She returns her gaze to me, still smiling. She’s trying to make it sound like it’s a give and take situation, when really she’s the only one giving, and trying not to make me feel as pathetic as we both know I am.
“You can spare that kind of time?” I ask, my pride falling apart as we speak.
She grins. “Showcases are only on Fridays. I’m on a tour that my dad set up with some connections of his.”
“You’re one of Shasta’s girls?” I ask, confused.
She beams at me. “Yeah. Shasta owes my dad for something, so she came to look at my work. She fell in love with it, and the next thing I knew, she was setting me up with this gallery tour special she was doing. It was a huge break.”
I reach over and tug one of those curls before I can stop myself, and she continues to hold a grin, amused…not slapping my hand away. That’s got to be a good sign.
But then she turns and slides off the bed, and I listen as she moves through the house, opening the fridge that echoes through the large and otherwise empty home.
“This place is massive. And it’s just you who lives here?” she calls out.
“Yeah. I like…space.”
“You mean you like showing off,” she says like a true smartass.
I grin. “Maybe a little. Believe it or not, I worked hard to earn my money. Galleries are just a hobby for me. I own at least fifteen of the best in the world. But my money started from building a chip that changed the way cell phones work.”
“Huh. So that’s why they’re so expensive,” she deadpans, which is…not what I was expecting.
She’s a hard one to impress.
Then again, I do look like death worked me into an early grave, and she’s here because no one else sees the need to bother with me. That’s not very impressive.
Just as she comes back into the room, holding a bottle of water and wearing a teasing smile, I ask, “Why are you doing this?”
She rolls her eyes.
“Because I didn’t get a nose full of water so I could drag you out of that lake, just to watch you suffer alone. Besides, I really do hate gym socks. They disgust me. My boots have been scared. I’ll have Harry drop my things off, if you’ll let me borrow your phone.”
I try not to smile, because I don’t want her to see just how relieved I am. That way she won’t feel guilty if she decides this isn’t a job she has to take.
“I’ll pay you, obviously.”
She swats her hand like she’s batting away the offer. “If I wanted money, I would have already made demands. You can pay me back by giving me a space to do some art. I get stir crazy if I don’t have room to spread out, and Harry’s place has been making me stir crazy. Terrible things happen when I get stir crazy.”
My smile grows.
“What terrible things?” I ask with as much seriousness as I can muster.
She gives me a stern look.
“I tug at my hair. It gets frizzy. You don’t want to see me when that happens.”
I laugh, then groan when it hurts. As the pain subsides, I gesture behind me.
“You can take the room next to this one for art. The one down the hall is the biggest guest room if you want to sleep in there.”
She spreads out on my bed, lifting the remote to find a channel. “I’m good sleeping here. Trust me, you’re going to need my help if you have to pee in the middle of the night.”
I study her profile, wondering why in the hell she even gives a damn.
It takes no time at all to realize that Kylie Malone just does whatever in the hell she wants. And it’s usually the nice thing.
Even if it is for a dick like me.
Chapter 5
Wild Ones Tip #894
Fire extinguishers are a necessary evil in our presence.
Make sure all flammable rooms are stocked with at least three of them.
KYLIE
On day seven, he’s staying awake more than he’s sleeping, which is progress. I’m sort of glad he can’t go upstairs. Then I’d have to explain why there’s duct-tape covering the window.
Well, the hole in the window, rather.
It’s not like I meant for the hairdryer to go through it. It’s not like I intentionally spilled an entire bottle of baby oil that resulted in me falling while that hairdryer flew out said window.
Don’t worry. I’ll nail it shut with some ply wood I found out back once he’s dead to the world again and can’t hear me hammering away.
No harm. No foul. At least not until he’s healed enough to go up there and see the damage. I’ll be long gone by then.
Until then, I’ll continue putting images of him mostly naked into my mind while I give him sponge baths. Too many times I’ve run my fingers over those lines of muscles, wondering what’d it’d be like to trace them with my tongue.