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Kenzi
The numbers are as bad this morning as they were last night. If I use my savings for the kitchen, my customers won’t have tables to eat at. I could pay for the man hours it will take to build the stairs to the restaurant, but they’ll be building fresh air without the materials.
My cell pings. I stare at it for a second. Mylo called again last night. I didn’t take it. I pinch my bottom lip between my thumb and forefinger and try not to remember the phone sexing. The shamefully hot phone sexing. The things I told him. The things I steamrolled him into saying back. That conversation can one hundred percent wait.
That doesn’t mean that every time my phone rang this morning, I hadn’t half expected it to be him. Or that every time it hadn’t been him, I kind of wished it were. But not.
We still have to work out the plans for Seren’s ceremony next week. Guardians are generally expected to show up together with some sort of joint gift. I cover my face and take a couple of deep breaths. Why is everything so damn complicated? I reach for my cell and peek at the screen.
Not Mylo. A Notification for my Facebook App. The For Sale in Clua group.
Blowing out my cheeks I swipe open the app.Yard sale.
Yard Sale. Mom used to take me when I was little. The dining table in our family house was upcycled from a yard sale buy.
I scroll aimlessly through the rest of the for-sale page, slowing when I come to a set of tables and chairs for just fifty dollars. I click through the photos, an idea forming, taking shape, lifting off in my belly like a tiny little hot-air balloon filled with big dreams.
What if I could… maybe I could… it would cut the cost of furniture way down. The kitchen would still be an issue, but…
I blow out a breath and pull up Simon’s details.
I have a plan. Meet me at 103 Palm Street in an hour.
I glance from my pink cotton short pajamas and fluffy purple slippers to the clock on the wall. It’s already after ten. How is that possible? Four hours lost staring at numbers. Regardless of whether this plan works or not, I need to get out of the house before I go mad.
Showered and changed and stepping out onto into the blazing Clua sunshine, my mind is still raking over quotes and numbers I now know by heart. I won’t get my hopes up. It’s been years since I upcycled anything, and even then, I did it with Mom. Who am I kidding, my hopes are totally up.
Maybe if I’d been looking where I was going, I’d have noticed the pickup pulling up before it was too late. Before I was standing staring dumbly into a pair of gunmetal gray eyes.
Pull your hair… fuck your tongue… shove me against the wall…
“Mylo. Hey.” My cheeks heat to epic proportions.
His gaze moves over my face, tawny brows meeting in the middle. “I called you.”
“I know.” I gnaw on my bottom lip. “I had a thing…”
“We should talk about what happened last night.”
I lick my lips, drop my gaze to his chest and the Surf Shack logo on his gray T-shirt. “I know, I know. It was a mistake. It’s complicated…” I trail off, swallow back my shame and meet his frown head on. “There’s nothing to talk about. I was drunk. I shouldn’t have called you. Don’t worry about it. I know it doesn’t change anything. You’re still complicated, and I’m still me—”
My cheeks are cupped, and his mouth is on mine before I can finish my mortifying rambling. A soft, open-mouth kiss with the perfect little suck of my lower lip before he pulls back.
I lick that lip. Blink, wide-eyed at the face just millimeters from mine. “Hi.”
His eyes crinkle. “Hi.”
I scan his face. “Sooooo.” I drag my bottom lip through my teeth, my gaze dropping back to his mouth, my heart thundering so hard I can feel it in my eyeballs. “About that phone call…”
His cheek twitches, the corner of his mouth lifting a tiny bit as his hands drop from my cheeks, and he straightens his big body from where he’d curled it down to kiss me. “That phone call…” He scratches the side of his mouth, smirking down at me in a way I’ve never seen him smirk. Hot and dirty like that phone call woke up something hella male in there. “We should talk.”
“No.” I nod. Too fast. “Yes.” I shake my head. “I can’t.” I can’t think. Did that just happen?
His smirk straightens. His brows tipping up in the middle. “Is that a yes or no?”
“That’s a—” My cell rings in the back pocket of my cut-offs and a breathy laugh leaves me. “You have really shitty timing. I’m late for a—”
“A thing.” He scratches the middle of his chest and frowns like I’ve just sucked the wind right out of his sales. “About what you said?”
