And I’m really not answering that.
“I need to grab my bag,” I tell him, stepping onto the manicured lawn that I mentally gave Ted props for maintaining when I got here.
“Where is it?”
“Over here.”
I pass a short, thick palm of some sort and green bushes cut to the exact same size. At the far corner, behind a plant with large, waxy leaves sits my backpack.
“You hid your backpack in my landscaping?” he asks from the steps.
I sling it on. “Yup. What else was I supposed to do with it?”
“Good question, I guess.” He watches me approach. “That’s all you have?”
I stop in front of him and try to ignore the way he smells like fresh laundry mixed with faint notes of cinnamon. “This is it.”
“Did you say you sold everything you own?” He bites the inside of his cheek. “Because you’re moving to Hawaii, right?”
“That’s what I said.”
Mischief sparkles in his eyes. “You’re not going to talk about that, are you?”
I press my lips together in displeasure.
It’s not that I don’t want to talk about my woes to him specifically. I don’t want to talk about them at all. The more time I devote to time in the past, the less time I can spend in the right here and now. And, considering the right here and now includes a guy with cheekbones to fit a model, I’m good without spilling my dirty laundry in the front yard.
“Do you really want to stand here and listen to me tell you all about my problems and failures in life?” I ask.
The mischief spreads to his lips, quirking them up in the corners.
“I didn’t think so,” I say, gripping the backpack straps at my shoulders.
“I didn’t say no.”
“You didn’t say yes, either. When people are sure of something, they just say yes.”
His brows pull together. “I have to disagree.”
“Good for you.”
I start across the lawn toward Libby’s. I don’t look to see if he’s following me. It’s not necessary. His energy bounces off me from behind.
“Saying yes to things too quickly is a bad idea,” he says in a rush from what can’t be more than two steps away. “You should listen to a question before you answer. Trust me. If not, you get roped into things like dates and events and favors. And work.”
I chuckle. “Work?”
We stop on the sidewalk leading to Libby’s door. He shoves his hands in his pockets and wears a sheepish grin.
“I didn’t mean work, work,” he says. “That made me sound super lazy, didn’t it?”
“Yes, sir. It did.”
“Great,” he says with a groan.
My cheeks ache from smiling. “Who am I to judge you? You want to be lazy? Fine. What’s it to me?”
“Exactly. You can’t break into my house and then start throwing around judgment. What kind of person would that make you?” He narrows his eyes. “It would make you a criminal judging me for not being passionate about spreadsheets.”
I gasp, making him laugh.
He leans against a pillar on Libby’s porch, one long leg crossed in front of the other. He chuckles to himself while his fingers fly over his phone screen. A shit-eating grin spreads across his cheeks.
As soon as his eyes lift to mine, my phone vibrates in my pocket. I pull it out and see a text from Libby.
Libby: YOU BROKE INTO BOONE MASON’S HOUSE? OMG JAXI.
My gaze snaps up to Boone’s.
“You told Libby?” I ask.
“Yeah.” He smiles. “I wanted to make sure she knew you made it.”
I roll my eyes. “I think you were trying to embarrass me.”
“I just told her the truth.”
“Which was …?”
“That we met.”
“I bet.”
A truck pulls up to the curb and honks twice. A big, burly man hops out of the truck. He makes his way to us.
“Heya, Boone,” he says in a thick accent I can’t quite place. “Heard ya need some help.”
“Thanks for coming, Leo,” Boone says. “I need a door opened. Can you help?”
Leo’s laughter is more cackle than anything. “Does a bear shit in the woods?”
Boone tries not to laugh as he looks at me. “I guess it does.”
“You’re damn right it does.” Leo takes a set of long, thin metal pieces with curved ends out of his pocket. “This is all on the up-and-up, right?”
“That’s what she tells me,” Boone teases, elbowing me in the side.
“Of course,” I say, firing Boone a warning glare that just entertains him more. “This is my cousin’s house. She forgot to give me the keys.”
Leo slurps what I think is tobacco spit out of the corner of his mouth. “Yeah, that’s what they all say.”
I’m not sure who they are, nor am I sure how Boone knows Leo. It doesn’t seem like a peas-and-carrots sort of situation. But after the day I’ve had, I’m too tired to really think it through.
A pop ricochets through the air and, with a twist of the knob, the door springs free. Scents of apples and cinnamon waft through the air.