Chapter Nineteen

“Dude,” Noah said over coffee and doughnuts with Spencer. “What the fuck did you do to Georgie? I mean, I asked you to be my wingman and all, and thanks for that, but shit, she’s a hot damned mess and a puddle of tears. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough this morning because I sure as hell didn’t know what to say to her. And I had the impression it was all thanks to you.”

Spencer shook his head as he took a sip of his coffee, which he promptly spat out. “Crap, that was hot,” he said. “Burned my damned mouth.”

“Here. Have a doughnut. I’ve been eating them for half an hour now, in fear of returning to the shop but knowing I promised I’d bring some of these back.”

“Yeah, well I’m gonna get an earful when I show up late for work this morning too.” He grabbed a blueberry doughnut and popped a chunk of it in his mouth.

“So, what the hell man? First off, I guess you deserve props because apparently you’ve got the best damned tongue in the state of North Carolina.”

Spence looked up from blowing on his coffee. “Huh?”

“In between all the tears and moaning and groaning—”

Spencer held up his hand to pause his friend, taking a moment to flash back to the moaning and groaning he remembered all too acutely.

“As I was saying, in between all the moaning and groaning, she kept talking about your masterful tongue, so I guess there’s that.”

Spencer shook his head. “She’d been telling me what a dud that ex of hers was. I challenged her that there were plenty of good guys out there, and lots and lots of good—make that great—sex. I told her it was all just a friends thing though. That I don’t do relationships. That I wasn’t interested in anything more than a fling.”

“Have you ever met a woman on the planet who seriously believed that?”

“About good guys and good sex?”

“No. About the commitment-free fuck.”

He shrugged. “Actually I’ve met a bunch. That’s the beauty of hookup apps.”

Noah erased the air with his hands. “Apart from them. Like legit women looking for legit connections with a guy. Not that the other ones aren’t legit, but they have different needs they’re trying to meet. But a woman like Georgie is decidedly not that type of gal. Georgie is not the one who would seek a one-night stand.”

“How do you know that?”

Noah threw him some shade. “Well, let’s see. She wears sensible shoes. Have you ever met a hookup on Tinder who was in sensible shoes?”

Spencer laughed, thinking back to any of those women, and pretty much their footwear involved spiked heels. “Good point. What else?”

“She drives a beat-up Volvo that’s about a thousand years old. Not your typical hookup vehicle.”

“True.”

“Oh. And she quilts. She even made you a quilt! What woman who’s looking for a one-night stand does that?”

Spencer squinted at him. “What do you mean she made me a quilt?”

“You didn’t see the thing? Harper told me all about it. After she broke your board she felt so bad about it she wanted to make you an apology gift. But she didn’t even know who you were or where you lived. So, she decided to make this damned quilt in case she happened to run into you again—figuratively not literally, I’m supposing.”

“Yeah, definitely no more running into me like that.” He paused as he tried his coffee again. This time it was mercifully cool enough to drink without scalding the roof of his mouth. “But you know I did run into her last night. And it didn’t go well. She was obviously mad at me—she pretended we hardly knew each other. When I called her out on it she got angrier and then she stormed off.”

“That would be the reaction of a woman who makes quilts for strangers whose boards she destroys. Not the reaction of a woman looking for a quick night of hot sex with the hopes of never seeing the dude again.”

Spencer thrust his lower lip out in a frown. “Shit.”

Noah nodded. “Yup.”

“So, what am I supposed to do with this information?”

Noah shook his head. “Hell if I know. That’s for you to sort out. But I wanted you to know that you didn’t do Georgie any favors by pegging her as one of those girls who didn’t care.”

“But she said herself she wasn’t looking for anything serious—” Wait, had she said that? Or was he conveniently remembering that? Because in the heat of the moment, talk switched from him not wanting serious relationships to her putting her hand on his thigh and then the next thing he knew they were naked and he’d lost all semblance of thinking clearly. Had she, in fact, talked about that, or had he assumed as much? “Awww, crap. I’m such a dickhead.”

Noah lifted his eyebrow. “Tell me something I don’t already know.” He grinned.

“I was so busy talking to her about how I didn’t go for relationships, I never even bothered to be sure that wasn’t what she was looking for. Which wasn’t all that fair of me, was it?”

“She made you a freaking quilt. I don’t know much about things like that except that what Harper said is it takes a ton of time to make. It’s not something you whip together in twenty minutes like an omelet.”

Spencer of all people understood what handcrafting something meant. It was a labor of love as much as anything else. Not that Georgie loved him, but she cared enough about him and his feelings and how she’d hurt and upset him to go to such lengths? What woman does that?

But he already had the answer to his rhetorical question: the kind of woman who a man should want to explore a deepening relationship with. Not the kind who would accept money from an asshole father to try to woo you back into the family fold. This is a woman who sacrificed her time and care for someone she didn’t even know. Yet. And now she knew him in a way that made her feel special. Until he made it clear that wasn’t the case on his end.

Sometimes it’s easy to learn life lessons, and other times you need to be bashed over the head with the truth to soak it in. This was one of those times. He needed to figure out how to fix what he broke here, which was, most unexpectedly, this sweet woman’s heart.