But she catches me by the arm. “I got it,” she maintains, anger growing in her eyes. “Seriously. We’re not here on a free ride. I can handle a few chores.”
“Not dressed like that, you don’t.”
Her eyebrows pinch together. “Excuse me?”
I inch forward, dropping my voice as I speak to her. “My neighbor has been glued to his balcony watching your every move out here,” I bite out. “God knows what he’s thinking.”
“That’s not my problem,” she argues. “I was hot. I jumped in the pool. My clothes are on.”
“Yeah, like a second skin,” I finish for her, my teeth baring. “You can’t pull that shit here. It’s a family neighborhood. Not your sister’s strip club.”
“I’m in the backyard!” she growls, her face tensing. “What does anyone care how I’m dressed?”
“Their wives will!”
She arches an eyebrow and her chest heaves with angry breaths.
I look down at her, calming my voice. “The wives in this neighborhood don’t appreciate cock teases strutting around and taunting their husbands, okay?” I state in plain English, so she gets it through her head.
But she just lets out a bitter laugh like she can’t believe I’m for real. “Uh…yeah, wow.” She nods and takes in a deep breath, lifting her chin and looking at me head-on. “Um, okay, here’s the thing…. I realize things were probably a little different back when you were a teenager—EIGHTY-NINE YEARS AGO!—” she fires back.
“It was twenty, thank you.”
“But nowadays,” she keeps going, “we don’t hold a woman responsible for a man’s behavior.” Her eyes pierce, and there’s a little snarl on her lips. “If he wants to look, I can’t stop him. If he wants to step off somewhere private and do a little self-lovin’, hey, I’ll never know. Not my problem!”
I clench my fists. Damn brat.
I can’t catch my breath, but we don’t break eye contact.
She’s right.
I know she’s right. She’s not doing anything wrong. I just…
I don’t like him looking.
At her.
After a few seconds, I collect myself and straighten, taking pleasure that I’m half a foot taller. “Cole does the yard work. Or me,” I tell her, moving around her toward the lawnmower. “Got it?”
I don’t wait for an answer as I spin around, heading for the lawnmower.
But I hear her small, sweet voice behind me. “Yes, Daddy.”
I blink long and hard, my hand tingling with an urge to give someone a spanking for the first time in my life.
Jordan
I haven’t spoken to Pike since the argument yesterday. I refuse to call it a fight. We barely know each other. How can we be fighting?
I also haven’t talked to Cole since yesterday, either, but for some reason, that’s not bugging me. It’s how we roll. He was gone yesterday, helping a friend with his car, and by the time he made it home I was at the bar. I slept in this morning, more as an effort to avoid Pike in the house, and only woke up once when Cole left a goodbye peck on my cheek before heading to work himself.
My stomach has been in knots all morning. Why the hell was Pike so angry? I thought we were getting along. I didn’t do anything wrong. In fact, I was mowing his fucking grass, and the next thing I know he’s ripping into me like I’m sunbathing topless on the front lawn while six-year-olds race their bikes down the street.
He’s so volatile. Very unlike his son who never takes anything seriously.
I climb out of Cole’s car, him catching a ride with one of his friends this morning so I could get to the library. I grab Pike’s lunch box he left at home and take a look around the job site. It’s busier than the last time I was here.
Workers move about, dressed in hard hats with brown leather tool belts hanging from their hips, and dust kicks up from the trucks moving in and out of the area. Hammers hit steel and men with dirty boots and scuffed jeans straddle beams high in the air as they do whatever it is that they do to turn materials into a building. Not many get to see the bare bones view. I wonder why Cole doesn’t work for his father. This job has to pay well. I know some of these guys, after all. They support families off this job.
My gaze wanders, looking for someone accessible to drop off the lunch box to, but I’m kind of on alert, looking for Pike’s tattoos, too. I don’t want to see him, really. My plan when I saw he’d left his lunch at home this morning was to do a nice deed, drop it off, and leave the ball in his court to get over the argument by seeking me out to say ‘thank you’. I want to get over whatever awkwardness is between us.
Stepping over the dirt and debris laying around, I make my way for the structure and spot his friend, Dutch, bending over to pick something up just inside. He notices me and rises.
“Hey, Dutch.” I smile. “Is Pike around?”
His eyes drop to the black insulated bag in my hand. “His lunch?”
