“I’m sorry I left,” I said suddenly, the words bursting from me like they’d been caged too long. “I’m sorry I didn’t visit more. I let my hurt feelings rule me and let things between us get all fucked up.”
He eyed me for a moment. “I’m sorry I said what I said. When you told me how you felt, my response… it came from my own pain, not from how I really felt.”
“Aw, that’s okay. Want to hug?”
He groaned and pushed open the door. “Come on, that’s enough feelings talk for today. Let’s go work on your ridiculous scheme. We’ll need to clean up enough to convince her this is a real rental property and not a shack in my back yard.”
The door creaked open, revealing a dusty time capsule of yellowed lace curtains, faded wallpaper, and sheet-draped furniture. Sunlight filtered through dirty windows, casting beams across the hardwood floor and illuminating dust motes that danced in the air.
“Wow,” I whispered, stepping inside.
Eli moved past me, pulling a sheet off a sofa, sending a dust cloud into the air that made us both cough. “Okay. Let’s make it look like I’m serious about renovations and renting her a space.”
“Are you? Serious about renting her a space?”
He walked over to the thermostat and fiddled with it until we heard the quiet roar of the heat pump kicking on. “I mean, I think so. She’s got a great eye. I’ve checked the Moss & Whimsy social media, and she has a big following, too. I think it’d be good for both of our businesses.”
I nodded, rolling up my sleeves. “We’ll figure out how to sell her on it. While fucking with her head just a little.” And… maybe just fucking her, if she was into us like that.
He smirked at me. “Won’t the revenge scheme make her not want to rent from me?”
“It’s not revenge. It’s seduction.”
He frowned. “I thought we were going to give her a taste of her own medicine.”
“Yes! Her medicine is seduction. Duh, Eli, keep up.”
“Don’t tell me you’re planning a threesome.”
“Okay,” I said, grinning. “I won’t tell you. You can just catch the visuals through our psychic link.”
“I’ve told you a hundred times, we don’t have a psychic link. We just know each other well enough to make educated guesses.”
“Good to know. I’ll be fantasizing about hot threesome sex and don’t need to worry you’re poking around in my head and finding out how good I am at sucking dick.”
He rolled his eyes but said nothing, which meant the sex plan wasn’t out of the question. For the next few hours, we fell into a familiar rhythm that made my chest ache. Eli took the kitchen area while I tackled the living room, and we worked in comfortable silence. It was so much like our teenage years doing odd jobs around the inn for cash that I could almost convince myself the six-year gap had never happened.
Almost.
I looked up to find Eli staring at my mouth, an intensity in his eyes that made my stomach flip. Hopefully, he was thinking about me sucking his dick. After a beat, he stepped back and shook himself, wiping imaginary dust off the coffee table, which I’d already cleaned.
“We should, um, check the bedroom,” he said, his voice slightly rough. “Make sure there aren’t any mice or whatever.”
I followed him into the primary bedroom, where a king-sized bed stood with just a mattress cover and dust ruffle on it, and a layer of dust over everything.
“I have extra pillows and bedding in the supply closet,” Eli mused, running a hand through his dark hair in a gesture that made my throat tight with want.
“Why bother?” I asked. “We’re not planning to stay up here. Ooh, you do want to fuck her?”
Eli turned to face me, with a strange expression on his face. “Luke.”
“Sorry. You know me. It slips out.”
He smiled a little. “I thought I’d be glad when you got your personality back, but now I’m wondering…”
“Fuck off, I always had my personality.”
“If you say so. Anyway, we need to make the rental unit look convincing. You strip the bed and vacuum everything, including the mattress. I’ll get some bedding from housekeeping.”
