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He arched an eyebrow. “Can I have the bear spray?”

“You really want to keep me off you?”

“Come to think of it? No.”

We smiled at each other.

We were so close I could feel the heat from his body.

I liked the heat.

He smelled good. I liked the hint of a beard he had, the way his forearms flexed when he was pulling up the bucket, his broad smile, and his deep-brown eyes.

I liked that little old ladies baked him cookies and he had a rescue fish and he talked about trees.

Seth was my type.

Seth was probably everyone’s type.

I wondered if I was his . . .

His eyes dropped to my lips. Mine dropped to his.

Someone cleared their throat from below. We broke eye contact and peered over the side.

“Uh, I’ve got the paint?” John said, looking uncomfortable.

We stepped back from each other, instantly embarrassed. At least I was.

“Thanks,” Seth said, running a hand through his hair. “Uh, we gotta empty the bucket, give us a second.”

We transferred the cookies, somehow managing to not look at each other. When we were done, he lowered it down to John, and I stood there, not sure what to do with myself. I had to fan my face because my cheeks were getting hot.

“Do you want me to help you pull it all up?” I asked.

“No, I got it, you don’t like the ledge,” he said.

“Okay.” I put a thumb over my shoulder. “I’ll just start taking off the light switch covers?”

“Good idea,” he said.

And I fled into my apartment.

Seth Chapter 5

How’s it going in the Eagle’s Nest?” Gabe asked from my speakerphone.

I took my boot off and looked at my bruised ankle. I’d put too much weight on it today, it was throbbing. I shouldn’t be doing half of the lifting and moving I’d been doing, but the urge to do things for Charlotte was overriding my common sense. We’d spent the whole day painting her apartment. It looked great. It was after 8:00 p.m. now. We’d just eaten dinner—pizza and beers on the landing—and we’d split up to shower. We were meeting back outside in half an hour to eat inappropriate cookies and watch a show on my laptop that we’d both been wanting to see.

“It’s going,” I said.

“Is she cool?” Gabe asked.

I tossed my boot next to the bed. “She is beyond cool. Cool doesn’t even cover it.”

I felt like we were on some epic twenty-four-hour first date. It wasn’t a date, of course. It was just a weird circumstance that we found ourselves in that she was probably just making the most of.

I was afraid to imagine it was more than that.