“What are you doing harassing my tenant, Dirk?” Mac asks, not returning any pleasantries.
“Oh, you bought the place? I didn’t realize. That’s cool. I was just trying to get to know our new neighbors. Was looking for her husband to see if he wanted to join poker night,” Dirk tells him.
Mac growls under his breath, making me stand and move closer to his side.
“It’s none of your business where her husband is or if she has one, which is really what you were trying to figure out. She isn’t available for your bullshit. She has two children to take care of, and we both know that you have three you never see. So leave her alone.” Mac leaves no room for argument.
Dirk swallows hard before nodding. “Yeah. You’re right. I should probably not be messing around with no baby mamas. Message received.”
He starts to back away, but Mac calls out to him.
“Dirk?”
“Yeah?” Dirk asks, stopping.
“Who drives that beater that was around here yesterday?”
Dirk thinks for a moment. Then he snaps his fingers.
“Freddy is back from prison. I bet it was him,” he says.
Mac nods, turning away from Dirk to address me.
“You okay?” he asks.
“Yeah. He wasn’t a danger. Annoying, sure, but he wasn’t getting close to me and only asked questions I didn’t like,” I tell him.
“Good. I’d hate to have to break his face. Honestly, it might help save some poor girl.”
I giggle. “He’s a player, huh? Got three baby mamas?” I ask, imitating Dirk’s accent.
“At least. Dude doesn’t know how to wrap it. I want to feel sorry for the girls, but even after he cheats, they keep going back to him. I see the same girls circling out of his house all week long. If that’s what they want to waste their time on, then more power to them. I stay out of it.”
I try to hide my smile as I look up at him.
“What? You have something to say?”
“I was thinking you don’t want to be in his business, but you seem to be getting into mine a lot.”
He frowns. “I want to keep you safe. I don’t give a fuck about Dirk and his circus of women.”
I touch his arm so he meets my eyes.
“I like it. You in my business, I mean. Not his circus.”
He cracks a smile before looking down at the flower bed.
“You don’t have to do that. I can get one of the guys to come handle it. Honestly, the weather has changed enough that we shouldn’t have to mow much longer. Soon, the leaves will even fall.”
“I like doing it, if you don’t mind. It gives me something to do. A hobby of sorts.”
“Well, in that case, feel free to go crazy on mine too. What’s mine is yours, after all.” He leans a little closer.
Flirting. We are flirting.
The thought hits me out of nowhere. I like this. I like flirting with him.
“You shouldn’t say those kinds of things. A girl could get the wrong idea.”