“He left it sitting on the kitchen table.” I hold it up for him. “Thought I’d drop it off while I’m running errands.”
“That’s nice of you.” But he doesn’t take the lunch box. Instead, he tosses a tool down into a box and gestures to me. “Come on, I’ll take you up.”
“Oh, no, that’s okay,” I tell him. “I don’t want to bug him. I’ll just leave it with you.”
“If you leave that with me, I’ll eat it. Or lose it.” He chuckles and leads me toward some stairs.
My shoulders slump. Awesome.
We head up to the third floor, taking what I assume will be the emergency stairwell once the elevators are installed, and reach a landing with only frames for the walls, showing how the offices and work areas will be divided once it’s finished.
Pike is the only one on the floor, far off on the left side and hovering over a clipboard.
He hears us approach and looks up from his paperwork, turning his head.
His eyes narrow on me, and I blink long and hard, feeling stupid.
He’s wearing a navy blue T-shirt, and the color on him brings heat to my cheeks. I love how it looks against his tanned arms and the curves of his biceps.
“What are you doing here?” he asks.
He doesn’t sound annoyed like I was afraid, though. Just puzzled.
I lift up the bag. “You left your lunch on the table.”
His expression relaxes, and the tension in his body eases. “Oh, thanks.” He walks over, and I hand it to him. “It’s okay, though,” he tells me. “I could’ve grabbed something from the food truck. You didn’t have to go through the trouble.”
The food truck? “Well, I couldn’t let you eat crap from a food truck,” I say.
And to my relief, he smiles a little. “It’s basically the same stuff that’s in there,” he points out, setting the lunch box on a work table.
But I’m way ahead of him. “Well, I snuck in a turkey and cheese cucumber wrap, too, in case you want something different.”
His face falls.
“Don’t worry,” I tease. “Your lunch is still in there. I just made too much and needed help finishing the wrap.”
The slight fear in his eyes dispels, and he takes a breath. “You’re not going to be happy until I’m eating hummus, are you?”
I try not to laugh. “I’ll build you up slowly.”
He rolls his eyes, and I finally take a deep breath. I guess we’re over the argument.
I stand there, feeling his eyes on me, the sounds of hammers pounding and the breeze blowing through the structure slowly fading away.
Then I realize that Dutch is still in the room.
We both look over at him, his gaze shifting between us.
“I’ll go…” He swallows and clears this throat. “do something,” he says and walks away, leaving us alone.
I look back at Pike, and I guess I should go, too, and leave him to it, but instead, I slide my hands into my pockets and gaze around. “The sawdust smells good,” I tell him.
A smile crosses his eyes, and he nods, looking around. “Yeah. It’s like home to me.”
When our gazes meet again, heat pools low in my belly, and I forget to breathe for a moment. I quickly look away.
“I apologize for going off on you yesterday,” he says. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Cramer was leering, and it was creepy. I got aggravated.” And then he clarifies, “Aggravated with him, I mean. I’m sorry I took it out on you.”
“I work in a bar,” I point out. “I’m used to a little leering. I can handle it.”
Really, I can stand up and fight for my honor all on my own. And so can Cole. If it ever occurs to him. Pike doesn’t need to feel responsible for me. I’m not his to take care of.
“Well, I’ll get going,” I tell him and start backing away.
But he stops me. “You wanna see?” he offers. “A little tour?”
I’ve already seen a great deal of the place, since I was here sandbagging last week, but I nod anyway. “Yeah, sure.”
He leads me toward the back of the building, and I wonder if I’m supposed to be wearing a hard hat, but he’s not wearing one, either, so I don’t ask.
“It’s supposed to be office space for that casino riverboat that’s coming to the area,” he explains. “There’ll be a pavilion at the dock with restaurants and event space, but they’re going to run everything from here. Hiring, finances, advertising…”
He shoots me a smile, and I look away again.
“It’s like a skeleton,” I comment. “When do the walls go up?”
“Once the plumbers and electricians get everything squared away,” he replies, “I install the insulation and then we start walling it up. You’ll see rooms instead of bones.”
We enter a large space at the rear corner of the building, and unlike the other rooms, there’s an entire wall without beams. Like it’s going to be just one, huge picture window there. I step into the small adjacent space and peer over the beam in front of my face.