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A big, burly chest, and giant arms covered in fur, and jean-clad thighs that she wasn’t sure she could span with her hands. Snug jeans. A big belt buckle that belonged in Texas or somewhere, and beneath it—
Oh, God.
Carmen dragged her eyes up, up, up to his face, thinking burly again along the way and feeling her cheeks heat. She made her voice extra cool when she said, “Everything is fine. You’ll have to make it Monday. Roman will be back by then.”
The man nodded. “I’m Noah.”
He stuck out his hand.
She took it, and it engulfed hers, and her entire lower body disappeared in the conflagration.
“Carmen,” she squeaked.
“I know.” He tipped up her hard hat, ran a finger under the strap, and frowned. “Here. There’s a trick to these.”
She just stood there. Stood there like a wax figure—a melting wax figure—as he took her hat off, made some adjustment to it, put it back on, and fastened the strap under her chin.
Impossible. She’d looked at the mechanism, and she understood it perfectly well. There were no tricks.
But her hat fit now.
“So you’re Roman’s girl,” he said. “I’ve wondered about you.”
I’m not anyone’s girl, she snapped. Inside her head. Don’t be impertinent. And don’t stand so close.
Though he had to be four feet away now. He’d stepped back when he finished with her hat. He only felt close.
She only felt as though she couldn’t control her tongue when she said “No.”
Noah’s forehead corrugated. “Oh.” An awkward silence reigned for a few beats, and then he asked, “Does Roman know that?”
Of course he does, she said.
Except she didn’t, at all. She opened her mouth, and a torrent of nonsense came out. “You’ve misunderstood. I’m seeing Roman—I mean, he’s in Georgia, so—but we’re not exclusively … we haven’t said that we won’t. See other people. And it’s not as though he owns me, but yes, we’re still going out, if that’s what you mean.”
Something poked Carmen in the throat. The clipboard. She was clutching it to her chest like a shield.
How mortifying. Where had those words even come from? Not exclusive? She’d been dating Roman for a year, sleeping with him for nearly as long, and even before he’d asked her out there had been an inevitability to their relationship. She’d known, and he must have, too, that as soon as he traded his run-down apartment for a decent condo with landscaped grounds—as soon as he traded in his late-model Accord for the Cadillac—he would ask her out, and she would accept.
And yet the words kept crawling up her throat from some place she couldn’t even name. She kept them contained behind her tongue, but they rioted around back there, clamoring to get out.
We don’t live together.
He rarely even sleeps over.
Sometimes a week goes by—two weeks—without my seeing him, and I’m not bothered.
Sometimes when we have sex, I’m bored. I think he might be bored, too.
I like your belt. I like your eyes. I like your mouth.
Noah smiled again, sort of sheepish. As though he were the one who’d just unleashed a flood of embarrassing nonsense. “Yeah. That’s what I meant.”
“Mmm-hmm.” She clicked her nails against the clipboard, impatient. She had no idea for what.
Noah looked past her, out the door, and cleared his throat. “So I’ve about looked everything over already. All the damage is superficial—it’s mostly just a god-awful mess. If you want, we can do a quick sweep, then I’ll lock up and we can maybe grab some lunch after.”
Carmen didn’t react. She kept her face completely serene. She had no idea why Noah responded by lifting his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Just lunch,” he said, with a self-effacing sort of chuckle that had no guile in it, no calculation whatsoever. “Totally platonic. I wouldn’t be dumb enough to hit on Roman’s girl.”
