For Better or Worse

“You are not playing that”—she pointed at the guitar—“while I go to sleep,” she said.

“Well now, how’s that going to work, 4C? Because best I can tell, you’re always just off to bed or just out of bed.”

“I’ve seen you exactly twice. At two a.m. on a Saturday and seven a.m. on a Sunday, and I’m—”

“A wedding planner?”

“I was going to say a light sleeper,” she said through gritted teeth.

“Huh. Your hair seems to take the whole bed thing pretty seriously. Cream and sugar?”

Heather ignored the slight on her hair. “Black, please.”

He lifted his eyebrows and walked toward her with two steaming cups in hand. Heather tried to find a way to accept the plain white mug without touching his hand, but he’d seemed to arrange his fingers to make that impossible. Deliberate, probably.

“Thank you,” she muttered, ignoring the little fissure of awareness she felt at his closeness.

“Heather, honey, do you like music?” Sue asked, glancing up from where she was alternating between watching Heather and Josh and scooping flour into a mixing bowl.

“Um, sure?”

“Liar,” Josh said, dropping into the chair beside her.

He smelled a bit like soap and coffee, and Heather tried really hard to remember that he’d just had a woman in his apartment last night. That there’d probably been a constant stream of women in this apartment, and that she didn’t want to be one of them.

“I do like music,” she replied.

“Just not my music?”

“Not your music at two a.m.,” she clarified, lifting her mug and pointing it at him.

Then she took a sip and moaned in pleasure. “Oh my God, what is this?”

“Italian roast from that little place around the corner.” His voice was a little bit husky, and she wasn’t entirely sure if it was because he shared her pleasure in the coffee or because he was appreciating her pleasure, and right now she didn’t care.

“It’s incredible,” she said reverently, glancing down at the coffee with what could have only been described as love before looking back at him with something decidedly less so but also with a bit less animosity than before. Any man who appreciated coffee like this couldn’t be all bad.

Their eyes locked, and for a moment, Heather lost her breath. He was just so darn good-looking, with his sleepy sexy eyes and his casual charm, and his really yummy Italian roast coffee. And then there was the matter of that dream . . .

“What about hedge fund managers?” Sue asked, slowly whisking some of Heather’s milk into the bowl.

Heather was still looking at Josh when his mother asked the random question, and she was surprised to see something that looked like pain cross his face, followed by a complete shutdown.

It was as though the guy she’d been talking to vanished and was replaced by someone a hell of a lot more broody.

“Um, what?” Heather asked, forcing her attention back to Josh’s mother and trying to figure out if she’d blacked out and missed some sort of transition. Why were they talking about hedge fund managers?

“Josh used to be one of those,” Sue said as she placed a skillet on the stove and dropped a blob of butter onto it.

“Mom.”

Josh’s voice was sharp, and Sue glanced at him in confusion. “Am I not allowed to say that? It’s not something to be ashamed of, honey.”

He lifted a thumb to his face, pressing his thumbnail along the crease between his eyebrows just briefly as he closed his eyes. “I’m not ashamed. I’m just not that person anymore.”

“I didn’t say you were,” Sue said in a happy voice. Too happy. As though she knew full well that she was pushing her son’s buttons but was determined to feign ignorance. “I said you used to be a hedge fund manager.”

“Which was relevant to the conversation how?” he snapped.

“Well, we were talking about careers, and I know you’re taking a break from Wall Street for a little while, but eventually . . .”

“Mom, enough.”

Heather took another sip of coffee as she debated the most subtle way to take her leave and let them settle what was obviously a personal, family matter.