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Lachlan grumbled. “Maybe someone should. You need a keeper, Elsa.”
Julien raised his hand. “I’ll do it, if you want to prance around in front of me in your bikini.”
Pressing my lips together to stop from laughing, I swept my gaze to Lock, and my amusement faded. His genuine irritation at my choice of clothing rankled me down to my bones. The fact that he’d pulled Julien into this mess had only made it worse.
Then, he had the audacity to growl at Julien, and I was absolutely done with this conversation.
“I’m sorry you’re unable to control yourself at the sight of me in my pajamas, Lachlan, but that sounds like ayouproblem.”
I stormed inside, slamming the door shut behind me. As I watched Lachlan and Julien head back to their house, I smacked my palm against the window.
I’d done exactly what Lachlan had wanted.
That evening, he came back and got to work like he hadn’t yelled at me and bossed me around. Perhaps that was par for the course for a man like Lachlan Kelly. I couldn’t say I knew him very well. It definitely wasn’t par for the course for me.
I opened the sliding glass door wearing his hoodie and what appeared to be nothing else but was actually a tank and cheer shorts.
“You know, you never apologized to me.”
His head dipped lower as he shot a nail into a plank. “I didn’t?”
“No, but I think you’re aware of that.”
He grunted, continuing on his task. For any other girl, Lachlan building my deck for free would have been enough of an apology. It certainly would have earned him some leniency. I’d never been any other girl, though, and hestillhadn’t looked at me.
“Do they pass out the knowledge to manhandle wood when you reach six feet?” I asked.
“About then,” he answered.
“Interesting. My dad’s a tall, strapping Scandinavian. I’ll have to ask why he’s never picked up an axe around me.”
He chuckled low, under his breath, laughing at me. Little embers of embarrassment sizzled on my nape.
“If you’re thinking about why my dad never chopped my head off or something—”
He dropped his nail gun like it had scorched him and whipped around to face me. He was on the ground, and I was still in the house, a few feet above him, but he didn’t feel that much lower.
“Why the fuck would that ever cross my mind, Elsa?”
Because Nate would have said it. It was exactly what he would have said.
I shrugged off my ghosts-of-terrible-boyfriends past. “Just a joke. What were you laughing at, anyway?”
He stared at me, his hands on his hips and forehead crinkled with fury. That broad chest of his rose and fell like a great tsunami.
“Who’s been saying shit like that to you?” he demanded.
“No one has. I just couldn’t imagine what you thought was so funny about my dad wielding an axe.”
He rubbed the back of his neck, his eyes flicking up to mine, then down to my stolen hoodie and bare legs. I crossed one ankle over the other, which made him jerk his eyes upward again.
“I was thinking if your dad is anything like you, him trying to use an axe would be quite the picture.”
“Like me?”
He hummed in assent, as if that was a good enough answer.
“What do you mean, like me?” I pressed.
