Break Away (The Moore Brothers Book 4) (9 page)

Lilah was dreading it.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. Part of her was exhilarated to have a plan. Excited to start on this next, even harder step on her adventure. But more than that, she was grateful for Cole Bennett. A man who had spent the last few hours picking through her budget and helping her hammer out a strategy to get this month’s bills paid soon and next month’s bills paid on time. A man who hadn’t been so set on pleasing her, or afraid to make her mad that he had actually pointed out exactly what she was doing wrong without worrying about getting on her bad side.

Lilah wasn’t sure anyone had ever spoken to her the way Cole had spoken to her tonight. Well, her brothers told her what they thought of her all the time, but they really didn’t count.

“You’re kind of awesome, you know,” she said as they unfolded themselves from the floor.

“Oh, I know.” Cole gave her a silly look and stretched, his shirt pulling tight against his chest in a way that made Lilah feel bad for looking. “You feel better?”

“Completely. It’s so good having a plan.”

“Having a plan and sticking to a plan are two different things, princess.”

“Another bit of your grandpa’s wisdom?”

“Oh no. That’s all me.” Cole sighed. “I’m gonna head out, now,” he said, indicating the door with a jerk of his head but keeping his feet planted where he stood. He shoved his hands in his pockets and rounded his back, stretching his shoulders.

Lilah didn’t want him to leave, and the awkward way he kept not heading towards the door told her he didn’t feel too eager to go anywhere himself. But Cole didn’t do girlfriends and Lilah didn’t do casual, so the growing urge to step into his arms was just going to have to go right on being ignored.

“Come on, oh wise one,” she said, grabbing his bicep—holy shit it was big!—and steering him towards the door despite every single hormone in her body screaming at her not to do it. “I’m sure you’re tired and have an early morning. I’ve used up enough of your time.”

When they got to the door, Cole pulled her into his arms and held her tight to his chest. Her heart did its best impression of the rust bucket, chugging along in some strange rhythm while she breathed in his scent. He pressed a kiss into the top of her head before pulling away.

“Goodnight, princess,” he said and slipped out the door, leaving Lilah staring after him, biting her lip to keep from calling him back.

I
t had been
a series of hard mornings and long days. Cole sat at his table with his head in his hands while his mom ambled out of the kitchen armed with coffee and a smile.

“You’ve looked better,” she said, sliding a travel mug his way.

“I hope so.” Cole took a tentative sip of his coffee in case it was scalding ass hot. “If I look like I feel then I’m sure I look like hell.”

“You work too hard.”

“Nah. No such thing.” July had been a good month, but August was making him work for his money.

“There most definitely is such a thing. One of these days you’ll get old enough to believe it.” Maggie lowered herself into the chair next to Cole with a groan. “Not looking forward to all the bending and twisting today. Not one bit.”

If he could, Cole would get his mom into a better job. One that paid more and came with a chair to plant her butt in all day. Her life had been hard enough dealing with his dad. The last thing she needed was a job that had her cleaning up other people’s messes all day.

“Can I tell you something?” He fidgeted with his coffee and wished he hadn’t said anything the moment the words were out of his mouth.

“Uh-oh. Do I want you to tell me something?”

Cole crossed his arms on the table and looked his mom in the eyes. “I didn’t think you were gonna stay gone. I thought you’d be here a week and then go home.”

Maggie lifted an eyebrow. “You trying to kick me out? Tell me I overstayed my welcome? You ready to have a bedroom again?”

“No, mom.” He shook his head. “I’m really glad you’re here. I wouldn’t wish you back there for any amount of personal space in the world.”

“I think I’m gone for good.” Maggie picked at her fingernails and then flattened her hands on the table and met Cole’s eyes. “Maybe this old dog is finally learning a new trick. You’re never too old to change, I guess.” With that she slapped her hands on the table and scooted her chair back. “We should go,” she said in a tone that meant she was done talking about heavy things. “You ready?”

Cole nodded and stood up, swiped his keys from the counter and locked up behind them. He didn’t say much as they drove into work. His mind was busy going over their conversation. As much as he hated to admit it, he never expected his mom to stay gone. He figured she was too set in her ways to be strong enough to leave that old bastard. The fact that she was still here with him, crowding him out of his bedroom, surprised the hell out of him and made him so happy he didn’t know what to do with it all.

