On Dublin Street

~7~

“So, Mystery Man is gone?” The voice scared the bejesus out of me and I jumped, the coffee on my teaspoon scattering onto the counter.

I threw Braden a withering look over my shoulder. “Don’t you ever work? Or knock?”

He was slouched against the kitchen doorway, watching me make my morning coffee. “Can I get one?” he nodded to the kettle.

“What do you take?”

“Milk. Two sugars.”

“And here I was expecting you to say black.”

“If anyone is black around here, it’s you.”

I made a face. “Do you want coffee or not?”

He grunted. “Someone’s pleasant in the morning.”

“When am I anything else?” I dumped his two sugars in his mug with attitude.

Braden’s laughter hit me directly in the gut. “Right.”

As the kettle brewed, I turned around, leaning against the counter with my arms crossed over my chest. I was very aware of the fact that I wasn’t wearing a bra under my camisole. In fact, I didn’t think I had ever been more aware of my body than I was when I was around Braden. To be honest, I’d stopped caring about my appearance and all the shit that came with it after my parents and Beth died. I wore what I liked, I looked the way I looked, and I didn’t give a rat’s ass what any guy thought. Somehow that seemed to work in my favor.

But standing in front of Braden, I realized I wasn’t so confident about that anymore. I was curious what he thought about me. I wasn’t tall and ski

No. I wasn’t beautiful, or cute, or glamorous. I also didn’t think I was ugly, but worrying about being extraordinary had never crossed my mind before. Braden making me care… kind of pissed me off.

“Seriously, don’t you work?”

He stood up from the doorframe and casually sauntered towards me. He was in another fantastic three-piece suit. Someone as tall and as broad-shouldered as him should have probably looked more at home in jeans and fla

Unbelievably turned on, I whirled around, willing the kettle to boil faster.

“I have a meeting in half an hour,” he replied, coming to a stop beside me and reaching for the kettle before I could. “Thought I’d stop by and see if everything was okay. Things seemed tense last night before Ellie and I left.”

I watched him pour the water into our mugs, trying to decide whether or not to tell him about James and Rhian.

“Morning,” Ellie chirped, as she strolled into the kitchen, fresh awake and already washed and dressed. Her cardigan was inside out. I reached out and tugged at the label so she could see. Smiling sheepishly, she shrugged out of it and put it back on the right way around. “So I came home and James wasn’t on the couch. Did he sleep in your room?”

Braden stiffened at my side and I glanced up to find him frowning. He obviously hadn’t considered that. I smirked, feeling smug. “No.” I studied Ellie a moment and as my reservations disappeared over sharing the news, I realized I almost, maybe, sort of, kind of trusted her. “James is Rhian’s boyfriend.”

“Rhian, your best friend, Rhian?” she asked, pouring herself some fresh orange juice. She settled with her glass at the table and I thought being near her as opposed to being near her brother was a good idea. I slipped into the chair across from her.

“He proposed, she freaked out, she dumped him.”

Ellie’s mouth dropped open in horror. “You’re kidding me. Poor guy.”

I gri

“They made up?” God, she looked so hopeful and she didn’t even know them.

“You’re a sweetheart,” I told her quietly and Ellie’s expression melted.

“You got them back together, didn’t you?” she a

Only Ellie would have that kind of assurance in someone like me. She was damnably determined I wasn’t as detached as I made out. That she happened to be right on this occasion was a little a

“He was pissed off at you,” Braden interjected before I could respond.

I glanced over at him, still leaning against the worktop, sipping his coffee as if he had all the time in the world. “He thought I talked her into it—breaking up with him.”

Braden didn’t seem surprised by this. In fact, he quirked an eyebrow and replied, “Why am I not surprised?”

Ellie clicked her tongue at him. “Braden, Joss wouldn’t do that.”

“I know she wouldn’t do that. But I don’t think she didn’t do that for the reasons you think she didn’t, Els.”

Crap. So he thought he knew me better than Ellie did. I grimaced inwardly. Maybe he did. Perceptive asshat. U

“Cryptic much?” Ellie grumbled before focusing back on me. “You got them back together though, right?”

I owe you.

The words made me smile into my mug. “Yeah. Yeah I did.”

“You did?” Braden sounded so astonished by this, it was insulting.

Okay, maybe the asshat just thought he knew me. “She’s my best friend. I helped out. I’m not some cold-hearted bitch you know.”

Braden flinched. “I never said that, babe.”

I shivered as the endearment rolled over me, hitting a nerve I didn’t even know I had. My words tumbled out caustically, “Don’t call me babe. Don’t ever call me babe.”

My sharp tone and sudden anger caused a thick tension to fall between the three of us and I suddenly couldn’t remember why I was so grateful to Braden yesterday when he helped me out after the panic attack. This is what you got when you let people in. They started to think they knew you when they didn’t know shit.

Ellie cleared her throat. “So James has gone back to London?”

“Yup.” I stood up and dumped the dregs of my coffee in the sink. “I’m going to hit the gym.”

“Jocelyn-” Braden started.

“Don’t you have a meeting?” I cut him off, about to stroll out of there, leaving the tension behind.

“Jocelyn…” he sounded concerned.

I caught myself with a deep i

You’ve made your point, Joss. I didn’t need to continue to be a bitch about it. Sighing outwardly, I looked up at him and offered with snarky charitableness, “I have a travel mug in the top left cupboard if you want to take some coffee to go.”

Braden stared at me a moment, his eyes searching. He shook his head with a quizzical smile playing on his lips. “I’m good, thanks.”

I nodded, pretending indifference to the atmosphere we’d caused, and then I glanced back at Ellie. “You want to hit the gym with me?”

Ellie wrinkled her button nose. “Gym? Me?”

I eyed her ski