I kick my legs up behind me and swing my feet to and fro in the air.
“Movie?”
Harper has been coming here every weekend or we’ll meet up somewhere after she closes the gallery because I’ve been a chickenshit and won’t meet her at the Hammond Estate.
“I’ve had an exhausting week and want to let loose. Tequila shots and loud music. You game?”
I missed her so much after she and Bennett graduated CU and left North Carolina to move here. Mason had moved to Florida around the same time, and their friends Christy and Carter got engaged and went back home to Dearborne. Everyone I had become friends with at CU were gone, and I was by myself. It truly hit me just how lonely I’d been without them around when I came back here and saw Harper again for the first time in many months.
“I’m in.”
“Pick you up at eight. I’ve got to go. Angel just poked her head in and said I need to sign for a shipment.”
Guess I need to get my day started. I take another peek at Jordan, not able to resist his glistening, sweat-drenched body. I’m going to hell.
Not hearing Natalie puttering around the house, I decide to do something nice and make Jordan a glass of iced tea. Entering the kitchen, I see a note tacked to the fridge with a rooster magnet.
Spending the day with Georgia and her granddaughter. Home around five.
I smile at the hearts, x’s and o’s she draws all around the message. She used to put notes in my paper lunch sack every day. Just cute little things, maybe a knock, knock joke, or a simple “Have a great day at school.” I always knew Natalie loved me because she showed me every day.
Pouring two iced teas, I walk out onto the back patio and stare my fill of the gorgeous man bent over the lawnmower. With a bite of my bottom lip, I get a flash of a brilliant idea. Setting the glasses down, I tiptoe down the steps to where the garden hose is attached to the outside spigot.
Jordan is too busy cursing out the lawnmower and trying to figure out why it cut out and won’t start again to notice me sneaking up behind him.
Gripping the hose with both hands and hiding it behind my back, I clear my throat.
He turns around, a smile on his face that outrivals the bright sunshine in the cloudless blue sky.
“Morning. Was wondering what was taking you so long to come out here and complain about the noise.” That grin increases in wattage.
“Funny.” That’s all the warning I give before I whip the handle of the hose around, aim the jet directly at his head, and squeeze the handle.
“Douglass! Dammit. That’s fucking frigid!”
He holds a palm open in front of his face, trying to direct the spray away, so I hit him in the stomach.
“But you looked hot.”
He smirks, and I realize how that could be taken in a different context.
“So do you,” he says and lunges for me but I’m quick to jump out of the way.
I’m not proud of the way I squeal and giggle as we wrestle over control of the water hose. But if you asked me tomorrow what my idea of the best day ever would be, I’d say having a water fight with a bare-chested Jordan Hammond, hands down.
“Why did I let you talk me into this?”
Harper and I sit at the bar. At Mickey’s. The place I’ll be working every Wednesday through Saturday. The place where Jordan screwed my brains out but doesn’t remember. Harper could’ve chosen any other bar to go to, even the seedier one located across town, but insisted on this one.
Morrison, another bartender and apparently the guy who’ll be training me—according to Mickey when we ran into him minutes ago—places two shot glasses of Peach Schnapps in front of Harper. She thanks him, picks one up, and thrusts it at me.
“It’s Friday night, and we deserve to let loose and have some fun that doesn’t involve fuzzy slippers, a bowl of Ben and Jerry’s, and binge-watchingMoon Knight.”
I pooch my bottom lip out in a pout and take the tiny glass of fruity liquor she insists I try. “But Oscar Isaac is delicious man candy.”
“So delicious.” She clinks her glass with mine in agreement, and we toss our drinks back. “Want another?”
“Sure,” I reply, my mouth puckering from the intense fruitiness of the liquor.
