Perhaps it wasn’t so bad after all.
Adele had wondered if Claire was ready for a relationship, and frankly, it was probably true.However, Claire and Nick were just having sex.There was no relationship.
As for the bizarre guilt trips from Arthur, they wouldn’t last forever.
Sex with no strings attached was awesome.It allowed Claire to live in the moment.
In fact, maybe she and Nick needed to make their arrangement official, in a sense.Not a romance, but something mutually beneficial until his job took him away.
Friends with benefits.
Yeah.Lots of sex but still some boundaries in place.And in the meantime, there were other things that Claire could do to move on.
She sat up straight.This weekend, she’d cross a few more items off her to-do list.
* * * *
Nick spent the rest of the week ensconced in the back yard.Now that Claire’s office had been completed, he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep his mystery project a mystery for much longer.There were still a couple of tiny touch-ups to do in her office, but the team could handle those fine details.Their crew was used to working around furniture.
Like that desk.
Because of that desk, every time Nick thought about office furnishings, he got a hard-on.Who would have thought a few planks of wood could become such an obsession?
Of course, it was because he couldn’t stop thinking of Claire splayed out on it, or of the way he’d needed to support his trembling arms on it.
He liked that desk so much that he’d convinced her they needed a repeat.She’d happily obliged him just the other day.
Man, it was difficult working outside Claire’s office, knowing what they’d done inside it.
When Michael and Eli found him in the back yard on Friday afternoon, he was attaching some chicken wire next to one of the little ramps from his project.
It was possible he’d been distracted by a vivid daydream of Claire.At least, that was his guess when he realized he’d let his work get sloppy.Clearly, he hadn’t been paying attention to where he’d applied his staple gun.As a result, he had a bunch of staples overlapping one another.
“Hey,” said Michael, planting his hands on his hips.
Nick looked up.“Hey, yourself.”
“Wow,” said Michael.“That’s a lot of staples in the exact same spot.”
Nick grunted.Michael had noticed it too.Still, he didn’t need his brothers to point it out.“How can I help you?”
“You’ve, uh, been distracted lately,” said Michael.
They noticed that too?“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.”
“Look,” said Nick, “do you actually have something to say, or are you just here to annoy me?”
Michael turned to Eli and put up his hands in surrender.
Eli reached over and gingerly removed the staple gun from Nick’s hands.
“Why are you taking my staple gun?”
“Because if you add any more staples, this is going to start looking like a crime scene.Also, I don’t want you to be armed when I translate for Michael.”Eli paused.“What our brother really means is we’re concerned about you.”
“Why?”
