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As if he could feel her gaze, he looked down. When their eyes met, heat flushed through her. How could a person’s eyes be so blue? She got lost for a second, just staring at the gold-brown scruff on his sharp jaw, the soft red fullness of his lips, when everything else about him was chiseled and hard.
“Do you—” The huskiness of his voice only distracted her more.
“Huh?”
He pushed a plate toward her more insistently.
A different, embarrassed flush rose to her cheeks as she grabbed it and ran it under the water. “Right, right. Sorry.”
He didn’t need to stand so close as he passed her the next one, but she didn’t tell him that. Wasn’t she the one who’d started the game of trying to make him break? With the way he’d been looking at her, she’d taken it as a personal challenge to get him to make a move or at least admit that there was something brewing between them.
Now here she was, right on the cusp of cracking herself.
What would he do if she did? If she made the real first move and turned to him. Reached up to graze her fingertips along his cheek.
If she leaned forward on her tiptoes and tugged him down so she could taste his mouth…
She shuddered inside, blushing furiously as she placed another plate on the rack inside the dishwasher. She’d been harboring these kinds of fantasies since she was a teenager. It was hard to tell how much was actually possible and how much was just the same nonsense she’d been imagining for years.
Unwilling to shatter the moment, she set it all aside and concentrated on cleaning up. He seemed content to do the same. Even if his presence was making her heart do weird flips behind her ribs, she tried not to let it show.
They fell into a rhythm, like they’d been working together like this forever. That made sense—they’d both been volunteering here for years, but it still felt unfairly kismet, somehow.
“Thanks,” she said after a couple of minutes. “By the way. For bringing in the folks from your company tonight.”
“Happy to do it.” He let out a rough sigh. “Well, for the most part.”
It was clear who he was talking about.
Chuckling quietly, she shook her head. “Yeah, Bryce is still a piece of work, huh?”
“You have no idea.”
The guy had barely lifted a finger the entire time he’d been here, and he’d eaten a solid dinner’s worth of food meant for the guests.
“How does he get away with it?”
“You know.” A dark undertone ran through Devin’s words.
She shivered, reminded again of how much strength Devin kept contained inside himself. He never used it, though, no matter how frustrated he got.
It made her feel… safe. It always had. Even when they’d been kids messing around in Uncle Arthur’s basement. Any time the other boys his age had gotten too rough around her, he’d stepped in and said something.
Which was probably part of how she’d ended up with this stupid crush on him in the first place.
“Yeah, I guess I do.”
People filed in and out of the kitchen, bringing new loads of dishes through. Zoe was indulging herself, spending this time rinsing plates when she should be out there directing traffic, but between Uncle Arthur, Sherry, and Tania, there were enough people running the show for her to dawdle a little longer. And the chance to stand so close to Devin was just too good to pass up.
“So you’ve really gotten involved here, huh?” he asked, moving to her other side to help her start loading the second washer.
She shrugged and passed him a stack of silverware. “I have the time right now. And I like helping out. Working with the guests. Getting to spend more time with Uncle Arthur.”
A smile stole across her face as she talked about it all. She’d missed everyone in her family while she’d been away at college, but her uncle was the only one who didn’t carry any baggage—or seem to have some sort of agenda for what she should do with her life.
Devin hummed in acknowledgment, giving her space to keep talking. It was refreshing.
“This place,” she continued, trying to sum it up. “The work we do here, the people we serve. It feels important.”
