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Honestly, sometimes he was so pretty it hurt to look at him.
“I do?”
“Yeah. You dragged me out, and I hadn’t finished my fucking meal.”
“Wasn’t aware that you’d be so livid about my mom’s pot roast.”
“I was hungry,” he insisted. “Where are we on that burger? Fries too, now that I’m thinking about it.”
She snorted. “You think you deserve chips too?”
“Absolutely.”
“Fine, but you’re getting a milkshake too, I have to insist. It’s what you deserve.”
He laughed, and she smiled too. “You’re ordering the same. You ate less than I did. Plus, I don’t want to look like a hog eating while you’re sitting there on your phone.”
“Fine. First burger place I see. I’ll stop.”
“Damn right you will.” He reached for her phone. “You got other music on here?”
“No,” she deadpanned. “That’s it.”
“Yeah, I’m changing it. Your stuff’s too sad and chicky.”
“Chicky?”
“Yup. Sorry about it, Teags.”
She took a deep breath and let it out again. She still wasn’t sure what the fuck she was doing. But at least she’d sort of saved face.
Jaxon’s back ached, and his foot was going numb, but this had to be done. The staircase was wobbly.
Well, it did have to be done eventually, maybe not today, but he didn’t want tothinkright now. The thinking thing was hard when he couldn’t pinpoint exactly what he wanted to focus on. His mind was full of too many things that he didn’t want to contemplate right now.
First and foremost on that list, the woman whose hair he’d found stuck to his shirt that morning. It was undoubtedly Teagan’s. Over a foot long and auburn gold.
It had been stuck to his shirt because he wasstillsleeping on her couch, andthatwas because he just didn’t want to come back here. To the house he owned. Even though he had the water running now.
His reasonswhywere yet another topic he didn’t want to dwell on.
He shook the banister, frowning when it still wriggled. That wouldn’t do. It had to be sturdy. The first thing potential buyers would do is raise their eyebrows at a shaky staircase. He didn’t have to turn around and test the handrail. He already knew that was acting like it was anchored in a plum pudding.
The uncarpeted stairs were pretty uncomfortable to sit upon, but it couldn’t be helped. As he pushed up to his feet, he cracked his back before descending to the first floor and kneeling to search through his toolbox for drywall anchors. He’d have to redo the entire thing. It’d be easier to just put new drywall anchors in than to blindly try to reinforce the ones that were there.
He tried to tell himself that he’d leave Teagan’s after he fixed this problem, but he knew it wasn’t true.
In his defense, Teagan hadn’t asked him to leave either. They’d both grown rather comfortable with their current arrangement. And if he’d learned anything in his time of home renovations, it was that if something wasn’t broken, don’t even attempt to fix it, because you’ll end up with a much bigger problem.
And if there was a bigger problem than what he was suffering through now, he didn’t want to know. Jaxon got a pain in his chest whenever he looked at her. It rolled through him like a wave of fire, touching every single part of his insides and leaving them raw and exposed. It felt as if his heart was beating outside his chest.
God be damned. Ever since the dinner at her parents’ house, he’d been this way. A sad little husk of a man who lived for sharing the same air as a woman who thought they were just friends.
It happened with no warning, whether they were just talking, or whenever they did something so painfully domestic, he’d have run screaming in the other direction if it was anyone else.
“He spent enough time dwelling on it while he was looking at Teagan. All he wanted to do now that he was alone wasnotthink about it.”
He found the drywall anchors and grabbed his drill from its charging dock. Removing the hand railing was going to be easy. Maybe twenty minutes of work if the drywall was in good condition.
