1. A Good Handle On It

1

A GOOD HANDLE ON IT

N ine Months Later

Life was going just great.

Seriously, it was.

No sarcasm there in her thoughts either when for months many said she was nothing but snarky and sarcastic.

When she heard a noise in the backyard, Laurel got up with her cup and looked out the kitchen window to see her neighbor with a baseball hat on his head pushing a wheel barrel full of paving stones.

Oh, hello, neighbor!

She hadn’t seen him much since she’d lived here. Just coming and going in his Cooke Landscaping truck. She supposed there wasn’t much work for him to do in the winter months, but now things were warming up and it looked like he was doing some work around his house.

She continued to watch him from afar. She wouldn’t feel guilty that maybe she was nosy either. It’s not as if she had much of a life since she moved just outside of Mystic for this job.

The area was stunning, but she’d been here before, having grown up in New Haven about an hour away.

She didn’t think she’d like the slower paced living and had to admit it was boring at times. But she was too busy as the new plant manager for Blossoms to care.

What she wasn’t too busy with right now was watching the body on the dude next door as he dumped the paving stones. She wondered if he needed some help.

He’d probably laugh if she offered, but it’d beat sitting here gawking at him, no matter how sexy he was.

The long-sleeved shirt he had on was fitted to his body and one of those thermal materials that would keep you warm but not get in the way.

His long legs in his faded jeans looked to have some muscle to them too. You could tell he worked with his hands.

Yuuuummy.

She needed that in her life over the suit-and-tie-wearing guy.

Had that and it didn’t turn out so well.

But it’s not like she’d had any man since she kicked Philip to the curb.

When the doorbell rang, she frowned and moved to the front of the house. She couldn’t imagine who it could be as she didn’t know anyone other than her coworkers.

The last person she expected was her ex-fiancé standing there with his designer sunglasses on, the slight wind blowing through his hair and a big smile plastered to his face.

“What are you doing here?” she asked sharply.

“I thought we could talk.”

“I don’t have anything to say to you,” she said. “I said it all when I dropped your ring on your plate.”

“You never let me explain,” Philip whined. He was a champion whiner and she wasn’t sure why she never noticed it before. Maybe because it was always targeted toward his parents and not her.

Talk about not sexy!

“There is no explanation,” she said, crossing her arms. She wished she still had her coffee in her hand, but she’d left it in the kitchen. It’d look good on his crisp white jacket. Who the hell wore a white jacket? She’d get it dirty just looking at it.

Not Philip. Everything of his was always pristine.

“You didn’t let me apologize,” Philip said. “Can I come in and we can talk?”

“Nope,” she said firmly. “You can keep your ass right here on the front porch. I’m not even sure how you found me, why you did, or what took you so long. It’s been nine months.”

“Nine months of hell,” Philip said. He pushed his glasses up on his head. “I’ve missed you. I messed up. I’m sorry. I was scared and nervous. I thought I was losing all my freedom with the wedding coming up.”

She pointed her finger. “You wanted the fast wedding. Not me.”

“My parents did.”

Her finger popped him in the chest. “Then you should have stood up to them. But you can’t. And my guess is they are putting pressure on you to fix things with me. What happened? Did they lose all the money on the wedding that didn’t happen?”

She could see by the flush to his face the last part did happen. Thank God she’d convinced her father to let the Taylors pay for the wedding. The guilt she would have felt if her father was out of that kind of money was too hard to think of.

The only money her father lost was the cost of her wedding gown, which she still had. Everything else, Philip’s parents were paying for because they were stuck up enough to want to call the shots, so they could front the bill then.

“We are meant to be together,” Philip said. “I made a mistake. It won’t happen again.”

“That’s right,” she said. “It won’t because you aren’t getting a second chance.”

Laurel wasn’t stupid. She had a friend who was on Tinder and she had that person check out Philip’s account. No, Steven’s account. It’d been active for years and continued to be the entire time they’d been together. She didn’t even want to think of the number of women he’d cheated on her with.

“Those other women meant nothing,” Philip said. “It was only sex. You’re the one I want. Can you blame a guy for wanting something a little different or exciting before he settled down?”

It was the worst thing he could have said to her.

Her finger that was drilling a hole in his chest gave him a shove enough to send him back a foot. “Don’t you dare insult me like that in my home,” she growled. “Or I’ll do more than leave you at the altar. I’ll have you go home with a black eye to explain to your parents.”

“Now, Laurel,” Philip said. “You know I’ve said your anger never looked good on you.”

She wanted to swear loudly but didn’t. “Go,” she said, shoving him again with her finger. He was such a wimp he couldn’t keep his balance. She didn’t even put much strength behind it.

He stumbled and caught himself before he tumbled down the stairs. “I love you,” Philip said. “I never stopped.”

“Fuck you, Philip. You’ve never loved anything more than yourself. Go back home to Mommy and Daddy and tell them you couldn’t find me. Or you know what? Maybe tell the truth. Something I know is hard for you to do. But don’t come back again!”

She stood there and watched him walk to his BMW and get in, then drive away.

Before she could turn to go into the house, she heard, “Well done. I thought I was going to have to step in for a second, but you had a good handle on it.”

There was the sexy neighbor who just witnessed her embarrassing dating life.

“It’s not hard to get a handle on someone I can blow over with a big breath,” she said dryly.

“Good point,” her neighbor said. Might as well go introduce herself since they were talking. No reason to be rude. She walked down the steps. “I’m Laurel Glasgow.”

“Easton Cooke,” he said, shaking her hand. “And that was an ex I’m assuming?”

“Ex-fiancé that I haven’t seen or talked to since I left his ring on his plate covered in ketchup.”

“Huh?” he asked.

“Serves him right for drenching his fries in it. Who the hell does that? If you need to cover your food with so much of a condiment, don’t order it to begin with.”

“I always thought that too,” he said.

She wasn’t sure if he was just agreeing with her to be sociable or not.

“Since I’ve got a lot of frustration built up right now, don’t suppose you want any help doing what you are in the back?”

He lifted an eyebrow at her. “I’m fixing the walkway. The paving stones need to be replaced.”

“I noticed,” she said. “Sorry. I heard the noise and looked out the window when I was having coffee. I won’t get in the way.”

He looked at her hands. She’d just gotten her nails done two days ago on her lunch break. Not fake nails, but natural manicured ones. If they were too long they got in the way.

“You might chip a nail on the stones.”

“That is why you wear gloves,” she said. “But if you don’t want the company, that is fine. I could go fill a tub and take a bubble bath with a glass of champagne. My guess is you think that is all I’m good for.”

Her makeup was done, not a lot, but enough you could tell she spent some time on looking nice. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail but still one in fashion.

The leggings she was wearing fit her body well with the long cotton shirt that went past her hips. Even on a lazy Saturday, she wouldn’t look messy.

“Nah,” he said. “Anyone that could do what you just did and not be fazed is tougher than they look. If you want to help, you know where I am.”

“I’ll be over in ten minutes,” she said, smiling. “Thanks.”

“No,” he said. “Thank you. It might give me some entertainment.”

Hmmm her snarky comments almost came back, but she bit her tongue…for now.