In that moment, I knew Fisher Mann was bad news.
“There you are!” Mom started to open the door at the same moment Fisher turned the handle and pulled inward.
Was it the right time to tell my mom she couldn’t go to Los Angeles because her landlord looked at me like his next meal? But more than that … I couldn’t believe she had no response to his nearly naked body on full display in front of her daughter.
“Sorry. I was in the shower,” Fisher said while he gave his towel a slight adjustment in the wrong direction! He lowered it an inch.
Heat gathered in my cheeks. I had only seen men like him on television or with my friends when no one’s parents were home. It felt forbidden then, and it didn’t feel any less forbidden with my mom standing between us.
“So you met Reese. Isn’t she beautiful? Even more stunning than her pictures. Don’t you think?”
Dear God, please make this stop. Make HIM stop.
Stop being so … everything.
My mom, too busy giving me her most adoring expression, looked on the verge of crying again, while Sin—with his disheveled hair, overexposed flesh, and hard muscles—wet his lips and nodded. “She’s perfect, Rory. Almost angelic.”
What was that supposed to mean? I contemplated his wording. Did he know I went to a Christian academy? Was he making a jab at my religion? My faith? My youth? My level of experience? Maybe it wasn’t a biblical reference to an actual angel. What if he thought I was truly beautiful?
I quickly shook my head to derail that train of thought. Of course, I didn’t want Fisher to find me attractive to any degree. He was older than me by more than a few years. He didn’t look like a man of faith. Yes, I realized that was another judgment, but my mind did its own thing. Was he with my mom … as in with her in the biblical sense?
“I told Reese you might have a job for her.” She glanced back at the naked fisherman.
Ugh! Why did that have to go through my head? I would forever imagine him naked with a fishing pole in his hand … maybe naked except for a pair of those fly-fishing boots reaching his mid-thigh region.
Stop!
“Sure. I can keep her busy with lots of odds and ends. Some days you could work in the office with my secretary, Hailey. Other days you might come with me to job sites. Drop off lunches. Grab supplies.”
There was a long silence.
“Reese?” my mom said.
“Huh?” I hummed, slightly incoherently.
Fisher bent to the side like he was lowering his body to fit into the view of a camera lens. But there was no camera, just my gaze affixed to his abs and the teasing of dark hair peeking out from the top of his towel. The coveted happy trail. No not coveted. At least, not by me. Nope.
“Hello?” Fisher said, and that was when I realized he’d caught me gawking at him, just inches from his … uh … lower pelvic area.
I needed the fire department to extinguish the embarrassment from my face. “S-sorry …” I jerked my gaze away from him and folded my arms over my chest, staring down at my feet as I rocked back and forth on the balls of them several times. “A job. Yes. That would be great. Thanks.”
“Everything okay?” my mom asked.
“Yeah. It’s just been a long day of traveling. That’s all.” I shifted my focus to things around the kitchen. He kept it rather clean, unsure of what I expected from a guy who worked in construction. And he liked bananas and apples. He must have had two dozen bananas and an equal number of apples in a glass bowl by his toaster. Apples … the fruit of temptation. How appropriate.
“We’ll let you get dressed before your towel falls off, and you show Reese more than she wants to see. I haven’t had the sex talk with her yet.”
Let. Me. Die!
She really said that. To him! Prison had done things to my mom. I couldn’t remember her being so forward, so blunt, so embarrassing.
“Oh my gosh …” I covered my face with my hands. “Thanks for embarrassing me. I’m an adult now, ya know?”
I was an adult covering her flushed face. I was an adult who hadn’t had sex because I wasn’t married. I was an adult who fit in with my grandparents, my church family, and my friends from the Christian academy. Apparently, I wasn’t an adult in my mom’s eyes, and something told me I wasn’t an adult in Fisher’s eyes. Or maybe I was. That was the most terrifying thought at that moment.
Chapter Four
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to embarrass you.” My mom laughed as we headed back downstairs. “I’ve been stressing out over how to treat you.” She opened the fridge and plucked two sodas from the bottom shelf, handing one to me.