“I didn’t touch anything.” My back was to him. There was no way he could be positive about where my hand had been going. “I’m staying very still.”
“Bullshit.” My frustratingly sexy neighbor barked out his opinion, making me even harder. “You’re not subtle at all.”
I couldn’t lie about that, so I changed the subject. “Are they ready for me to flip now?”
I could almost hear him rolling his eyes but I wasn’t sure how that was possible. I was going to chalk it up to him being very strange and leave it at that, but it didn’t tell me how to respond correctly to anything he said.
“Let me check.” He came over from where he’d been moving my patio furniture around, but instead of standing beside me, he stepped behind me, making it even harder to think.
He was so hot he made me stupid and didn’t even seem to realize it.
“Yes, now you can flip it over, but I want you to remember that we put it on the grill and leave it alone.” He was polite and I had to admit it was a nicer way to say it than telling me it wasn’t Play-Doh. “It’ll come out prettier and juicier that way and it’ll impress everyone to see you calm and in charge.”
Calm.
In charge.
“That’s what they’re looking to see. Calm. Confident. In charge.” As I nodded and reminded myself of it again, Knightly took a deep breath and let it out slowly. I knew he wanted me to mimic him, but it was also ridiculously hot too. “They have a stupid image of what manly means but we can’t fix stupid.”
“Calm. Confident. In charge.” Repeating it, I took another deep breath and carefully flipped the burgers before setting the spatula down. “You’re good at that.”
He chuckled, sending a shiver through me. “You have things you’re good at too. I saw the art when you showed me your kitchen.”
Oh.
“It’s just stuff I play around with.” How had he known it was mine? “But thank you.”
His scoff made me want to laugh. “We’ll come back to that one, Bouncy, but for now we’re going to finish making lunch.Then I’ll let you give me more bullshit on it just being you goofing off.”
I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to answer that.
“Then we’ll walk through the rest of the meal?” I’d been honest when I said I had stuff besides meat, but I’d never been the one to do the family barbecues. “You said you wanted to check on that.”
I was really glad he was the take-charge type.
“Yes.” He sounded glad I appreciated how take-charge he was too. “And we can go over how to set everything up if you’d like.”
“Yes. I’d like.” There was a lot more to hosting stuff than I’d realized. “How did you get so good at this?”
He was so close I could feel his breath on my neck, but I managed not to moan, so I was amazing. “I attract high-maintenance women who like to throw parties and I dated an event planner for a while. He was one walking, talking red flag, but I learned a lot about planning stuff like this.”
He?
Hewas a red flag?
Knightly’s low chuckle said I’d given away my shock. “Is there something you’d like to say? To ask, maybe?”
Shoot.
I’d gone too still.
“No?” Ugh. “No. I’m just appreciating your help.”
He was bi?
How?
Maybe he’d dated the guy without realizing it? I’d seen it happen before to straight guys who were on the more clueless side of dating. They thought they were just being nice and hanging out on a regular basis and didn’t realize it was a date until something went pear-shaped… well… eggplant-shaped.
