I’ll check with her when she gets home.
There’s plenty of work I need to do at Mom and Dad’s, but my head’s just not in it right now.
It keeps circling back to the same thing.
Things got outta hand with Chloe last night.
She may have started it, but I could’ve—should’ve—stopped it.
Chloe and I… we don’t work, no matter how much I’m starting to wish that weren’t the case.
I pad down the sand to the beach, stepping around branches and scattered leaves.Fierce waves crash against the shore and then pull back, the salty air filling my lungs and clearing my head.An iridescent shell catches my eye, and I bend to pick it up, brushing my thumb over its perfect, scalloped shape.
Still clutching the shell, I continue walking, keeping an eye out for more, when my phone alarm goes off from my pocket.Shit, I need to get to the grocery store or I won’t have anything for dinner.
With a final gaze toward the churned-up sea, I turn and head back up to the house.
After I’ve grabbed some groceries, I get to work finishing the outdoor staircase, but I’m slow as hell.
Even now, all I can think about is my neighbor, and the sexy moan that slipped out of her when I rocked against her last night.
My palm catches my forehead.I promised myself I wouldn’t get distracted on the job again, yet here I am, fucking distracted.
From the side of the deck, I see her arriving home after work.I give her some time to settle in before grabbing my toolbox and the canvas bag.My heart thumps in my chest as I head over and tap on the front door.
“It’s open!”she calls from somewhere inside.
I suppress a little growl at that and push through her aqua-blue door.Inside her living room, I find a white sofa with blue seashells printed all over the cushions.The painting hanging above it looks like someone took a can of yellow paint and threw it at the canvas.As I set my toolbox on the floor beside a bookshelf, my gaze catches a bunch of photos of her with two other girls and a whole stack of paperback romances with blue men on the covers.
I straighten as Chloe comes out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a lemon-printed dishcloth.
“Hey, long time no see,” she jokes.
Man, her sexy smile does it for me every time, especially when she rubs the tip of her tongue against the little gap in her teeth.
I clear my throat.“I brought back your clothes.And this.”From my pocket, I pull out the shell I found on the beach.“It’s for your treasure bowl at the coffee shop.”
“Aww.Thanks.It’s pretty.”She turns the shell over in her hand.“Too pretty for the bowl.I’m going to keep this one if that’s okay with you?”
I stand there with my hands stuffed inside my pockets, trying not to smile like a goof.“Yeah.Sure.Do whatever you want with it.”
For fuck’s sake, Ethan, it’s a shell.Congratulations, you found one of the thousands littering the beach.
“Your dad’s not home?”I ask, glancing around.
“He’s at the harbor, visiting an old friend he used to work with.”
I can’t say I’m not thrilled that Daddy-O isn’t here.
“I see you brought your tools,” She eyes the metal box near my feet.
“I was hoping you’d let me fix your bent pipe.”
She folds her arms over her chest, drawing my attention exactly where it shouldn’t go.“That sounds like a pickup line from a bad porno.”
Shit.It really did, didn’t it?“I didn’t mean?—”
“I’m joking,” she says with a laugh, knocking my shoulder playfully.“Show me the pipe.”
