“What the hell are you here so early for?” Everleigh asks me. “You’ve been my first client for the past week.”
“Yeah.” I chuckle. “Early bird gets the worm, right?”
She makes me a coffee and hands me a little bag with a donut. “On the house,” she says. “That’s your reward for being the early bird.”
“I’m going to tell Brock that you gave me a donut and flirted with me,” I joke.
“It’ll be your funeral.” She winks at me. “Have a good day, Theo.”
I’m on the job twenty minutes later. I’m putting on my tool belt when the door opens, and Caleb walks in. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Sierra said if I didn’t go to work today, she was going to cut off a special piece of me that I would like to keep.” I laugh at him as he cups his junk.
“What the fuck are you doing here so early?” he asks me. My stomach tightens. “Did you come here from one of your dates?”
“No . . . I’m sort of seeing someone.”
He looks at me, shocked. “Excuse me?” He puts his hands on his hips. “Did you say ‘seeing someone,’ as in singular? Since when are you a one-woman man?”
“You’ve been otherwise too busy for me to mention it.” I avoid looking at him. “I think I’m going to go and visit my parents in a couple of weeks.” I thought of it when she told me she would have a couple of days off.
“That should be fun.”
I nod, grab my things, and move to the bedroom where I’m going to be putting up the crown molding.
The guys show up, and everyone gets to work. When four o’clock hits, I unbuckle my tool belt and put it in the corner of the room as usual. I find Frankie and Nino in the middle of the kitchen, placing the island base. “You need help?”
“Nah,” Nino says, “we got this. Caleb left to go take care of some shit at the barn.”
“Okay, I’m going to head out. See you two tomorrow.”
“Unless I win the lottery,” Nino calls after me. I laugh as I walk out into the hot air.
I parked my truck at the curb, and now there’s a white paper under the wiper, folded in thirds. I unfold it, and my eyebrows pinch together as I read:
Watch your back, motherfucker.
“What the fuck is that?” Caleb asks from behind me.
“Nothing,” I hiss, putting the note in my back pocket. “Some girl I hooked up with over six months ago showed up at my house, and when I let her down, she wasn’t exactly happy.”
“Showed up at your house? You never take girls home.”
“I know. She said she saw me driving down the street and decided to follow me home.”
“You think she’s the one fucking with the jobsites?”
“Could be.” I inhale deeply. “I didn’t think of that. Fuck, I’m sorry.”
“Knew your dick would get us into trouble eventually.” He slaps my shoulder. “Just thought it would be someone getting pregnant.”
The guilt of not being able to tell him eats me up.
“I’m going home. Sierra said I’m now allowed to grace her with my presence.”
“You better hurry before she changes her mind, and you’re stuck sleeping on your couch.”
He throws his head back and laughs. “Nah, she loves me.”
