Page 59 of Unraveled

“It’s meet to nice you. I mean, nice to meet you.” His baby face was beet red, and I couldn’t blame him. If I’d met a woman who looked like her when I was nineteen, I would’ve been tongue-tied, too.

“And it’s nice to meet you, too. I’ll leave you guys to work. I’ll be upstairs.”

“I queued up Breaking Bad. You mentioned wanting to binge watch it.”

“Thank you.” She scooted off her stool and walked over to rinse her dish in the sink. Then, with a small smile and a brief touch to my arm, she made her way slowly up the stairs.

Could I help it if I stared at her ass in those insufferable yoga pants?

Clearly, Jack couldn’t avoid staring, too. He was still bright red.

“So, she’s, um, your girlfriend?”

Oh, boy, how to answer his question? “Working on it.”

“I was wrong to assume the blonde from the construction site was.”

Out of the mouths of babes. I glanced up the stairs, praying his voice hadn’t been loud enough to carry to Layla’s ears.

Jack managed to turn redder. “Sorry, Kellan. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No, no. It’s not your fault. But the blonde is definitely not my girlfriend.” I couldn’t blame the kid for his assumption. Carly was at the jobsite at every given opportunity and would go out of her way to touch me and flirt. It was obnoxious and annoying. If the guys were thinking there was something there, I needed to do more than simply ignore her. The last thing I wanted was for Layla to think I was entertaining the idea of anything with Carly.

“Is Layla a movie star or something?”

I chuckled. “No, but she could be.” Despite fighting cancer, she was still stunning. “Shall we get to work?”

Five hours later we had the floors completely laid on the second floor. The only thing left was the shoe molding, which I’d probably do tomorrow after installing the countertops. I thanked Jack and sent him on his way with cash in hand.

The only time I’d checked on Layla I’d found her napping, but now she was up. She was sitting in my bed with her headphones on repeating Spanish words.

“Hola,” I greeted.

She took off her headphones. “Hola. Hablas espanol?”

“Un poco. Some of the guys I work with are Spanish-speaking, so I’ve picked it up here and there.”

She smiled, setting down the device. “You all finished downstairs?”

“Yep. Hope the noise didn’t wake you.”

“No, it didn’t.”

Oh, so maybe sound didn’t travel well up the stairs. Perhaps she hadn’t caught the quip about Carly being my girlfriend. I decided to test the waters to find out. “Jack thought you might be a movie star.”

She sighed. “So I heard. He seems sweet. Young.”

Shit. She had heard. He’d made the movie star remark after he’d assumed Carly was my girlfriend. “He’s nineteen. Hard worker.” I placed my hand behind my head, gripping my neck and wondering how to approach this. I figured head-on was best. “I take it you heard the other comment.”

“About the blonde being your girlfriend? Yeah. I assume he was talking about Carly?”

Double shit. “She shows up there every day on site. Sometimes multiple times per day.”

“You don’t owe me any explanations.”

I fought my temper. “The hell I don’t. I’m with you, Layla.” Why did I have to fight so hard for her to believe me?

She was shaking her head. “We never discussed exclusivity. You’re free to date other people.”