But more than all that was the fact that his mom was in the middle of making a huge, life altering change. She had stepped out from under the asshole’s control and was taking her life into her own hands. And while it had to be hard and scary, she was going to be all the better for it. And if Maggie Bennett could change, then maybe Cole Bennett could, too.

“Is Lilah coming over tonight?” Maggie fiddled with the radio, searching for a decent station.

“Yep. It’s our weekly money meeting.”

Maggie shook her head. “That girl is a financial disaster.”

“I don’t get it,” Cole said as he turned into the parking lot of the business complex his mom cleaned in the mornings. “It’s like she’s never had to think about money once in her whole life. But she’s got even less furniture than I do, eats off chipped plates, and drives a car I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.”

“Well, maybe that’s why she doesn’t have much. Because she can’t figure out how to get more.”

Cole hadn’t thought of it that way before. “That makes sense, I guess. I don’t know if I feel sorry for her because she’s such a mess or if I just want to make it all better for her.”

Maggie paused, the door of the truck half open, and gave him one hell of a weird look. “Why don’t you invite her for dinner tomorrow. That’ll give me time to get to the grocery and plan a meal worthy of us hard-working people.”

After the way this week had treated him, an evening laughing with Lilah sounded fantastic. “Works for me,” he said, a grin brightening his face.

“Cole Bennett. Are you pining after the girl next door?” Maggie had hopped out of the truck and stood there with the door open, a knowing smile twisting her lips.

“Lilah Moore is not the girl next door.”

“She literally lives right next to you.”

“You know what I mean.”

“And you know what I mean.” Cole knew what that look on his mom’s face meant. It meant that she intended to stick her nose all up in his business. She was probably already dreaming about grandkids.

“Well, Lilah’s made it pretty clear she doesn’t do casual. And since I don’t do girlfriends…”

Maggie mouthed those last words with him and rolled her eyes. “Yeah. I’ve heard that before.”

“Well, Lilah’s already shot me down twice. So you can go right on and wipe all those thoughts of getting us together out of your mind.”

“Just the fact that that you tried again after the first time tells me all I need to know. Invite her for dinner tomorrow.” With that, his mom closed the door and sauntered away, looking over her shoulder with this silly little knowing look that should have irritated him to death.

It didn’t.

It made him smile.

“
L
ilah
! Your boyfriend’s here!” Christy-Anne called out just a little too loudly from her spot near the serving station at the diner.

Lilah emerged from the break room, tying her apron back on and making sure she had her pen and paper in her pocket. “He’s not my boyfriend. I’ve only said that like a hundred times already.”

“You keep denying it and I’ll keep reminding you that this is the guy that rescued you from a major creeper. A guy who totally abandoned the girl he was with to do said rescuing. A guy who’s been here, by himself, at least once a week since. Oh, and did I mention he’s always in your section? Because he is. Always in your section.”

“Cole and I are just friends.”

“You keep right on saying that and I’ll keep right on knowing that Cole Bennett doesn’t do ‘just friends’.”

He doesn’t do girlfriends, either,
she thought and pushed past the grinning Christy-Anne to make her way to Cole’s table. On the way, she stopped to check on two other customers, laughing and joking with them as if they were long time friends. She swooped up a tip on a recently vacated table and arrived with a sigh in front of Cole.

“Hey, you.” She pulled her pen and paper out of her apron. “What’re you eating tonight?”

Cole leaned back in the booth and drew his eyebrows together. “Why do you still ask that every single time I come in here? Are you telling me you haven’t memorized my order yet?”

“Of course I’ve memorized your order. You’re gonna ask for the Bubba Burger, no onion with a side of fries and a side salad with ranch. You’re also gonna want an iced tea that you slurp down as soon as I walk away so I have to be back here with a pitcher before I’ve even had time to check on my other tables.”

“If you know all these things, why do you ask?”

“Because I’m building habits around the things I do. Some really smart guy I know told me that. I think he’s a fisherman or something like that.”

“A shrimper.”

Lilah shrugged and gave Cole a sly look. “Maybe. Whatever he is, he’s really smart.”
And gets better looking by the day.

“You still coming by tonight? It’s time for our weekly financial update.”

“Yeah,” she said, drawing out the word and looking at her feet. “I’m coming.”

“Don’t look so excited about it. You might hurt yourself.” Cole sat back in the booth and crossed his arms over his chest. His muscular, so very pretty, and very easy to press your head against when you’re feeling sad, chest.

“Oh yes. Being shown just exactly how totally unprepared I am for adult life is my favorite. I love being made to feel inept.”

