She then proceeded to read our script with a mock monotone voice and stumbling over her words.
“I brought these treats to show my appreciation for the hunk of man named”—she squinted at the paper—"Logan? Marten? Yeah. Anyway, to show my appreciation for the most amazing date I have ever been privileged to go on.”
“But wait, I thought you had turned me down for a date.” I breezed through my memorized script with a passion for the craft.
She stared at me with an innocent expression on her face for a long moment before I glared at her. “Oh right. Yes, but once I left the diner I realized that I couldn’t say no to THE Logan Marten.”
By this time, the guys had caught on to what we were doing and had begun to clap amid much cackling and insults thrown my way—except for Ronnie, who had made a hefty dent in the plate of lemon-raspberry bars. Tessa bowed.
“Alright, everyone except for Ronnie can take one lemon-raspberry bar and then get back to work.” When Javier reached toward the plate, I slapped his hand away. “Nope. Not you either.”
Tessa grabbed the plate and held it out to Javier, grinning. “You can take two.”
It took some convincing to get the guys back to work, but when everyone else was occupied, I pulled Tessa down the framed hallway with me.
“You want the grand tour, you dirty rat?” I asked.
“Dirty rat? I said everything I was supposed to say.”
I wasn’t sure why my arm was around her shoulders, but since we were playing up the crowd behind us, I kept it there. That was the only reason.
“Reading the paper was a nice touch, Jailbait.”
“You can’t imagine I was ever going to say those cheesy lines on my own.”
I grinned. “It was even better than I imagined.” The only thing I wanted for winning the game was for Tessa to find a way to let the guys know I did, in fact, get that date. I had a reputation to uphold. Tessa hadn’t wanted anything public, but since none of these guys were local, I convinced her they’d be safe.
“Is this the gym?” Tessa asked, stopping at the entrance of a large room.
“Yeah.”
She stepped inside. “So, this is where Betsy May will yell at me and refuse to do her leg lifts. Now I can imagine it all perfectly.”
I nodded, pointing to the far corner of the room. “Yup, and there will be stairs on that wall for Preacher Douglass to whine about going up.” I didn’t know any of her other patients, but she had told me plenty about Betsy May and Preacher Douglass.
She smiled. “Perfect.”
I prodded her along, showing her the rest of the rooms, the space feeling magnified without walls but also intimate without the guys as close.
I was about to turn us around when we got to the storage closet, but she stopped suddenly. Two sample cabinets sat on the floor. I had brought them in to show Nate the different stains he could pick from. They were striped with different tones of brown and black. I had built the cabinets years ago for an earlier project Chase and I had tackled and ended up keeping them for visual aids.
“You’re doing the cabinets, right?”
“Yeah.”
She sunk to her knees and touched them. “You know how to make this stuff?”
I eyed her warily, though I found myself inching closer to her.
“Yeah,” I said again.
“That’s amazing. They’re beautiful.”
“Those are…pretty old. I… There are lots of other styles I can do now.” My head began to sweat.Get it together, Marten.
“I’d love to watch you do this sometime.” She stopped touching the cabinets long enough to look up at me and say, “I think it’s fascinating. What an awesome skill to have.”
I fingered the collar at my neck. Things were getting too personal now. Time to put an end to this cozy little tour.
