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“That young Bridie Hopkins said you were hot in a suit.”
“Yeah? You got her number?”
Her cackling laughter followed him out of the shop.
Ted knew people found him hard to understand. Hard to get to know. Emily’s death had done that to him. Made him guarded. He knew it, but he wasn’t ready to do anything about it.
He thought about Mandy then. She’d got beneath that guard a few times.
“Ted, just the man,” Bas said as he walked behind Tea Total and found a large truck there. “Need your muscle, bud.”
Jack was inside the back of the truck, and Rory was standing on the stairs, waving her hands about.
“You get this end, Ted.” Jack was nudging a sofa out.
“Why is Rory waving?”
“It’s called helping, I believe.” Jack grunted, lifting his end. “Go figure.”
Together, the three of them managed to maneuver it up the stairs.
“Watch that corner!”
“Rory, honey, shut up,” Jack gritted out.
“I’m trying to help here.”
“You’re failing terribly,” Jack added. “Be a good girl and go inside with the women.”
She shrieked an obscenity at him, which made Jack laugh.
“You’re skating on thin ice there,” Ted said.
“Adds spice, Teddy Bear. Can’t let her have everything her own way all the time.”
“My wife is the boss in our household,” Bas said. “Works for me.” He shrugged.
They managed to get it through the doorway—just.
“Mandy, where do you want this?” Jack said.
She came out of the bedroom and saw him. The smile fell off her face.
“Hi.” She looked a mess. Old baggy sweats, hair on top of her head, and a T-shirt that was Bas’s size. Not a scrap of makeup on her face. She looked about fifteen years old, definitely not old enough to be having lustful thoughts about.
“Oh, hi. Um, what are you doing here?”
“Lenny couldn’t come, so I did.”
“Not wanting to break up the chitchat, but this is getting heavy, sweet cheeks,” Jack grunted.
“Sorry.” Mandy pointed to a wall. “There would be perfect, don’t you think?”
“What do you think?” Ted grunted out the sentence as they lowered it.
“There.” She pointed to the spot again.
“Perfect.”
