It was strange, but I trusted the puppy with him now. In fact, I was more concerned for Wrecker when he was around Toby than the other way around. This morning, I’d caught my kid hanging onto his tail, refusing to let go as Wrecker pulled him around the place, and not once had the pup looked put out by it.
“Apparently they have separate demolition and construction crews. Maybe they’re worried the lack of brain cells in the people they hire will confuse them when it comes to doing both of those jobs?”
I’d like to say I was joking but going on what I’d seen of the company’s employees, I really wasn’t. One of them had actually checked if the electricity to the property had been cut off by touching one of the bare wires with his hand in front of me.
Smiling sympathetically at me, Tana jerked her chin at the door. “You go and do what you need to, and if I can help at all, just shout. I’ll give Bub his dinner and a bath, then work some while he sleeps.”
Deciding to hell with it, I bent down and brushed my lips across hers, then straightened and winked before I walked out.
Maybe it’d give her something to contemplate, so when we finally had the discussion about us that was inevitably going to happen, and I asked her on a date, her mind would be in the same place as mine. There was just no other acceptable outcome, and I was willing to fight to get her to see that if that’s what it took.
I was so tired, I swear it felt like my body was dying one limb at a time. Every muscle hurt as I finished off my shower and wrapped a towel around my lower half, making a mental note—again—to get some of that drain unblocking stuff for my shower.
I’d noticed that the water was taking progressively longer to drain out of it a few weeks ago, and then last week, it’d almost overflowed while I was in the middle of washing shampoo out of my hair. I kept meaning to get a bottle of the stuff, but I kept forgetting and having to use Toby’s bathroom.
Turning off the light, I opened the door and turned left in the hallway to go to my room, not realizing that in my exhaustion, I hadn’t tied the towel tightly enough for it to stay in place.
I was about five feet away from my bedroom door when it dropped to the ground. Given that it was two o’clock in the morning, I didn’t give it a second thought as I stumbled into my bedroom.
As I dropped face-first onto my bed, the sound of a door closing in the hallway registered, but I was already heading into sleepy town, so I ignored it.
The following day when I came downstairs to breakfast and saw Tana’s face, her blush deepening as I walked past her, I put it down to the kiss I’d given her before I’d left. Blushing had to be good—or, at least better than a fist to the face, right?
It wasn’t until I was halfway across the paddock that I remembered the door closing last night after I’d lost the towel. I couldn’t say I’d ever examined my ass in the mirror to rate it out of ten, so hopefully, I hadn’t traumatized her.
Even more hopefully, it’d make her think about me through the day as much as I did about her.
ELEVEN
SANTANA
I’d managed to order a normal bathing suit online, so as I got into the hot tub for book club, I took the opportunity to glare at Addy as she snickered into her bottle of water.
Toby was in a portable swing next to us, the breeze keeping him cool as he was gently rocked from side to side, likely dreaming of ways to torment Wrecker. I hadn’t been able to bring the puppy with us because Addy’s dog was wary of him, so we were going to introduce them to each other slowly.
“I can’t believe you’d ruin my day by not wearing the gift I spent hours picking out for you,” she chuckled. “I even charged my phone to the max so I could take photos of you in it. Sadie didn’t believe I’d get you to wear it when I first ordered it, and she’s just so sad and disappointed she missed out. You wouldn’t deprive her of that, would you?”
“If you can glue the ashes from the fire pit back together, I’ll put it on,” I taunted. “Anyway, if you were that good of a friend, you’d fill the void in Sadie’s life by putting one on yourself.”
Addy looked way too smug for my liking. “Well, if I had one, I would. I don’t see a hairy man chest swimsuit around here, though, do you?”