“Where did you get those?” Nadine demanded, looking at the heaping bowl in his hand.
Wes chose a particularly succulent blackberry and popped it in his mouth. “Picked them last night from the garden and left them in the fridge so they got nice and cold.”
“They look incredible. Can I have one?”
“Remember when you didn’t let me breathe from your window?”
“No.”
“Like hell you don’t. No berries for you.”
“Wes?”
“Yeah?”
“Eat a worm.”
***
The next day. Nadine decided she couldn’t be held accountable if she accidentally managed to throw Wes out of a window:
“I checked that box.” Wes’s voice broke in on Nadine’s daydreaming.
“Why would you check a box in my sector?”
“Technically, that’s my sector. We decided the demarcation line had to swing around the steamer chest we couldn’t budge.”
“The demarcation line is wrong.”
“Take it up with the person who insisted on laying it out on the floor with masking tape. Jesus, are you pulling over one of my boxes to your side to be obnoxious? What’s the matter with you?”
“I’d argue it was at least fifty-five percent over the line, making it mine.”
“Nice. Class act. I bet there’s nothing there but some old tablecloths.”
“Wrong. It’s old curtains.”
“I stand corrected. Have fun.”
***
Nadine started on the sink of dishes as Wes went back to work. Away from the heat of the attic, their frayed tempers had knit together enough for the meal to pass with surprising civility. As Nadine filled the dishwasher, she thought about the last few days. Their lack of success in uncovering anything of interest combined with the constant barbs fired in each other’s direction meant she was finding it difficult to deal with Wes. Not only that, but he was getting under her skin in unexpected and deeply unwelcome ways, with his amazing, almost photographic memory and great cooking and kind of shocking sexiness that she was distressed to have clocked on day two, when he’d appeared aftera shower with his hair wet and shirt clinging to his body. That had jump-started Wes carving out more of her brain space than she liked, which made her a little angry with herself. It might be unfair to take it out on him, but she was only human.
She finished the dishes, returned to the attic, and then walked into a wall because Wes Chen was shirtless.
Baggy shorts hung off his hips, and sweat gleamed on his chest as if he’d been working out. And the biceps. When did Wes get arms like that? Or shoulders? In the entire time they’d been working together, he’d never shown so much as a sliver of improper flesh, and now there were abs on display?
Wes looked up when she staggered back from the wall. “Don’t sneak up on me.” He put down a book.
“Where are your clothes?” she blurted out. Then, “Is that a tattoo?” He wasn’t even reaching for a shirt to put on, as if it was totally normal to be standing in front of her looking that good.
Wes regarded his side as if making sure the snake winding up his ribs was there. She itched to look at it closer and had a vivid and entirely unwelcome thought of running her hand along it. Maybe her tongue.
No, oh my God.She averted her eyes.
“I got it a couple years ago when my favorite artist was taking final appointments before he retired,” he said like it was no big deal that he, Mr. Button-Downs-and-Tucked-In-Sweaters Wes Chen, had a tattoo or, almost more surreal, a preferred tattoo artist. “Is that for me?”
The sight of Wes had wiped out the fact that she’d brought him a freezie. She’d wanted one herself and wasn’t so big a jerk that she’d leave him hanging.
