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The beginning of the meal was spent in silence, but Jaxon spoke up soon enough.
“Not really looking forward to going back home…”
“Oh really?”
“Yeah, the heat’s still not fixed. Your place is sowarm.”
“Oh, I thought a blanket nest on the floor was the height of comfort?” she teased.
He laughed. “Not for the long-term, as it turns out.”
“You could always stay here,” she replied, hoping she sounded nonchalant.
He paused for a moment as if he were actually considering it. “No, no, I couldn’t do that.”
“Why not? Everyone already thinks we’re together, so it wouldn’t be remiss to anyone we see regularly. Plus, I have heat.”
He made a short sound that could have been a snort. “Yeah but-”
“You could sleep on the hide-a-bed, of course.”
“You have a hide-a-bed,” he stated. Not really a question, but hehadjust been poking around in her sofa.
“Yes, and currently, it’s not being used.”
“You wouldn’t mind me crashing there?”
“Not at all,” she replied. She actually hadn’t been sleeping very well since the whole Eric debacle, and now that she knew he still had his eye on them, she was fairly certain it wouldn’t get better, so this was really a perfect solution to a problem she was only beginning to see.
“Okay,” he replied.
“I could ask you in a flashier way if you’d rather…” Teagan said.
“Normally, I’d say no, but I’m sort of curious about how you’d fancy that up.”
“Please Jaxon, come sleep on my hide-a-bed. It’s so very cold and hidden in my sofa.”
He snorted and had to reach for his water glass before he could answer.
“Anything for you, Teags.”
“Thank you, Jaxon.” She meant it. The tension went out of her shoulders and she tucked into her dinner.
Chapter Nine
Jaxon scrolled through his dashboard on his phone with one hand, holding his half-eaten sandwich in the other. He’d packed it for lunch, but then he hadn’teatenlunch, so he’d recycled it for dinner instead.
He wasn’t really looking at his phone, but it was better than staring at the painting Teagan had hanging on the wall in front of him. At least this way he looked like he was doingsomething.
Teagan was in the kitchen, emptying the dishwasher. Something he’d offered to do for her as soon as he was finished eating. She’d said yes, and now she was doing it, anyway.
He’d only been here for about three nights, but he was noticing a pattern with Teagan. She’d accept help, but then complete the task herself, anyway. He wasn’t sure if it was a weird tick because she was the oldest daughter in her family and therefore expected to complete tasks like these, or if it was just a weird tick because she was Teagan.
Brad had no such qualms about housework, that was for certain.
Three nights here already.
He hadn’t wanted to stay longer than that first night. But he wasn’t any closer to fixing his malfunctioning sump pump than he had been at the beginning. In fact, he was running out of ideas. Nothing seemed to work, and the water just kept happening. This one was a pickle for sure, but he’d been told the house needed heavy maintenance and repairs when he’d bought it.
