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I pause. My mouth popping open. Slide your hand into my shorts and find me wet. Watch yourself make me come with your fingers. I need you here. My cheeks blaze. “Which part?”
“That you still want me.” His jaw tightens his gaze boring into my face like he can reach right in and get to the truth.
I still. Blink up at him. “Yes.”
“Is it true?”
I hold his stare, swallow hard and then, for better or worse, I nod.
“Good.” He bites his top lip, but he can’t hide the grin trying to stretch over his face. “Good.”
“Good.” I nod again, and my cell buzzes. “But right now, I gotta go.”
“Then go.” His gaze drops to my mouth. “We can talk later.”
My heart’s still thumping four streets later when I cross the road to check the number of the house against the Facebook ad. I blow out a breath. Shake my head. He kissed me.Mylokissed me and didn’t freak out after.
“Turn around, sweet cheeks.”
“Hey!” I turn to where Simon and Pete are walking towards me hand in hand, Pete in loose ripped jeans and a black T-shirt, tattoos out and proud, and Simon in white linen pants and a matching white button-down, a sunshine yellow jersey draped over his shoulders.
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a more mismatched couple. But it works. It totally works. It also totally makes me want to cry. I want that. I want the ease they have with each other despite them being polar opposites. I want someone to hold my hand. I want someone to look at me like Pete looks at Simon when he’s talking—like there’s no one else he’d rather listen to.
“Zi… Kenzi… sweetheart…” Simon frowns as he peaks over the tall garden fence before they get to me, oblivious to the intense spinning out going on in my brain. “What exactly are we up to here?” He pulls me in for a hug. “What’s your plan?”
I shoot Pete a look over Simon’s shoulder. “Upcycling.”
One side of his mouth tips up. “Upcycling?”
“Upcycling?” Simon lifts both his hands to cover his mouth almost losing the jersey draped over his shoulders. “Oh, baby, yes. How did I not think of this?”
“You upcycle?”
“You’re damn right I do. Tell her, baby…”
“He does.” Pete shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans and rocks back on the heels of his worn Converse.
“I really think this could work.” I bite my lip, daring to let the little hot air balloon of hope I felt this morning expand until it’s spread all over my face in a grin. If I can get all the tables and chairs for a fraction of the money I had budgeted, then I’d at least have some wiggle room in my now tighter-than-tight new budget. “Maybe the roof terrace will have to wait for now, but the main restaurant…” I glance behind them to where they’re opening the yard gate. “It’s definitely doable.”
“Let’s do it,” Simon grins right back at me, then grabs my hand to pull me towards the gate.
My eyes bulge when I step into the backyard. The garden is… wow. I almost forgot how choc-a-block these sales are. The yard is filled to the brim with… stuff. I step through the gate past an old bathtub.
Simon links his arm through mine and pulls me along the makeshift path lined with tables full of things and things and more things. Jugs and mismatched mugs. TVs and even an old kitchen sink. Nothing I can actually use though. And then I see it. An old-fashioned table with four dated chairs.
Simon lifts the price card and does a little jig on the spot. “Twenty dollars for the set.”
I run my fingers over the worn orange paint of the tabletop. It’s possibly the ugliest table I’ve ever seen. And that goes for the chairs too. Gran had something similar when I was little, and I have my doubts as to whether they were fashionable even then. I wipe my fingers on my denim cut-offs. “It’s solid wood. With a good sand and polish I think these will do.”
“Upcycling.” He breathes in deeply and spreads his arms. “When one man’s junk becomes another man’s shabby chic masterpiece.”
Laughing, I scan the yard for anything else. An old dark stained wood dresser loaded down with piles of old books catches my attention as Simon waves over the owner of the yard.
Before I get to it, I find Pete crouched behind a huge, and obviously broken going by the thirty-dollar price tag taped to it, chest freezer.
“What d’ya think?” He lifts his chin to the freezer.
I snort. Cover my mouth and brave a glance inside the cavernous appliance. It’s clean, I’ll give it that. But still. “Tables I can pretty up, electrics not so much.”
