It didn’t sound like a bad idea to him. They knew nothing about each other, even though they lived in the same town and had the same circle of friends. They'd never once sat and spoken to each other as friends.
“If you promise to come and do that estimate on my house, I’ll bring the coffee,” Scott told him.
Quintus smiled and Scott grunted, feeling a slight warmth in his chest. He ignored it.
“I guess I have been flaking on you. I'll tell you what. Why don’t we set a time for tomorrow morning? I’ll come by after my run.”
“Um…I think I need to tell you. I’m not a morning person. I prefer evenings.”
“A vampire to the bone,” Quintus chuckled. Again, the strange warmth moved from Scott’s chest to his stomach, which he wanted to ignore but wasn’t doing a very good job of it. He went to step closer to Quintus but stopped himself. He was feeling off even at their current distance and wasn’t sure what would happen if he stepped closer.
“You could say that,” he said with a smile.
“All right, just because it’s you. Let's make it for later tomorrow night. And since it’s starting to get dark a lot later, I’ll probably show up a bit early to look around the back.”
“Then in that case, I’ll bring dinner. Let’s say about six o’clock,” Scott said, not realizing the way it might have come out—as if they were making plans for a dinner date.
“Then it’s a date,” Quintus said with a nod. “Good night, Scott.”
“Night, k…Quintus,” he whispered and watched the cheetah walk to his car.
Fuck, what a nice ass.
Chapter Six
The following night, Quintus was outside of Scott’s house making notes on his tablet on what needed to be fixed.
He admitted that his initial observation of the outer structure was wrong. It was still in good condition and just needed to be updated. He was happy the whole thing didn’t need to be torn down and his guys wouldn’t need to start from scratch. He liked that the house also had a lot of windows and was drawn to the designs on them. Some were simple in design, while one or two were more elaborate with artful colors.
Why did they abandon the property?
Quintus noted that the scent from the other day was gone, so there was no chance he’d jump Scott and hump on him again. He pushed the thought aside, because he didn’t want to think about what he had done. It was better if he focused on his job and nothing else. Quintus continued to walk around the property and wondered what Scott was going to do with the mini, two-level mansion when he lived by himself. He had a lot of room to work with.
The one thing he loved about Vale Valley was that even though it was growing in residents and property, there was still vast stretches of land that hadn’t been touched or explored. Going a little further into the trees, he heard what sounded like the slow, steady stream of water and came upon the lake.
Not bad at all, it’s not far from the Vale Valley lake.
Quintus walked back to the house and continued with his survey, jotting down a few ideas he would bring up with Scott once he had a chance to look inside.
He could make a pathway leading to the lake. It wouldn’t take away from the privacy it seems Scott wants.
“So, how long will it take for you to fix it up?”
Quintus yelped and jumped at hearing Scott’s voice in his ear. He turned and bumped into a wall that turned out to be Scott’s chest.
Gods, he’s sturdy.
He was so focused on what he was doing, he hadn’t heard the man come up behind him.
“Dammit, don’t do that shit,” he said, hitting the man on his hard chest. Scott didn’t even move.
“I’m sorry. I did call your name,” Scott told him, stepping back just a bit. “You seemed to be into what you were doing. I really didn’t want to interrupt you.”
“Yeah,” Quintus smiled. “I was just marveling at how sturdy you are…I mean, your house structure is sturdy.”
What the hell was that?
Scott walked over and tapped on the side of his house. “It does seem to have held up nicely after so long.”