All the humor drained out of Cole’s face. “I don’t make you feel inept, do I?”

“No. It’s not you. It’s just the process of being shown exactly how much I don’t know about … well …
everything
that makes me feel like a total loser. You’re very cool about the process and never say anything that hurts my feelings.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.” She twirled her pen between her fingers. “You’re gonna be proud of me, though.”

“I don’t doubt it. I’m already proud of you. You’ve really been pulling your shit together.”

Lilah beamed. “Well, you’re gonna be extra proud of me when you see my account tonight.”

“Yeah? You making good progress?”

Hell yeah she was making good progress. With Cole’s help, Lilah had gotten caught up on all her bills and was even building a little wiggle room in her account. And most of the changes hadn’t even been that hard. She had complained so much about giving up cable and once it was gone she realized she didn’t even watch TV that much in the first place. The hardest part was dealing with her obsessive-compulsive desire to collect beauty products.

“I’ll show you tonight,” Lilah said and went to put in Cole’s order and check on her other tables. Her tips had been getting fatter and fatter with each passing week and she actually felt like she was getting the hang of things at the diner. Even Lou had complimented her on her progress. Well, if you count ‘
way to not completely screw things up tonight’
and ‘
you’re still the worst waitress I’ve ever seen but I don’t regret hiring you anymore’
as compliments.

While she worked, she kept sneaking peeks at Cole. He might be the prettiest man she had ever seen. No, pretty was the wrong word because his rugged cheekbones and storm-thrashed-sea eyes definitely didn’t fall into the
pretty
category. But handsome didn’t do him justice either because that made her think of refined suits and expensive hair and all kinds of things that Cole was not. Some people might even think that his sun-bleached hair was too white against his super tan skin, but not Lilah. The more she looked, the more she wanted to keep looking.

So, considering Lilah pretty much did whatever she wanted, she just went right ahead and looked. Cole caught her more than once. The first time, a lazy smile stretched across his face. The second time, he dropped one eye in a wink that sent a delightful surge of desire catapulting through her body. The third time, he cocked his head in a question, his eyebrows knitting together in uncertainty.

“You keep staring at me,” he said when she came back to refill his iced tea for the fifth time.

“You keep catching my eye.” Woops. Maybe that wasn’t the best thing to say to a serial dater like Cole Bennett. The last thing he needed to know was that she was definitely feeling more and more physically attracted to him.

“Of course I do.” Cole ran a hand through his hair and shook his head in a dramatic impersonation of a shampoo commercial. “I’m easy on the eyes.”

“You just keep telling yourself that.”

“I don’t have to keep telling myself that. The ladies keep doing it for me.”

The ladies. As in, more than one lady. As in, Lilah could never date Cole because he wasn’t the kind of guy who did girlfriends. As in, she needed to stop looking at him as anything other than a friend. Like, not even as a super hot friend because apparently even that would end up with her head going to places they didn’t need to go to. Like wondering what he looked like naked. Or how it would feel to be the focus of his flirtations.

“Great,” she said, hoping her smile hid the slight blush working its way across her cheeks. “Just what you need.
More
ego.”

Cole laughed. “Hey,” he said as she turned to walk away. “Mom asked me to invite you for dinner tomorrow. Sounds like she’s going all out on the preparations.”

“Well then, I’m sure to leave about five pounds heavier than I showed up.”

Cole had never come right out and told Lilah why his mom had moved in with him, but between him and Maggie, they had dropped enough hints that Lilah had pieced together the fact that Maxwell Bennett was a first class asshole. An abusive drunk who never deserved having these two wonderful people in his life in the first place.

“She’s looking for a place, by the way.”

“Is she really? Good for her!”

“Yeah. I’m really proud of her.” The look on Cole’s face said he was way more than proud of her.

Lilah couldn’t even begin to understand the courage it took for Maggie to untangle herself from her husband and to start building her own life. All she knew was that some women never managed to leave.

She put her hand to her heart and smiled. “You should be. You’ve got one heck of a mom.”

“I’ll tell her you said that,” Cole said as Lilah gathered his empty plate onto her tray. “What time you coming over tonight?”

“I’m off here in an hour. Figured I’d shower and come by after that. Sound good?”

“Fine by me.”

Lilah smiled and headed back towards the serving station, pretty damn sure Cole was staring at her ass. She put a little wiggle in her walk, just in case. He had to know that she couldn’t keep her eyes off him. It’s only fair play to do what she could to return the favor.