Gavin stood at Lindsay’s new kitchen sink and she watched him wash her dishes that may or may not have needed washing.  They were straight from the store.  She was wiping out the cabinets.  

“When Marissa lived here, did you do a lot of dishes in this sink?” Lindsay suddenly asked.

“No.  This is only my third or fourth time up here since I finished the renovations,” he said stiffly.

“That makes it sound like you and Marissa didn’t date for that long.”

“We dated for three years.”

“What?” she exclaimed.  “Really?”

“Yeah,” he said slowly.  “From our first date to last night, it was almost three years.”

Lindsay licked her lips and bit back her words until she couldn’t anymore.  She opened the fridge and started wiping that out too.  “Care to tell me more about that?”

“It started when she asked me on a date and I said yes.  Then she asked me on another date and I said yes again.  Then there was a lot more of that.  Then one day, a friend of mine said something about my girlfriend.  I laughed and said I didn’t have a girlfriend.  Very politely, he reminded me that I had been dating Marissa for over a year.  I couldn’t believe it.  Our dates had meant so little to me that I hadn’t even realized that everyone thought we were a couple.  I had never phoned her up for pleasure and asked her out.”

“She flew that low under your radar?” Lindsay wondered out loud.

“She took me places where it felt like I was only there because she needed a plus one.  I thought she was just using me as her spare, but after my friend said that, I started to wonder if she was waiting for me to do something to take our relationship to the next level.”

Lindsay was so enthralled with his confession that she closed the fridge before she finished cleaning it and leaned against it, so she could listen to what Gavin was saying without interruption.

“Had you kissed her?” she asked.

“Yeah.  Many times, but I’d never taken her home with me and I’d never gone home with her.  Our kisses were like kisses under the mistletoe, kisses when the New Year’s Eve disco ball drops, and then on her doorstep when I said goodnight.  I was thinking, ‘She likes this, we’re adults, and this is nothing!  It’s a kiss, not matching funeral urns.’  I didn’t attach too much importance to it.”

Lindsay sidled closer to him, leaning against the countertop.  “You must be a very reserved person, or you weren’t very attracted to her.”

He scoffed.  “Probably both.”

Lindsay had actually been making a move on him by inching toward him and saying those things, but it had gone over his head.  She didn’t let that discourage her.  She was still a ragingly attractive woman even if this particular man did not find her so immediately.  

“What was year two like?” she persisted.

“I outright asked her if she wanted anything more from our relationship than just the casual date every month or so.”

“What did she say?”

“That she wanted to marry me and have my children.”

“She didn’t!” Lindsay gasped in horror.

“She did.  I told her I didn’t want anything more than casual dating.  It was a heavy blow for her, but she said she’d take what I had to offer until she met someone better.”

“She didn’t meet anyone better, did she?” Lindsay ventured.

“No.  She didn’t.  She spent the next year trying to figure out a way to get me to drop my guard, change my mind, and take her in.  The biggest thing she did was get me to rent this apartment for her so she wouldn’t have to drive all the way back to Victoria if we were out late.  Our dates were far more frequent at that point.  I got this place rather than have her stay over with me.”

Lindsay put the pieces together and was horrified at the picture they made.  “So that means that it doesn’t matter why I was at your place this morning.  There is no reason under the sun that a woman would be at your house in the morning without throwing a javelin through Marissa’s heart?”

He stepped away from the sink.  “Exactly.”

“Are you going to tell her the truth?  That I was there because I was a stubborn mule?  Because I wouldn’t stay at a hotel?  Because Oliver and I were in a car accident and you had no choice but to help me out?”

He chuckled coldly.  “There is no excuse for letting you stay that won’t make her blood boil.  You think you were stubborn?  You think you put me in a bad spot last night?  Think for a second.  We’re talking about a woman who wasn’t just bringing something like the cheap logic you brought last night, she was bringing everything.  She was offering to cook for me, clean my house, get the oil changed in my truck, and make love to me twice a day until death do us part.”  He laughed again before meeting Lindsay’s eyes.  “And if I wanted to fight you last night, I definitely could have made it so that you were not sleeping in my bed last night.  So, no.  I’m not going to explain it to her.”

Lindsay was hot now.  Maybe she’d been wrong about her flirtation going over his head and he actually liked her a lot.  Maybe she just hadn’t spotted it because he was a lot more sullen than the kind of man she normally categorized as her type.  The look in his eyes was sending hot shivers down her arms.

But he looked away crossly.

