The Renovation (Contemporary Reverse Harem 2)

She shrugged. “Eh, it’s okay. I don’t have the money for it anyway.”

What? “You have to have money to reno the house. Unless you can do it yourself, which it doesn’t look like you can.”

She set the food on the table, and it smelled freaking delicious. ‘Course I’d been eating so much takeout, anything fresh would have looked like a gourmet meal. And to sit with this beautiful woman, whose boyfriend was MIA.

Jackpot.

I reminded myself to behave. Part of the reason I’d barely spoken to her the whole time she’d lived there was that she was with that guy.

I wasn’t sure I believed the “business trip” story. But I did know I had a thing for this woman, and if the douchebag was stepping aside, I was going to look into stepping inside.

Chapter 3

JAYMA

I’d never paid much attention to my neighbor Carter before, but damn, he was a good-looking guy with his deep dimples and sparkly blue eyes. He’d always seemed friendly enough, but Lance was never into getting to know the neighbors, so I’d just never bothered with any of them, either.

Maybe things would be different now.

It was nice to have company for dinner. The place had been awfully empty lately and even more dumpy than ever with Lance out. Not that I was sorry he was gone. I was only sorry I’d spent part of my life with his lame ass, having let him talk me into putting this mess of a house in my name because he had too much debt from law school. And he’d left me with his cat. Although I did like the cat.

He’d been making seventy-five percent of the monthly payment, and I threw in the other twenty-five. It was pretty equitable when you looked at both our incomes. Then, he paid the bills from our joint account. Except for when he didn’t. Like the last few months, apparently.

And now a handsome neighbor sat across from me at my dining table, instead of Lance. I probably should have been embarrassed to bring him in the house, but it was so obvious it was going to be renovated that it didn’t matter what the “before” looked like. Only with the way things were going, there was going to be no “after.” The “before” would continue as the status quo. And I’d get kicked out and have to move in with Shelle. And her dogs.

“Thank you for dinner,” Carter said, taking his plate to the sink.

The only time Lance took his plate off the table was when I asked him to. Which I had to do all the time.

Carter leaned back against the kitchen sink. “That was a great dinner, thank you. Wanna walk down the street for ice cream?”

“Oh, yeah. Let’s do it.” Nice, thoughtful.

On the way to the corner store, Carter’s hand brushed mine. I couldn’t be sure, but it seemed like it might have been on purpose. It had been so long since anyone besides Lance had touched me, it felt strange. Like putting on a new pair of shoes. Foreign. Different. But okay.

Once we were served, we stood outside the shop in that ice cream coma people get where they just lick their cones. The one where they stop talking and just look off in the distance like they’ve been transported to a better place by their tasty treat.

“Hey. Can I tell you something?” Carter asked.

“Um, yeah. Sure.” A drip of chocolate coconut ran down my hand, and I licked it off. Never waste ice cream.

“I’d always thought about asking you out, except you had—I mean, have—a boyfriend.”

What? Shit. Did he know something? Ugh. I didn’t want him, or anyone besides Shelle, to know Lance had dumped me. I was just too embarrassed by the whole thing, and explaining what had gone down would have been excruciating. I’d have to do it at some point, but I wasn’t ready yet, and besides, this guy was pretty much a stranger anyway.

I stopped licking my cone long enough to look at him. His light brown hair shone in the streetlights. I didn’t know the guy from a hole in the wall—I mean, I’d met him before, sort of. But I was beginning to like what I saw.

Good thing it was dark, because I felt my face flushing. “Thank you, Carter. That’s sweet.” It felt so old-fashioned, to be standing on the curb, eating ice cream under a streetlamp, and have a boy say something nice. It took me away from my worries for a moment.

He looked up at the dark sky. “Yeah, well.”

We headed home, and wouldn’t you know, his hand brushed mine again, not once, but twice. As if he were testing me.

Could he know Lance was gone? No. No way.

And he certainly didn’t know the house was on its way to foreclosure. He couldn’t know Lance had skipped the last few payments. Unless he was some sort of mind reader.

This guy might have thought he wanted to go out with me, but that’s only because he was blissfully unaware of the shit situation I was in the middle of.