Trouble (Dogwood Lane 3)

“How much time did this take you?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” I say, feeling my cheeks heat. “I worked on it for a few hours last night. I wasn’t sure what direction Meredith wanted to go. I was just kind of messing around.”

“Holy shit, Ave.” He gives me a huge, wide grin. “What else can you do?”

I couldn’t smile wider if I tried. I grin from ear to ear, my cheeks aching as I all-out beam at his compliment. “A girl can’t give away all her secrets.”

“Hopefully a boy can dig around and discover some more.” He wiggles his eyebrows until I giggle. He seems to catch himself, and his features smoothen out. “In all honesty, these are beyond impressive.”

“Let’s not get crazy.”

He hands the book back to me. Our fingertips touch, rocketing a blast of energy through my body. His eyes go wide, but he recovers quickly—probably quicker than me.

He blows out a breath. “Better get back to work.”

Work. Yup.

As he turns and walks away, I swear I hear him mumbling something about friends.

I resume my spot on the floor and try to focus on sketching the lake. The pencil goes back and forth across the paper, and my brain bounces back and forth between Penn and the drawing.

People who are ridiculously attracted to one another can be friends . . . right?

I look up to see him wiping his face with the edge of his shirt. A slice of his abs shows just above the top of his pants.

My gaze flips back to the sketch pad like I’ve been burned.

Friends, I remind myself. We are friends.

I look up to see him grinning.

With no benefits.

Sigh.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

AVERY

A shot of pain courses up my arm.

“Ouch!” I say, cupping my shoulder with my other hand.

“You okay?”

Penn is standing across the room, his brow furrowed in concern. The light coming through the windows is now muted, and I wonder how long I’ve been sitting here, sketching.

I read somewhere once that “flow” is a psychological state that means you’re in the zone, fully immersed with both involvement and enjoyment in an activity. It’s not an easy frame of mind to get into, and a lot of people never do. I don’t unless I’m drawing or sketching or painting. Even doing hair doesn’t get me there, so being able to bust out my sketch pad daily is a dream come true.

“How long have I been sitting here?” I ask. The last things I remember are Matt bringing Penn and me sandwiches, and then Matt leaving and saying goodbye. I have no idea how long ago that was.

Penn looks at his phone. “About five hours.”

“Crap.” I get to my feet, my back and bottom yelping from sitting on the concrete floor. “Why didn’t you get me up?”

“Sounds like a personal problem,” he cracks. “Kidding. I did try to get you up. I even did a striptease over there, and you weren’t interested.”

Now I know he’s lying.

I work my shoulder around, trying to stop the pinch that’s burning inside it. Penn tidies up the area he was working in. Tool cords get wrapped up and sawdust swept into a neat little pile and then tossed into a makeshift trash can.

For all the hell he catches from Matt, he seems to be a hard worker. He barely took a break as far as I can tell, and by the looks of the wood laid out in squares on the floor, he seems to have gotten a lot done—even more so when you figure that he sent Matt off with Meredith and then sent him for lunch. I think he’s taking it easy on his friend, even though I’m sure he’d never admit it.

The sketch in my hand is more final. Dogwood trees will stand on either end of the wall, their branches draping over the top. The lake will be featured front and center, along with other local favorites. I even worked in the bright-yellow sign that welcomes you into town. Still, there are a few more spots that need to be filled, and I’m not familiar enough with the area to know what to add.

I look up at Penn. “Hey.”

He holds a tape measure with the end sticking up in the air. “Were you admiring my eight inches?”

I snort but secretly find his ridiculousness adorable. “Um, no. I had no idea you were holding eight inches.”

“Oh, you thought I meant this was eight inches . . .” He clicks a button, and the tape rolls back into the device. “Clearly you haven’t had much exposure to the difference in what an inch or two can do. What’s up?”

I laugh. Minor flirting, my ass.

“What do you think of when you think of Dogwood Lane? Since you know it better than me. I have a couple of spaces to fill on the sketch, and I’m not sure what to put.”