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Chapter Two
CALLUM
“Cal. Cal!”
My mate’s voice dragged my attention from the woman across the pub who’d been staring at me, and I turned back around to face him. “What?”
He huffed out a sigh—a common sound whenever I was around—and said, “I was trying to find out if you think you’ll be able to pick Aiden up from school on Monday.”
I nodded. “Yeah. I’ll be done with the Hendersons’ place by the time he gets out.”
Unable to resist, I swung my head back in the direction of the hot-as-hell woman to see if she was still checking me out, but she was facing away from me, her attention on her friend.
I hope it’s just her friend. It’d be a shame if she wasn’t into men. Nah. Based on the way her eyes had looked me up and down, she definitely wasn’t batting for the other team.
“For the love of fuck, can you please turn your trouser radar off and pay attention,” Guy said, but when I looked at him again, he was smiling a little. That’s the beauty of best mates. He got pissed off with me, but he still always had my back.
“Did you see that, though?” I asked, grinning. “She was checking me out.”
Raising his beer to his lips, he glanced over my shoulder in her direction. “Three words, buddy. Never. Gonna. Happen.”
I quirked an eyebrow. “You think I couldn’t?”
“Not in a million years. Did you really look at her? That is a classy woman, and no offence, but she is pretty unlikely to fall for the charms of a painter and decorator she met in a pub on a Friday night.”
He might have had a point. She did look classy. She was only wearing black jeans and a dark blue top, but there was an elegance in the way she sat, shoulders back, a glass of red wine in front of her. However, the colour in her cheeks when I caught her watching me made me imagine how much more I could make her blush by whispering filthy words in her ear and tangling my fingers in her long brown curls.
“What, you don’t think she’ll be impressed by the offer of a drink and a packet of pork scratchings?” I joked.
“Only the finest champagne and oysters, I expect.” Guy was still grinning as if certain I was wasting my time by even thinking about it.
“Well, if my boss would give me a pay rise…”
Laughing out loud, Guy said, “I pay you plenty, not to mention all the favours I do for you.”
Again, he was right. Guy usually was, and I owed him a lot for taking me on when nobody else would even consider me.
“Fine, fine,” I said, taking a drink from my beer bottle. “She might be out of my league, but we’re both drinking in the same place. How posh can she really be?”
“Trust me when I say, unless she’s looking for a bit of rough, you’ve got no chance. Enough about that, though. Helen wants to know when-”
I held up my hand. “I know,” I interrupted. “And soon. I promise. I just need to get the rest of my place finished up.”
I’d been staying with Guy and his other half for more than a year now. It wasn’t entirely through any fault of my own. Some of it? For sure. When I fucked up, I fucked up hard, and Guy had been good enough to help me. He’d recently bought a small flat that I was going to rent from him, but it still needed some work in the kitchen and bathroom. It was partially on him to get things ready for me, but admittedly, I was dragging my feet a bit. I liked living with my best mate. His woman… not so much. She straight-up hated me, actually, and she was desperate for me to get out.
“I’ll get Johnny and Chris to get over there next week to get the plumbing sorted out, and then we’ll work overtime to finish the decorating,” Guy said, but then he paused, looking me in the eye. “You’ll be all right, you know?”
I hated it when he got serious on me. God knows I needed it sometimes, but the reminder of how bad things had got for me and how I’d needed someone to get me out of it when I’d promised myself I’d never need anyone made me feel like a loser.
“I know,” I told him. “I’m just as ready to get out of Helen’s way as she is to have me gone. But I can’t live in the new place if there’s nowhere to take a piss. If you ask me, you’re the one slowing this down so you don’t have to be alone with her again.”
“Hey,” Guy said, fixing me with a glare. “She’s put up with a hell of a lot from you. Don’t talk about her like that.”
I knew better than to push him. Even though he’d told me himself that she could be a cold-hearted bitch, he seemed to love her, and she had helped me out more than I’d ever thanked her for. It’s hard to thank someone who looks at you like you’re something she just scraped off her shoe, though.
“Sorry,” I said. “She’s not… that bad. Sometimes.”
Guy sighed. “Look, I know she hasn’t always been welcoming. And sometimes she’s grouchy and bitchy, but she’s also cooked and cleaned for you and-”
