“Oh yeah.”
“Terri’s are better. She runs around the house in big shirts and shorts so little you can’t see them. Sometimes she just has on blue lacy underthings and... And during the day she has on cutoffs that...”
Jamie turned away to hide a smile. “Anything else you like about her? Other than physical, that is?”
“She doesn’t let me sleep.”
“You mean she... In your bed?”
“No, no, not that,” Nate said. “I mean I have to be awake and listening and thinking all the time. She zings out jibes at me that are like shots from a BB gun. I have to dodge them or send them back with equal force.” Nate was smiling. “She’s interesting and funny and smart. And she works! She runs the whole lake. Her father sits in his office most of the time or wanders off with Elaine or—” Nate stopped talking.
“She sounds like a handful, but if you two are sharing a house, that must be difficult.”
“I don’t know how to explain it, but we’re like two wheels working at the same speed. Within twenty-four hours of meeting, we each had our own tasks to do.” He gave a half grin. “Her bras and my pockets.”
“Bras, huh?”
Nate stood up. “It’s not like that. It’s all platonic. We’re like brother and si
ster.”
Jamie didn’t dare make a reply to that. Nate’s essay on female legs didn’t sound very brotherly. He spoke softly, thoughtfully. “What are you going to do?”
“Do? What do you mean?”
“I mean about Stacy. You don’t like her parents or where she wants to live. Are you two still engaged?”
The anger returned to Nate. “Of course we are. I’m in love with Stacy and I plan to marry her. We’re going to do the whole forever thing.”
Jamie didn’t comment, but then he didn’t need to. Loyalty was a trait his family prided themselves on. “Didn’t you and Stacy live together in DC?”
Nate began to disassemble the bar, even though he’d only done one set. “More or less. She stayed over one night and didn’t leave. It was never official, but yeah, we did.”
“How were you together?”
Nate shrugged. “It was in DC so I had to do things for Kit. He got us invitations to those dinners with four forks. Stacy loved every one of them.”
“What does she eat?”
“I don’t know. Bird food. The greener the better. I lost eight pounds in the first two weeks after she moved in. I had to sneak out to a steak house before going home to have dinner with her.”
“What does Terri like to eat?”
Nate laughed. “Anything. She’s not a health food nut. One day it was pouring down rain and we went into one of the cabins and threw some pizzas in the oven. She works so much that she burns up calories. Anyway, we sat there for a couple of hours and I, uh, I ended up telling her my life story.”
“How you ran off with a Montgomery and your own family hardly saw or heard from you for years?”
“Yeah. All of it.”
Jamie picked up some dumbbells and racked them. “What are you going to do when Stacy gets back?”
“One thing for sure is that we have to talk. I hate the office she made for me and I hate the house she wants us to live in.”
“Where do you want to live?”
“I’m thinking about buying a cabin at the lake and remodeling it. Have you ever seen Terri’s house?”
“No, I haven’t. Tell me about it.”