since most of her fantasies involved use of Dale—and not the real deal—she’d called her Day-Glo orange pal’s name instead.

  There had been a split second when she woke up where she swore Travis was looking at her with something like . . . tenderness. A figment of her imagination, obviously, but she continued to go back to it, replaying how warm it made her feel. How warm Travis made her feel in general. Not in the simple hot-for-jock kind of way, either. He’d let his guard down on accident a couple of times when they were alone and showed her someone different from the infallible superstar of her dreams. He was so utterly human. She should be worried that it did nothing to detract from her admiration of him. No, it only seemed to heighten it. Why?

  Georgie’s phone buzzed again.

  B: You need help with what? Have you been kidnapped?

  G: No. Never mind. I’m just looking for outfit advice.

  B: I’d let you borrow so
mething, but all my clown suits are at the cleaners.

  There it is. Shouldn’t have bothered. Georgie shoved her phone back into her pocket with a grimace. The dismissive texts from her siblings were nothing new. But this desire to prove to them she was a capable adult only grew stronger. And maybe, just maybe, it had something to do with Travis noticing her as more than his best friend’s annoying little sister.

  “I’ll catch you next time, Zelda,” Georgie said on her way out the door.

  Zelda merely turned the page in response.

  Travis sat down on the stoop of the four-bedroom Cape, smacking the demolition dust off his jeans. Trying his best to ignore the house across the street, he cracked open a ginger ale and drank deeply. When Stephen had told him the address of this renovation, why hadn’t he declined? Out of anyone in Port Jefferson, Stephen would have understood. But it would have been admitting a weakness, and Travis had too many of those right now, didn’t he? Still, living in this town meant being surrounded by his past. He didn’t need to have it staring him in the face morning until night. No. He damn sure didn’t need that.

  Travis’s father no longer lived in the ramshackle Colonial across the road, but since it had never been sold, all the signs of neglect were still there. The eaves drooped like sad, sloping eyebrows over grime-covered windows. Once upon a time, the trees surrounding the home were tall and proud. They hadn’t been trimmed in so long, though, they’d formed kind of a leafy green barrier around the house. A blessing, since it partially blocked everyone’s view of the house from the street. A breeze blew past, smacking a shutter off to the side of his old bedroom, just like it used to when he slept inside, scaring the shit out of him in the middle of the night.

  If he closed his eyes, he could remember his mother pulling up outside the house in her old white Ford Explorer, dropping him off for the weekend. She’d sigh and hesitate. He’d pray she would bring him home and not force him to endure his father’s turn, custody agreement be damned. But she never caved, telling Travis to get out and go wait on the porch until his father returned home. Sometimes he’d sit there until the middle of the night, waiting.