“And there’s no chance of fixing it?”
Grady shook his head. “I haven’t seen it, but I’m guessing no.”
Sophie pinched the bridge of her nose. “I liked that car.”
“I’ll help you pick out a new one,” Grady said. “It will be fun. We can be rude to the salesperson together.”
“What about the calls I have to make?” Sophie asked.
“They can be put off for a few days.”
“What about my other work?”
“Conrad said you could have the rest of the week off,” Grady said. “If he’s not worried about it, why are you?”
Sophie looked unsure of herself. “I won’t know what to do with myself if I don’t have work to do.”
Grady smiled – the first real smile to grace his face in hours – and stepped toward her. “I’ll find a way to keep you busy.”
Sophie narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “What way?”
Grady winked in her direction. “We’ll talk about that tomorrow but, if you’re interested, I believe Mandy bought about eight trashy magazines and she picked up a few movies, too. The bag also had nail polish, Hershey’s Kisses, and a few books.”
“Shark movies?”
Grady shrugged. “I have no idea. She’s fairly pragmatic, though. I guess we’ll find out tomorrow.”
Sophie sank down onto the bed. “I am kind of tired.”
“Then let’s get you ready for sleep.” Grady stepped over to the dresser and opened a drawer. What he found inside was confusing. What does a woman sleep in when sex is off the table? He’d never had to deal with this problem before.
When he glanced back in her direction, Sophie was watching him curiously. “What are you doing?”
“I’m not sure what you want to sleep in,” Grady admitted.
“Pajamas would be good.”
“You need to be more specific,” Grady said. “Your idea of pajamas and my idea of pajamas could be totally different things.” Truth be told, his idea of pajamas was nudity. He wanted her to be comfortable.
Sophie laughed lightly, the sound refreshing to Grady’s exhausted soul. “There are some plaid, flannel sleeping pants in the bottom drawer. Just grab those, a pair of underwear, and a tank top,” Sophie instructed. “I hope you don’t take this personally, but I would rather go casual tonight.”
That sounded good to Grady. He found the flannel pajama pants easily enough, even selecting a gray tank top to toss onto the bed next to her without incident. When he opened her underwear drawer, though, that’s where he ran into a problem.
The left side of the drawer was filled with lacy offerings that left little to the imagination. When he thought about it, they didn’t look particularly comfortable. On the right side, there was a small pile of underwear that looked like mini boxer shorts instead of women’s underwear. He picked up the black pair on top of the pile, holding it with one finger as he considered them.
“Are you trying to decide if you’re going to wear those?” Sophie asked.
“No,” Grady said, his mind traveling to his conversation with James earlier in the week. “I was just thinking about Mandy’s underwear.”
“Excuse me?”
“Huh?” Grady shook himself out of his reverie. “I wasn’t thinking of Mandy’s underwear like that,” Grady said. “It was something James said.”
“What did he say?”
“He has a theory about women and comfortable underwear,” Grady said, gripping the black panties in his hand and shoving the drawer shut before moving back over to Sophie.
“I think I heard part of this theory the other night,” Sophie said, her eyes twinkling. “Isn’t that what caused your brother to have to watch endless hours of shark movies?”
“Don’t kid yourself,” Grady said. “He likes those movies.”
“He doesn’t act like he likes those movies,” Sophie countered.
“Some of them are complete crap,” Grady said. “She had one on about a week ago – something called Shark Night – and it had all these sharks in a freshwater lake because some idiots were trying to make a reality television show. It was stupid.”
Sophie waited.
“Jaws is really good, though, and a few of the others aren’t bad,” Grady continued. “And, the truth is, no matter how bad a movie is, if it has sharks eating people guys are probably going to like it.”
“So why does he pretend to hate them?”
“It’s part of the game,” Grady said, handing her the panties. “If James pretends like he’s giving in on the movies, then Mandy pretends she’s making a big sacrifice going to a Pistons game with him – even though she loves basketball.”