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“I get it,” Devin said quietly.
He would.
But then one corner of his mouth tilted down. “You said you have the time ‘right now.’ You see that changing soon?”
“Ugh.” Zoe huffed out a breath as she scrubbed at a particularly stubborn spot on a plate. “I don’t know. Apparently, at some point I’m supposed to get a real job.”
He chuckled and passed her another dish. “What? Overrated.”
“Says the guy who just got the big promotion.”
“It’s not that big a deal,” he said, rolling his eyes, but his posture straightened slightly. It was definitely at least a medium-size deal. Humble as he might be, she hoped he was getting some satisfaction from his work.
She considered for a second before asking, “How did you know? That construction was what you wanted to do?”
It was the same basic question she’d asked Lian earlier—unhelpful as that conversation had been.
“I don’t know,” he answered slowly. “I didn’t exactly have a ton of options.”
“Smart guy like you?”
He laughed, only it didn’t entirely sound funny. “I like working with my hands. Got a decent eye for it. Pay’s good, relatively speaking. Arthur was able to help me get my foot in the door when I needed—when I decided it was time to find a place of my own.”
There was something he wasn’t saying, his voice dipping low and pulling at something in her chest. Before she could probe any deeper, though, he looked at her.
“So, how are things going with the whole real job thing, then?” he asked.
Well, that was certainly a way to kill the mood.
“Ugh. Terrible.” Her mom had laid into her just that afternoon, telling her she wasn’t sending out enough résumés or casting her net wide enough, prompting her to waste a good hour or two rage-scrolling Monster. “I’m putting in applications for jobs pretty much all over the state at this point. A few in Atlanta, too.”
His eyebrows pinched together. “You’d really go that far?”
“I don’t want to.” She liked it here. She always had. Things here were easy. Comfortable. Being close to her family—when they weren’t driving her up a wall or dictating her love life and her job search, anyway—was nice.
But she’d do what she had to do. She’d always wanted to get out on her own, and this extended period of being between things was making her itch to be independent again.
It wasn’t like it was with her brother. Han had come home when their father died and had taken over—well, everything. His sense of duty was giving him white hairs.
She’d choose to stay here, too, if it worked out. But she had to keep her options open. She couldn’t just bestuckhere because she couldn’t make it on her own.
“We’ll see how things go.” She shrugged. It was such an annoying platitude, but that was her life now.
“Well, I hope you stay close.” The way he said it was so genuine, she jerked her gaze up to meet his, but he was pointedly studying the dishes. After a second, he smiled, his tone lightening as he darted a teasing glance her way. “I mean, how can Han kill anyone who dares to look at you if you live far away?”
That was it. She shoved him, and he laughed, plates clanking together as he bumped into them where they were so neatly stacked in the racks. He playfully pushed back, and then what choice did she have, with her wet hands and all, but to flick some water in his face?
He sputtered, the droplets clinging to his skin in interesting ways, and her breath sped up. She went to do it again, but she must have telegraphed her intentions too clearly, because he grabbed her wrist before she could. Her heart hammered in her chest.
She stared up into his eyes, and for a second, everything around them faded, because she had seen that look before.
About two seconds before he got hit in the head with a football.
“Someone wanna tell me why we’re out there doing all the work while these two are messing around in here?”
Devin straightened, pulling away from her so fast, she had to catch herself from falling over.
Apparently, playing the part of the football tonight, Bryce came over holding one measly dish, which he popped—still caked in drying potatoes—straight into the dishwasher. Struggling not to let on how flustered she was by the unwelcome interruption, Zoe plucked it out and set it in the sink, shooting him a glare.
