“Unless you needed emergency carpentry?”
Liz beamed at me. “See? Who was the first person I called when I had a problem. I know it’ll be enough, Ward. You’ve never met a problem you couldn’t fix.”
If I hadn’t been blushing before, I definitely was now.
“Yeah, well,” I said. “This problem requires a trip to the hardware store.”
“Can I come?” Maisie asked, head poking out of the open kitchen window, little fingers curled around the ledge.
I looked to Liz. “Can she come?”
Liz laughed, draining the rest of her coffee and standing up. “She can go with you, just get her back before lunch or suffer the consequences.”
“As if I’m not worse when I’m hungry,” I said, skipping the broken stair to get up to the porch and lift Maisie through the kitchen window like she was a fairytale princess while she laughed her head off.
Making her laugh was one of my favorite things in the whole world.
“You’re gonna make a great dad one day, y’know,” Liz called after me as I helped Maisie climb into the passenger seat of my truck. “Ryder could do worse, is all I’m saying.”
I snorted. Yeah, right.
* * *
The step took longerto fix than I expected, and by the time I was done I was covered in dirt and sawdust, sweating through my t-shirt. The sun was already hanging low in the sky, I’d let lunchtime pass without stopping for it, and I was exhausted.
All worth it to know that some of my favorite people in the world wouldn’t hurt themselves leaving their home tomorrow, but that didn’t make me any less tired.
It was too early for dinner, but I ordered pizza between parking my truck and opening the front door of the cabin anyway, figuring I’d have time for a quick shower before it arrived. Then I could wake Ryder, and we could sit and have a quiet night in front of the TV with plenty of time and space for him to talk if he wanted to. Nice and peaceful.
I shrugged off my plaid shirt and tossed it over the back of the couch, peeling off the t-shirt under it as well. If Ryder happened to get up before I moved them to the laundry and see that I’d left them all over the place, he probably wouldn’t judge me. I’d seen his teenage bedroom and I doubted he’d changed much since then.
It wasn’t until I opened the bathroom door that I realized the sound of a shower running I’d heard all the way there wasn’t me fantasizing about how good hot water running over sore muscles and washing sweat and dirt away would feel right now.
Even through the thick cloud of steam in the bathroom, I could make out the sculpted muscles of Ryder’s back, flexing under that all-over freckled skin I remembered from long summer days. Back then, he’d been an awkward teenager. Now…
Now he wasallgrown up.
My gaze flicked to his thighs, toned but not football-player thick, as though that was somehow better than staring at his butt. I’d always wondered if the freckles extended there, too, but I’d never…
Within a heartbeat, Ryder started to turn.
I looked away so fast I was at risk of whiplash, not wanting him to know I’d been looking at him at all.
He’d had enough of people looking at him without his consent to last a lifetime in just the last few days, and I didn’t want to make it worse. Even if I hadn’t been doing it on purpose.
“Sorry.” I laughed, turning my attention to a knot in the wooden door frame, running my thumb over it to give my hands something to do. “Assumed you’d still be napping. I’ll just, umm. I’ll go,” I said.
Without waiting for a response I hurried out of the bathroom quick enough that I actuallydidhave to make sure the door didn’t hit my ass on the way out. It slammed shut so hard that bookcases rattled, and I strode away from it to pace in the living area instead.
It wasn’t long before the door creaked open again, but I couldn’t bring myself to turn and look at Ryder just yet.
“Hey,” he said softly, closer than I’d thought he was. “Ward, it’s okay. You’ve seen me without a shirt on before.”
When I turned, Ryder was standing there, hair dripping wet, the afternoon sun hitting his amber eyes so they glowed like they were lit up from the inside, towel tucked a little lower around his waist than I would have preferred. It would have been a lot easier to look at him if I couldn’t see the fine trail of hair that started under his belly button, dipping down beyond the soft fluffy barrier of the bath sheet to places I absolutely couldn’t think about.
I still shouldn’t have been looking, and I knew it, but Ryder didn’t seem to mind.
“Been a while though,” my stupid mouth said without my brain’s permission. “You’ve filled out.”
