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“God, I hate you right now.”
He laughs and squeezes my shoulder. “I’m not thrilled to be suggesting this either. Look, I could swap you one of my smaller jobs, but it involves sorting out the yard after a sewerage leak.”
I make a face. Lyle, or sewerage? Tough choice.
“Look at it another way,” he says. “You’d be earning yourself a few points helping out your true love’s friend, wouldn’t you?”
I stalk to the driver’s side and open the door. Fan-bloody-tastic.
The bastard.
All those nicely fitting designer t-shirts and spotless slinky jeans, the kind smiles, the twinkle in his eyes. All the complicated tech talk he does over the phone. Even the scents wafting from his kitchen have me scowling. Does this guy have to be amazing at everything?
And there’s another two full days of him ahead of me.
Keep your head down and focus on the yard. Keep him out of your mind. And Christ, stop imagining the two of them together.
I hack with vengeance at the overgrowth and toss straggly branches into a heap at the side of the house. Lyle’s amazing villa overlooks the bays and has bedrooms to spare. It’s like he bought the house expecting he’d soon have a whole family to fill it. Or Robin and all his pets.
Amazing house, amazing job, amazing cook, amazing friend—
I breathe in through my nose and exhale slowly—
“Found a pair!”
I turn and he waves a pair of gloves at me with a crooked smile.
I lay the loppers down on the patchy grass and wipe the sweat off my brow with my arm. “Thought you hired me to do the grunt work?”
He shrugs. “I hired you for other reasons, remember?”
Right. “You’ll get all sweaty.”
So how about you just go back inside?
He slips on the gloves. Two of his fingers catch in one space, and he flicks the glove off as he tries to right it. It hits me smack on the nose before dropping to my boot.
I crouch to pick up the offending glove. Fluffy, soft wool. Cosy, I’m sure. Amazing on frosty mornings. Not gardening gloves. These won’t last five minutes—they’ll be full of dirt and torn to shreds in no time.
I look up. He’s flushing as he tries—more carefully—to put on the other one. “This one fits better.”
I take a breath but I’ve got nothing. I shake my head with a short laugh and move to my duffel bag, rummage around until I find a thick pair of leather gardening gloves. A faded yellow and slightly stiff, they aren’t pretty, but they’ll protect his smooth, gardening-virgin skin.
“Try these.”
They’re a bit big on him, and they definitely don’t suit the rest of his look, but that works for me. “Ready?”
He straightens and his hazel eyes scan the mess in front of us. He curls his fingers towards him. “Bring it on.”
By the time I’m gathering up the piles of weeds and prunings and carting them to my truck for disposal, Lyle looks about half an hour past eating his offer to help. His t-shirt is soaked with sweat, and he walks like his jeans are giving him some serious chafing.
I smirk behind a mouthful of water, and offer him the bottle when he passes.
He takes it and guzzles the lot. “How the hell do you do this all day?”
“There’s just something about it. It feels good to work hard and make space for something beautiful, out in the sun with the breeze and everything. I couldn’t sit in front of a computer the whole day.”
Lyle glances longingly back at the house, as if getting back to his desk is exactly what he wants.
I shift a few branches onto the bigger pile at the fence. “I can take over from here. Go on in.”
The look of relief that creeps over his face is almost comical—he takes a breath to speak but the doorbell cuts him off and I know exactly who it’ll be because his eyes light right up. He steps back towards the house and jiggles my empty drink bottle. “I’ll fill this up for you. Back in a tick.”
Ah, shite.
I kick at some loose scrub. I’m an arse. How long has that light been coming into his eyes while Robin just ploughs on oblivious? What I really should be feeling is sympathetic. I stand staring at the yard, sinking into the miserable realisation that Lyle is a genuinely good—amazing—guy.
“How’s it going?” An arm lands across my shoulders, the crook of the elbow against the sweaty skin at my nape. Under the pretence of picking up larger shears, I free Robin from my sweat.
“It’s going.” I glance at him; he’s frowning now. “How was your day?”
Robin stuffs his hands into his pockets and sighs. “A few cats were brought in. One Jack Russell picked up.”
Lyle returns, holding out my drink bottle. “Here you go.” I choke back a laugh at the fresh T-shirt he’s changed into; his hair once more perfectly frames his face. “Cold from the fridge. I squeezed in some fresh lemon.”
