AKA the hot nurse from the hospital car park.
AKA the thunderbolt driver I’d clocked the day before he got here.
Three strikes of coincidence that blow my mind, but I haven’t had time to think about much. Not since the Instagram post that smashed up my wrist worked its magic and I have a dozen new orders to complete by the last post in December.
And to be clear, just because I haven’t had time to think about Bhodi Jones and his electric eyes, doesn’t mean I haven’t done it anyway. My wrist hurts and picturing his face dulls thepain. Also, I can see him from the spare room window because that beautiful fucker never closes the blinds when he sleeps during the day and I’m too weak not to stare.
Like now, as I rise to refill the ink pot I’ve been working with—a task that’s a pain in the arse now I’m working up here, instead ofdown there, where he’s passed out on top of the covers, his pale arm dangling off the side of the bed, his messy blond hair and cut torso?—
Stop it.
Honestly, I’m trying. But he doesn’t make it easy, and it drives me to wonder how I’d have spent the last three days if I hadn’t had so much work to do. If I’d have stared at himmore.
You’re his landlord. Be-fucking-have.
I raid my ink stash for a fresh pot of holly-berry red and return to my table. My wrist throbs something rotten. It hasn’t turned black and fallen off yet, but fuck me, it hurts, and if I take any more ibuprofen I’ll give myself a fucking ulcer. A cold fact that makes it harder to believe the injury will magically heal itself, but it’s all I have until my brain unknots.
Keep busy.
Right.
Work.
I go back to handcrafting place cards for the town mayor’s Christmas ball. Red and green custom calligraphy. Easy money, but dull, and if I have to write one more double-barrelled toff name, I’m gonna grind my pen nib into my eyeball.
Maybe.
If I don’t get derailed pondering what time my lodger is going to wake up today. Or fretting that he might be cold. He hasn’t lit the burner and the weather has turned lethal since he arrived a few days ago. Frost on the grass, ice on the roads. It’shard to believe it rained for two weeks straight before he got here.
Actually, it’s hard to believe heishere. That if he wasn’t so distractingly hot, having a lodger would have zero impact on my life, just like Sab said.
I should’ve done this years ago.
Oh well.
Stealing glances at Bhodi, I work all morning. Then I go outside and contemplate the fence my mouse-sized dog somehow managed to destroy in his eagerness to get to Bhodi. I mean, now I’ve seen him up close and felt his warm hands on my skin, I get it. But that doesn’t help me fix the fence with one working hand.
I’m still glaring at it when Sab calls. “What?”
“Grinch.”
“What do you want?”
“How are you in a mood already? C’est à peine l'heure du déjeuner.”
It’s barely lunchtime.“I’m not in a mood.”
“You’ve been in a mood fordays. Hang on…”
He ends the call and FaceTimes instead. I roll my eyes, but I know better than to ignore him, and I don’t want to. Sab’s my best friend. If anyone can screw my head back on, it’s him.
Somehow, I forget that means he also sees straight through me in less than a second. “What’s wrong with you? Did you die twice since I last came down?”
It’s a bad joke, but we’ve been rolling with it for six long years, and it lacks the punch it once had. “Nothing’s wrong.”
“C’est des foutaises.”Bullshit. Sab leans forward. He’s in the big van—myvan. The oversized heap of junk he won’t get rid of in case I ever want it back. “What happened?”
I open my mouth to repeat the lie, but Rudy interrupts me, kicking up a racket at a delivery driver picking his way up the path to the main gate. The little shit is ferocious enough that the driver hesitates, but I need the canvas boards he’s carrying for the job in my diary for tomorrow, and my schedule’s packed enough now that I don’t have time to chase missing parcels.
