What's Life Without the Sprinkles? Read Online Free Page A

someone.”
    “I know. You’ve always been there for me. It’s only a few weeks. I’ll survive. But first I have to go on this date, and I really appreciate you helping at the last minute. I’ll see you in a few.”
    She hung up and so did he, putting his phone on the dresser before pulling out a T-shirt and some jeans that had probably seen better days.
    He put the towel around his neck and made a quick trip to the backyard to crank up the gas grill. This would be much better than what he had been planning, which was nothing.
    Five minutes later, the front door flew open and Justin came running into the kitchen. “Nate, Nate, Nate!”
    “Hey, bud, go put your stuff in the living room. Then go see if the grill is hot, like I taught you before. We’re going to have burgers and dogs.”
    “Awesome!” And the kid was off like a shot.
    Claudia wandered into the kitchen a second later. “Thanks, Nate. He’s really excited to be here.”
    “It’s fine. I like having the guy around. Plus, he’ll save me if my brother calls to invite me out for a beer. So I have my own agenda here, too.” He laughed. “Seriously, it was a long day putting a new coat of paint on Mrs. Finkey’s window frames. Then I had to agree to talk to her grandson about maybe apprenticing with me this summer. It was a headache all the way around, even if he is a good kid. But now I just want to hang out, you know?”
    “Yeah,” she said, but she was looking at his cabinets and cleared her throat again.
    “Anything wrong?”
    “Nope. Nothing new since we talked five minutes ago.” She gave him a big smile, but he wasn’t convinced.
    “You’re sure? Do you want to talk about the Peter thing?”
    “Absolutely sure, and ‘no’ on the Peter thing. Little ears and all that. It’ll be fine. I should get going, though. I have to finish getting ready for my date, and I don’t want to be late.”
    “Okay, have fun with Edward. And don’t think about the other.”
    “Will do,” she said, before giving him a mock salute and heading back toward the front of the house.
    He hummed as he took some of his mom’s homemade potato salad out of the refrigerator. He didn’t think Claudia would really have any fun with that Edward guy, but he wasn’t going to be the one to tell her she was wasting her time. She needed someone who wanted her to be herself. Someone she could wear heels with, instead of those ugly flats she’d just been sporting. He didn’t let himself think about her as a real woman often because he didn’t want to mess with their friendship, but she looked damn fine in a pair of heels. As for Peter, if she wasn’t overly concerned, then he guessed he wasn’t either. He’d be there to protect her, as he always had, but with Claudia sometimes you had to let her fight her own battles.
    Justin whooped from the backyard. Time to play with his favorite guy and forget about Claudia and her date. She was a big girl and had known her mind for a whole lot more years than he had. He just hoped there was something worthy in Edward that he couldn’t see but that worked for Claudia.
    ****
    Claudia spritzed the back of her knees with her atomizer and, to allow the scent to air out, walked around in the black flats that went horribly with her flirty, asymmetrical skirt. She hated flats, but after their third date, she’d caved and bought the terrible shoes for the first time in her life. Edward was an inch shorter than Claudia, and she didn’t want to tower over him.
    She would never tower over Nate.
    The doorbell rang, slicing neatly through her thoughts. A glance at her watch told her it was Edward. He was exactly three minutes early, as he always was. And she had become just as predictable. Add that to her list of things that had gone wrong in the past ten years. That damn list seemed to grow every day.
    Walking on the hardwood floor through the apartment on her way to the front door, there was no satisfying clacking of pencil-thin heels