99 Percent Mine

I try to remember. She tried to teach me how to read cards, but I was always too busy. Too tired. Too hungover. Too overseas. “I think it means perseverance and courage. But I’ll have to look it up.”

Ben says, “Maybe there are more cards hidden around the house. It’s a sign. Tell everyone to keep an eye out,” he adds to Alex, and the fact that he hasn’t just dismissed it as girly nonsense has me beaming.

I finish the wall tiles by midmorning, and while I do have a few more heart-skip moments, I hold up well. Colin has been watching me like a buzzard waiting for a carcass. I forget to eat my lunch or drink and have no idea what time it is when I pull up the final section of floor tiles and blot my sweaty face into the hem of my tank.

“Wow,” Tom says from the doorway. “Okay.” He looks around the room like he’s never seen it before.

I’m a shaky mess. “I don’t know how long this should have taken me, so I can’t tell if you’re actually impressed.” I’m nervous as his perfect eyes trace over the walls, floors, up my legs, and to my face.

“You did this by yourself?” He’s shocked.

“She’s a machine.” Ben gives me a crooked grin and turns back to his own task.

Tom steps close and assesses me. “You didn’t push it too hard?”

He takes me by the wrist, feeling for my pulse. His other hand scrapes my hair back from my face. I shouldn’t like his brand of fussing. I should step out of his hands. But maybe I should try to wear a little softness on the outside. I lean into his touch.

“I was completely fine.” I see Colin’s lips purse. At least he didn’t snitch. “Tom, look. Loretta left us something.” I show him the tarot tile.

He laughs, and the afternoon sunlight turns the floating dust particles into glitter around us. It turns his eyes to whiskey, and they get me drunk. A guy like this? He’s the only one who’s ever made my stomach flip.

“She always liked to make things interesting.” His arms wrap around me. He squeezes me tight and says above my head, “You did good. I’m so impressed.”

I put my arms around his waist and I breathe in lungfuls of him, my cheek on the pad of his chest and the stud in my nipple pinching in the most pleasurable way. Any second I will screw this up. Better enjoy it while it lasts.

“Where’s my hug, boss?” Alex says as he reappears. Ben and Colin both laugh. Oh my God, what is wrong with me? I’m getting high off this part-of-the-team feeling.

Tom says, “This one gets special privileges. You know that.” When I lean back, I can see Tom’s smiling, too. He releases me and toes at the ancient adhesive marks on the floor. “We’re ahead of schedule in here. Good work, everyone.”

I am so elated I’m surprised I’m not two feet off the ground. Making Tom proud? It’s like snorting a rainbow. It cannot last. “Okay, you’d better leave now.”

“She’s pretty good at this.” Alex picks up my last box of broken tiles. “And she works at a bar. Friday night is going to be lit.” He clomps off.

“What does he mean, Friday?” Tom focuses sharply on my face. “What’s happening then?” Ben and Colin clear out, saying bathroom and water, respectively.

And just like that, my feet are back on the ground, and I’ve fucked up again.

Chapter 15

/> I just said I’d do cheap drinks on Friday night at the bar.” I turn away to pick at a chipped piece of tile still on the wall, but Tom puts his hand on my elbow.

“Who’d you ask?”

“I just told Alex to ask everybody who was interested.” I take a drink from my water bottle. “I’m sorry, but you can’t come. You’re the boss. No one will be able to relax.”

He bangs the door shut behind him with his boot. “You just can’t help yourself.”

Everything inside me leaps in fright. I refuse to put my hand over my startled heart. Playing the cardio card is cheating. “Oh, great. What have I done now?”

He’s angry eyes and crossed arms. “I have to push everyone hard to finish this place. When it’s done, then they drink. For now, they work.”

“But what they do in their free time—”

“I don’t want them getting caught up in the Darcy Barrett whirlwind. Believe me, once you’re in it, you can’t get out.” His phone buzzes and he rejects the call hard enough to crack the glass. “This is week one, Darce. You should have asked me first.”

“All I did was suggest that—”

“You invited the entire site crew out to a bar, where the hot homeowner”—here, he indicates quotation marks with his fingers in a way that feels insulting—“is going to lay on cheap drinks. Cancel it. Half of them have to work Saturday morning.”