"Hold still and I'll—"
"Really, you don't have to—"
She yanked the towel back. "Maybe you should change out of this—"
"That's not where—"
She reached for the roll of paper towels. "Don't move, there's a puddle—"
"You don't have to try and fix everything."
"Actually, I do."
"I'll just change. It's fine. Don't—" I took a step back, held up my hands. "Stop. Stay here. Let me handle this."
I stalked into my bedroom, whipped off my shirt, and shoved my fingers through my hair. If I stayed in here long enough, she'd eventually leave. Right?
Unless she came looking for me.
She'd definitely come looking for me.
Maybe I wanted her to come looking for me.
"What the fuck is wrong with me?" I grumbled.
"What was that?" Jasper called.
I scrubbed my hands down my face. "Nothing."
She wasn't leaving. Even when she did leave, she'd be right next door. She wasn't going anywhere.
Fuck me.
Still smelling of coffee, I pulled on a new shirt and returned to the kitchen—where I found Jasper kneeling on the floor. Her hair fell in a curtain around her face as she mopped up the coffee and all I could do was stop and stare.
It wasn't the position. It wasnot.It had nothing to do with the sight of her on her knees, head bowed, skirt fanned out like daffodil petals. It was that she washere, in my space and scrubbing the floors like they were a personal keepsake of hers, and I wanted her to stay equally as much as I wanted her to go. And I hated that more than being forced to speak before noon.
"All set," she said, pushing to her feet.
I stared. How could I not? She was a gorgeous pain in the ass.
I reached for my mug to keep my hands busy. It was mostly empty and I required two to three full cups of coffee to get going in the morning but there was no way I was doing the kitchen tango with Jasper again. "Thanks."
"I must thank you properly for your assistance yesterday. I had no intention of needing it but you rose to the occasion nonetheless. I'm sure Midge admired that about you."
We shared a glance over the banana bread. Neither of us made a move toward it.
"Midge had a lot of opinions about a lot of things," I said. "It seems you managed well enough over there last night."
She sighed as she tossed the paper towels in the trash. "I managed just fine. Believe me, I've worked with worse."
I didn't see how that could be true but I wasn't going to argue with her. No more than I already was. "I take it the bats have moved along?"
"Bats, yes, though a cat scared a decade off me last night," she said, a breathless laugh in her words. "Appeared out of nowhere."
Now, that—that wasn't fake. I wasn't convinced it was real but it wasn't another empty smile or canned comeback. "Little black cat with a white triangle on his chest? Looks like he's wearing a tuxedo?"
She shook her head as she lifted her mug. "It was dark. I didn't get a good look."
