“I thought I only hadjerkish tendencies?” he reminds me.
“Kiss my grits, Landry,” I fire back, stifling a smile. The truth is I’m still flattered, because he wouldn’t go this far with his teasing if he didn’t see me as an adult woman—one who makes him comfortable enough to be this flirty and silly.
He clicks his tongue and shakes his head. “The potty mouth on this one,” he replies sarcastically.
I roll my eyes. “I’m only letting you get away with that because you’re bringing me to meet the twins. If I don’t get to hold a Bougie baby later, I’m gonna?—”
“Gonna what?” he interrupts me. “Cuss me out? Beat my ass? Force me to eat scrambled eggs again?”
I lift my chin haughtily. “Maybe I’ll just sneak a pair of my panties into your underwear stack.”
He glares at me. “You wouldn’t.”
“Wouldn’t I?” I tap my bottom lip, pretending to brew up an evil plan, and I could swear I see a flicker of something in his expression when his eyes follow my movement. “Or maybe I’ll accidentally knock your toothbrush into the?—”
“Daisy Colette!” he growls, and those silly butterflies flutter around at the way my name sounds in his deep, rumbly voice. “Don’t you dare touch my toothbrush.”
“Fine, but what if I,” I pause to lean in and narrow my eyes ominously, “hugged you?”
“Oh, is that supposed to be a punishment?” he says on a laugh.
“For you, it is. At least, last I checked,” I reply smugly, though my stomach dips again at his implications.
“Right, because if you were to hug me right now,I’dbe the one grossed out?”
I scrunch up my nose. “Fair enough.”
A cocky smirk takes over his face, and he lunges forward to wrap his arms around me, pressing my cheek against his bare chest.
“Lan-dreee!” I squeal, feigning disgust. “Eww! Let me go! You’re so hairy and sweaty and … justew!”
“You said you were used to that smell,” he reminds me and loosens his grip. I swipe at my face as he laughs one more time. “All right, Blondie. Go inside and clean yourself up. And stop distracting me. I have to finish this before we can go to the hospital.”
I eye him carefully. “How am I the distraction in this scenario?”
He straightens and reaches up to scratch the back of his neck, then adjusts that sexy ball cap again. “You’re too easy of a target,” he replies, suddenly sounding less confident than he did a second ago. “And my ADHD kicks into high gear when I’m doing chores.”
“Right,” I say, pulling my hair over my shoulder and twisting it into a quick braid. “Is that how you plan to help me study later? By distracting me?”
Something shifts in his expression as he watches me. His lips part, and his chest rises and falls as if he’s breathing heavier. I may not know a lot about men, and I’m not crazy enough to think he’ll ever change his mind about relationships on my account. But there are times when Landry looks at me, and I could swear he’s fighting againstsomething, as if there’s at least a trace of attraction in his eyes.
What if my dad and my sisters are right? What if a man and a woman can’t coexist this way for an extended period of time without being drawn to one another? What if our close proximity is chipping away at his resolve, too, just at a much slower rate than it is for me?
He clears his throat. “We don’t have to study together if you don’t want to,” he says, then he turns abruptly and walks back to his Jeep. “But I’m leaving for the hospital in thirty minutes,” he adds, picking up the hose. “If you’re not ready, I’ll have to go without you.”
My eyes water against my will. Maybe I should have just stopped atI don’t know a lot about men.
Then again, Landry isn’t like most men. If he weren’t so kind and charitable, at least on the inside, I’d already have been forced to move back home with my parents.
Maybe it’s not up to me to figure him out; maybe I’m simply meant to help him.
CHAPTER 14
daisy
I finishmy gardening before I go inside to ditch my sweat-stained dress and freshen up. The faint sound of running water travels through the wall as I dig through my closet. I give up on finding a clean dress after a while and dart out to check the laundry, assuming the coast is clear with Landry in the shower.
I’m bending over to sift through the dryer when I hear a strangled noise behind me.
