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Kristen stared at her best friend like she was telling her to shut up. Then she dragged her eyes back to me. “The stairs run four to five hundred dollars apiece, plus shipping. I split the profits fifty-fifty, minus the materials, with my carpenter. So yeah. Sometimes it’s more.”

“Do you have a picture of the stairs?” I asked.

Kristen unenthusiastically handed me her phone and I scrolled through a website gallery of ridiculous tiny steps with Stuntman Mike posed on them in different outfits. These were easy. Well within my ability.

“You know, I think I do have time for this. I’ll do it if you don’t have anyone else.” A few of these and I could pay off my Lowe’s card. This was real money.

Kristen shook her head. “I think I’d rather take my chances with the organ thieves.”

Sloan gasped, and Brandon froze and looked at Kristen and me.

“Is that right?” I said, eyeballing her. “How about we talk about this over coffee.”

Kristen narrowed her eyes and I arched an eyebrow. “Fine,” she said like it was physically painful. “You can build the damn stairs. But only until I find a different guy. And I will be looking for a different guy.”

Sloan looked back and forth between us. “Is there something you guys want to tell us?”

“I caught him staring at my ass,” Kristen said without skipping a beat.

I shrugged. “She did. I have no excuse. It’s a great ass.”

Brandon chuckled and Sloan eyed her best friend. Kristen tried to look mad, but I could tell she took the compliment.

Kristen let out a breath. “Give me your email address. I’ll shoot you the orders. When you’re done with them, let me know and I’ll generate and send you the shipping labels. And I’ll be inspecting every piece before you take them to FedEx, so don’t try and half-ass anything.”

“Wait, you don’t have a shop?” I asked. “Where am I supposed to build these?”

“Don’t you have a garage or something?”

“I live in an apartment.”

“Shoot. Well, it looks like this won’t work out.” She smirked.

Sloan stared at her. “Kristen, you have an empty three-car garage. You don’t even park in it half the time. Can’t he work there?”

Kristen gave Sloan side-eye.

I grinned. “He can.”

A loud beeping came over the speakers throughout the station followed by the red lights. We had a call. Kristen held my stare as the dispatcher rattled off the details. Too bad. I could have hung out with my cranky maid of honor a little longer.

No luck.

Brandon leaned in and kissed Sloan goodbye. The girls would probably be gone by the time we got back. “We’ll finish cleaning up,” she said.

“Get my number from Brandon,” Kristen said to me, crossing her arms over her chest in a way that I think was meant to keep me from offering her a hand to shake.

Since the call was medical, we didn’t have to put on our fire gear. So Brandon and I headed straight for the apparatus bay where the engine was parked. I could feel Kristen’s eyes on my back and I grinned. She hated me. An ongoing theme with the women in my life at the moment.

Besides Celeste, all six of my sisters and my mom were pissed that I’d moved. Even my little nieces were giving me the cold shoulder when I called. Seven and eight years old and they’d already mastered the little-girl passive-aggressive equivalent of “I’m fine.”

“What’d you think of Kristen?” Brandon asked through a grin as we climbed into the engine.

“She seems cool.” I shrugged, putting on my headset.

Brandon and I had spent a year together in Iraq. He knew me well. Under normal circumstances, Kristen was my kind of woman. I liked petite brunettes—and women who tell me to go fuck myself apparently.

“Just cool?” he said, putting on his headset. “Is that why you were checking out her ass?”