Men wear cups with jeans all the time.
All the time.
I amsobad at lying to myself.
“Do you want help or not?” he spits out.
Is he irritated with me?
Or is he irritated that I noticed that he might not be irritated at all?
I gulp.
Then I point to my other arm. “It’s starting to dry here.”
He grips me by the elbow, shoots a stream of hose water down my biceps, and I feel like his touch has just branded me for life.
I swallow hard again and try to go back to normal. “So I was trying to be big and intimidating, and the bear—Earl—was standing up on his back feet and staring at me. I knew I needed to find something to make me even bigger, but I didn’t want to break eye contact, and then the universe stepped in, or maybe it was Uncle Tony, I don’t know, but one minute, I was thinking I was going to die, and the next minute, this geyser shot up out of the ground right underneath him and scared the living hell out of him.”
“Geyser?”
“There’s a ridiculous amount of pressure coming out of the well here, whichshould not be a thing, becausephysics, and I thought I solved it, but apparently there was something I overlooked, and there was too much pressure on a soft spot in a pipe. Don’t worry. I shut that valve off. We won’t waste the whole county’s groundwater supply with a flood here.”
He mutters something that I sincerely hope he never mutters in the classroom.
“I know.Replace all the piping to the house and the cabin and the bunkhousewasn’t on my bingo card, but then, so few things have been out here. I’ll roll with it. Kinda have to. Hey, how’s the water in the gatehouse? Do I need to tackle that too? Actually, I haven’t asked if you need anything fixed there at all. I should’ve. Everything running smoothly?”
He sighs again while he twists me to tackle my back.
I stifle a yelp when the water hits my spine. And then I stifle another yelp when he swipes his other hand down my back.
It’s merely been too long since I’ve been touched by a man, and this one is hotter than the sun. He’s like a flaming ball of gas that just doesn’t stop, but replacegaswithtestosterone, and that’s Flint Jackson. He’s the testosterone sun.
And I clearly need a very large bottle of water with a margarita chaser and about three days of sleep if that’s how I’m thinking of him.
“How’d you get so muddy?” he asks as his hand approaches the danger zone—a.k.a. my ass—four times over.
I swallow again. “I noticed standing water by the wellhead out at the bunkhouse, so I was a little wet and muddy by the time I figured out what was wrong and got it fixed, but once the leak was taken care of, the showers exploded at the pressure and the shutoff valve was broken, so I had to shut it off at the well, but my fix had blown, so it was an entire mud puddle that I was swimming in by then to get everything shut off.”
“I told Tony he needed that inspected,” he mutters as he grips my elbow and makes me turn so he can spray my front.
“I’m pretty sure Uncle Tony’s favorite phrase wasIt’s fine.”
Flint’s grip tightens.
So do his eyes.
But for the first time, I don’t think it’s bitterness toward me for not being here more often when Uncle Tony was alive.
I think it’s grief.
“Thank you for being a good friend to him,” I whisper. “He was a good man. I’m glad he had friends here. Especially after the rest of the family cut him off.”
His eyes lift and meet mine before settling back to his task, which now involves cleaning my boobs. “We were a good fit.”
“Everyone needs a friend like that.”
He grunts, swipes mud water off my chest, and pretends he doesn’t notice that my breath is getting shallow and my nipples could cut glass.