She took a couple of steadying breaths.  “When you broke up with her, what did you say?”

“That I’d been trying to put her off.  That beard I had last night?  I’d been growing it for almost two years and I hadn’t trimmed it once.  I heard her say once that she didn’t like men with beards, so I grew one.  When it started to come in thicker, she kept her peace.  When it got so long that it aged me twenty years, she started asking me to cut it, but I wouldn’t.”

Lindsay groaned.  “Wait a second!  So, you’re saying that even if I hadn’t answered your front door like a little trollip in your shirt, Carleen would still have had something devastating to report to Marissa?  That you had finally shaved your beard?”

“Unfortunately,” he admitted reluctantly.  “Although, obviously, I was not expecting Carleen to show up on my doorstep with all that crap.  I had not given Marissa any of that stuff as gifts of affection.  One of the things in the box was a can opener.  I gave her my spare because hers broke.  That’s all there was to it and she returned it like she couldn’t bear to have it in the house because every time she saw it, it would remind her of me?  A can opener?  Good grief.”

“So, last night, you told her that you’d been trying to put her off?” Lindsay asked, trying to get him back on track.

“Sorry, I missed something.  About a month ago, she moved out of here and gave me an ultimatum.  If I didn’t do something to move our relationship to the next level, she was going to end it with me.  I thought that was the end of our relationship, hence Oliver thought it was all right to offer you this apartment.  Yesterday, I got a text from her saying that she was sorry she had moved out and she wanted to talk to me.  Afraid she would try to move back in, I went to Victoria to get the keys and have it out with her.”

Lindsay waited for him to continue, tense.  It suddenly mattered to her which way the wind had blown during that conversation.

“I told her that I never wanted a romance with her and I don’t understand why she wanted to be with me so badly.  The whole thing did not go well, but I stood my ground, got the keys, and made it clear to her that there was no need for the two of us to ever speak again.”

Lindsay hopped up on the clean countertop.  “That sounds conclusive.  Do you know why you weren’t attracted to her?  Did she have an annoying laugh or an unbearable habit?”

He shook his head.  “I should have liked her.  Everyone liked her and everyone was confused when I didn’t.”

“Well, no one can force you to be in a relationship,” Lindsay said factually.  “Though I am interested in what made you want to set her up in this apartment.”

He looked around.  “It was for me.  I’m not good at arguing after midnight.  It was so she wouldn’t sleep at my house, so I wouldn’t have to drive her home, and so she could get a change of clothing without being annoying.  She only lived here on weekends.”

“And you kept on kissing her?”

“I did… I even kissed her last night,” he admitted with a shrug.

“When you left?” Lindsay wanted to know.

“No,” he corrected.  “When I got there.  I couldn’t have helped it.  She sort of shot herself into my arms.”

By this point, Gavin had circled Lindsay.  She was perched on the counter and he had slung the dish towel over his shoulder and now he was leaning over her with one hand on either side of her thighs on the countertop.

“Did you kiss Oliver yesterday?  I noticed you didn’t today.”  His head was blocking the light behind him.

“Uh, I broke up with him yesterday, when he crashed the car.  I don’t know if he’s acknowledged that I dumped him, but he hasn’t texted me today even though I sent him a couple of messages asking if he was okay.”

“You know, a month ago he told me he was bringing you here to set you up with me,” Gavin said.

Lindsay’s mouth hung open.  “That can’t be true.”

“That’s what he told me when I told him Marissa had left.  Then he called me two days ago to say that it was all over because he had decided to keep you for himself.”

Lindsay rolled her eyes.  “He’s not doing a great job of that.”

“No.  He isn’t,” Gavin said, his smolder up to bruising intensity.

Lindsay wanted him to kiss her.  She wanted him to tell her that he was about to kiss her and that it would be nothing like how he had kissed Marissa.  When he kissed Marissa, it had been placid and dull, but when he kissed Lindsay, it was going to be so hot, it would crack lava out of the floor.

To her disappointment, he broke eye contact and moved away.  

She was an actress and prone to the dramatic.  Of course, he wasn’t going to kiss her.  Of course, he was going to wait until he knew her better, and when it was clear that her relationship with Oliver was over.  It also wasn’t a good policy to make out with someone the day before they started working for you.  He wasn’t going to lay a finger on her.  

“Let me show you where to meet me tomorrow morning,” he offered as he ditched the dish towel and stood in front of the door.

“Yeah,” Lindsay agreed, hopping off the counter and following him.