“I’d rather you did,” I bark back and instantly regret it but hey, I’m suddenly an expert in doubling down on stupidity so when her eyes grow wide I lift both my arms and take a step toward her. “Seriously, you can touch whatever you want. Get a good feel. Pinch my ass. Try to figure out what jock size I wear. I don’t care if it means you’ll delete that damn picture and keep your big mouths shut about this job.”
Maggie’s big hazel eyes are blinking so rapidly in disbelief that they’re fluttering. And that pale complexion of hers is rapidly gaining color again. “You’re so worried about the picture you’d let me molest you?”
“I could list a lot of your faults Maggie but your IQ wouldn’t be one of them,” I reply and she looks rightfully offended. “You’re here on a full ride just like me and so I know you know the rules about scholarships. So go ahead and molest the hell out of me—you can all take turns—as long as the picture disappears.”
“First of all, gross,” she says and shudders. “Touching you would be a punishment not a reward.”
“Please. You may hate me but let’s be honest, physically I’ve got more to appreciate than that cop you’re dating,” I say flatly and with confidence which I know sounds egotistical but I’m great in bed, and hockey and farm chores have given me a body I know women appreciate because they tell me. Not just on every job but at school parties too.
“I’m not dating the cop. It was one date. And let’s get back to the scholarship and the rule about how if you’re in need of a part-time job you must consult with Financial Aid and they will match you with an on-campus job,” Maggie says and that smug smile is back playing on her lips. “Because students on a full scholarship are only allowed to work on-campus jobs on a part-time basis only as to not interfere with schoolwork.”
She recites the regulation almost verbatim. I’d be impressed if it wasn’t so upsetting. “Yeah. So it shouldn’t shock you that I’m willing to do anything or let you do anything to keep this between us. I need this scholarship.”
“Excuse me? Are you going to finish cleaning this apartment,” Caroline calls out and Maggie and I both snap our heads around to see she’s popped her head out of her bedroom door down the hall by the kitchen. “If not, I’ll still pay if that touching option is still on the table.”
“I’ll clean it,” I reply and turn back to Maggie. “After Daisy deletes that picture. For all I know she’s already posted it to Instagram or some garbage.”
Caroline disappears back into her room with a disappointed huff. Maggie sighs and brushes past me to knock on her sister’s door. “Daisy open up and give me the phone.”
There’s a pregnant pause but the door opens a crack and a pale arm extends with the phone in hand. I step forward as Maggie takes it but she puts a hand out and her palm bumps my bare chest. “Not so fast there, cowboy. You’ve got a job to do, remember?”
“Cleaning this pig sty? Yeah. I’ll do it. Now delete it,” I reply tersely.
“Clean,” Maggie replies just as tersely.
I want to hurl every insult I’ve ever heard at her, but I grit my teeth and force myself to head back into their dirty kitchen where I grab my mop and bucket and get back to work.
An hour later, the kitchen and bathroom are clean and I’m both disgusted and exhausted. This place is messier than the hockey house, and we’re not exactly clean freaks. “Vickie described the job as kitchen and bathrooms, plural, so where’s the next bathroom?”
“This way,” Maggie—who has been following me around, watching me like a hawk the entire time—says. She walks down the hall and I follow, dragging my supplies with me. Daisy, who has been sitting at the kitchen table reading a magazine and smirking at me while I work, doesn’t follow. Caroline and Jasmyn have only occasionally popped their heads out of their rooms to sneak a peek, but I haven’t seen either of them in fifteen minutes. At the end of the hall, near the living room, Maggie swings open a door on the left. I walk in bracing myself for another pig sty but don’t find one.
The room is simple—a double bed with a vintage quilt, an old wooden desk, some floating shelves with neatly stacked books, and a ridiculously oversized bean bag chair near the bay window and the door to the balcony. Even the throw rug beside the bed looks like it was recently vacuumed. “Whose room is this?”
“Mine. Bathroom is over there.” Maggie points to a closed door next to an open closet. I walk over and pull it open. It’s truly the smallest bathroom I have ever seen. It’s barely bigger than a phone booth.
“I don’t even think I can fit in here to clean it,” I mutter and try. I am basically touching everything the second I step in there. My calf is touching the toilet bowl, my hip the sink and my shoulder the shower curtain for the teeny stand-up shower. I turn awkwardly to face the door and she’s standing in it, so she’s basically right on top of me. I try to take a step back, but there’s nowhere to go and I hit the sink with my butt and stumble to the side and basically trip into the shower, almost ripping down the shower curtain.
“Careful clumsy!” Maggie scolds.
She moves into the space with me which is impossible, only she does it anyway, and now I’m not just touching every surface in the bathroom, I’m touching her too. More importantly, she is touching me. Her chest, covered in what I now know feels like a very soft, very thin T-shirt, is brushing against my bare chest. Her left arm grazes my hip and as she bends down and reaches for something under the sink, her long silky hair ghosts across my belly and her shoulder skims the front of my boxer-briefs and my dick. Maggie Todd just touched my dick.
“Okay this is insane,” I blurt out jumping back and stumbling out of the small space. I almost fall onto her bed in the process and manage to readjust the suddenly expanding bulge in my briefs as I right myself.
My dick is still tingling from the brief brush of her shoulder. Icannotget hard overthisgirl. Not her. Anyone buther.
She’s giggling behind me. “I’m amazed you play hockey as well as you do, because you seem about as coordinated as a baby deer on a frozen pond.”
“Why the hell would you try to get into that postage stamp of a room with me?” I ask her as I slowly turn around making sure my body parts are all behaving before I face her. “How do you even function in that space?”
“I manage.” She tosses something at me and I catch it a second before it’s about to smack me in the head. “There are those lightning fast reflexes the local paper raved about last year.”
“You read about me a lot, do you?” I mutter and smirk at her before looking at the thing she tried to assault me with. It’s a box of Lysol bleach wipes.
“I clean the bathroom with these. It’s easier than trying to cram a mop in there and there’s only like a foot of tile anyway,” Maggie explains as she steps back out of the bathroom and makes a grand gesture for me to enter again. “And unfortunately I had no choice but to read about you and hear about you last year. Your rookie season was all anyone talked about. Local kid leads the entire division in shorthanded goals. NHL scouts itching for him to enter the draft, blah, blah, blah.”
I feel my chest inflate just the slightest despite her “blah, blah, blah” part. “Yeah well, I worked my ass off. And all that hard work will be blown out of the water if you post that picture anywhere.”
It only takes three wipes and a minute and a half to clean her bathroom, not just because of the size of the space but also because it wasn’t very dirty to begin with. I wipe the floor last which is basically six large porcelain tiles and scoot my way out as I do it. When I turn to face her she’s the color of marinara sauce again. I cock my head to the side. “What’s got your face all tomatoey again?”
