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“Remi,” I say, sticking out my hand.
“Well, hello there.” He pushes back the brim of his cap to give me an up and down. “That’s some hair.”
“Hark who’s talking.”
The curly mullet escaping from under his hat is the same carroty shade as Emma’s.
“Fair enough.” His grin is bright and charming, also like Emma’s, minus the gap in the front teeth. The cousins are infinitely more similar than Jude and me—but we’re like a joke of genetics. “So how can I help?”
“I might have the worst job in the world for you….” Fuck, my sales pitch sucks. I should have practiced.
Tom only shrugs. “Used to work at a slaughterhouse. Can’t nothin’ in your walls can be worse than that.”
“I like your attitude…and your fluorescent hair discount.” I add that last bit hopefully. It’s hacky, but I’ll try anything.
Tom eats it up. “Absolutely…” His gaze lands lazy on my face and stays there as he smiles. “Us miscreants gotta stick together.”
It’s kind of fun following Tom’s hulking frame as he crawls through the attic, shimmies across the roof, examines the electrical panel in the cellar, and even drops down inside the walls to peek behind the old appliances. We’re really getting into the bones of the house.
We’re filthy and grinning by the time we emerge. Tom scribbles up a quote for me.
“It’s not too terrible. If you help a bit, I can probably do it for…I dunno…about this.”
He passes over his scrap of paper with the estimate at the bottom. It’s a hell of a lot better than I feared. Generous, even. He’s hooking me up.
Which could create its own set of problems. Fuck, I hope I didn’t lay it on too thick about the discount—I haven’t quite sunk to sucking cock for construction favors, and I’d prefer to keep my terrible blowjob decisions centered around drunken late nights and guys named “Alonso”.
“Thanks,” I say, trying to strike exactly the right balance. But because I’m an idiot, I add, “I know you could have stuck it to me way worse than that.”
Tom gives a low, huffing laugh. “That’s not how I like to stick it to pretty girls.”
Someone shoot me so I can stop making things worse.
“Well, thanks again.”
I don’t know if that makes it better or worse.
Tom just grins. “Let me get my tools.”
Bless him—Tom is my new best friend until we have lights and a stove that works.
“Can I see your kit?” I ask, already peeking in.
Tom hauls the dusty bag out of his truck. “You really are gonna make me fall in love.”
* * *
9
DANE
If I’m awake, I can hear every car that passes down my road. I could be in a coma and still hear Tom Turner’s truck. I glance out though the polarized glass and watch him roar past, his tanned, muscular arm resting on the open windowsill.
The bolt of jealousy that hits when I see him heading up to Remi’s place is swift and alarming. I barely know this girl and I shouldn’t give two shits who visits her, but I haven’t been able to get her out of my head.
She’s the reason I’m awake so early, after fevered dreams of sun-warmed flesh and nipple piercings cool as a sliver of unmelting ice.
She draws an aggression out of me I thought was long gone.
