Chapter 7 #2
Ryder hesitated, then patted the guy’s shoulder before turning back to the kitchen.
I adjusted to let him pass, but his body still brushed mine.
I tried not to make eye contact, but his gaze was locked on me the whole time and I couldn’t look away.
I had no idea what was happening. My face heated as if I hadn’t been touched in years.
Which, since I’d self-combusted in the shower just last night, made no sense.
“We’re going to pay him,” I said to Grandma without taking my gaze off Ryder.
“Of course we are.”
“Even if he argues about it.”
Ryder’s lips twitched.
“Which he will,” she said. “Don’t worry, I’ll be keeping track of his hours. I’m going to write him a check, which he’s going to take, even if I have to drag him down to the bank and watch him deposit it.”
The image of her even trying made me snort. “No one takes checks anymore. You can use Zelle or Venmo.”
Grandma blinked. “I don’t know either of those people, and why wouldn’t Ryder take a check?”
Both of my eyes twitched now, and I met my new contractor’s amused gaze from where he’d been watching the Nell and Pen Show. “Can I talk to you?” I asked. “Alone?”
He bowed his head once and headed out the back door into the early dawn light.
The sky was a kaleidoscope of colors, dark purple to the west, streaked with a lighter purple and then a swath of brilliant red and oranges toward the east ahead of the sun.
A massive storm cloud churned in the north.
It’d rain soon, which was good as I hadn’t watered the yard this week.
Ryder eyed the two flowerpots on either side of the back door, both filled with dead foliage.
“Just establishing expectations for all the other plants,” I said.
He chuckled, and I absolutely did not immediately want to make him chuckle again.
There were two towering oaks just off the patio, and I stood between them, staring anywhere but at the man at my side.
“It’s nice out here,” he said.
“I love it,” I admitted. “Especially in the summer. When I was younger, an owl befriended me. She’d hoot softly outside my bedroom at night.” I smiled. “I’d leave her food, and she’d leave me a pile of dead mice.”
One side of his mouth curved. “I bet you were a handful.”
“I bet you were worse.”
The almost smile turned into a grin. “I was.”
I drew a deep breath, wrapping my arms around myself in the early chill, and dammit , once again, I stood before him in my pj’s. And yes, it was the Wonder Woman top.
His eyes sparkled.
“Not funny,” I said.
“Am I laughing?”
I took a closer look, and whoa, he was right. That light in his eyes wasn’t laughter, it was…damn.
Heat. I had to look my absolute worst, but that was actual, honest desire on his face, and the knowledge of it flipped a switch deep, deep inside me.
“Why are you doing this?” I whispered.
“Standing here with you? You wanted to talk to me,” he said innocently.
Innocent as the devil. “You know what I mean. You just let yourself get bamboozled by an old lady. I want to know why.”
“Your grandma saves my ass five days a week by watching Hank.”
Okay, I could maybe buy that. “I’ve got more questions.”
“Shoot.”
“Is this a pity job? Because we aren’t a charity case. Plus, you already work so hard. Why would you do manual work when you don’t have to? And why do you call your dad Hank?”
He rocked back on his heels, his hands in his pockets.
“Not a pity job. Not a charity case either. I meant what I said. I sincerely owe your grandma, who just wants someone to update her kitchen for the granddaughter she loves with all her heart. As for the other two questions—I don’t get to do the actual work much anymore and I miss it, and… because he wasn’t much of a dad.”
His voice had been quiet, calm, emotionless really, but somehow I heard the hurt in the words, and it made me feel ashamed of myself for questioning his motives. Blowing out a breath, I stared down at my toes for a beat, then stepped closer, tipping my head back to look into his eyes.
“I shouldn’t have assumed bad intentions.”
He shrugged like he was used to it, and that made it worse somehow. “Ryder?—”
He raised a brow. “Penelope.”
I snorted and relaxed. “Thank you for doing this for my grandma.”
“Who is doing it for you.”
I closed my eyes against the truth because sometimes being loved also hurt. “I know.”
“She loves you.”
My eyes flew open. “I know that. She and Wyatt…they’re the only two people I’ve ever been sure of.” I started to turn away. “And now that I’m done apologizing, I’ve got to get going.”
“Are you?”
I faced him again. “Am I what?”
“Done apologizing.”
I paused. “You didn’t hear me?”
“No, because you didn’t say it.”
I opened my mouth, then shut it. Dammit. He was right. I hated that. “Okay, fine. I truly am sorry for misjudging your intentions.”
“And?”
I narrowed my eyes. “And what?”
He shrugged, looking like sex on a stick. “Thought maybe you wanted to also apologize for jumping down my throat.”
Was that humor lurking at the corners of his mouth? “Don’t take it personally. I do that to everyone with a penis.”
He chuckled, and dammit, that sound… “You’re not annoyed at me?” I asked.
He shrugged those broad shoulders. “Most people ‘yes’ me, tell me what they think I want to hear.”
I found a laugh. “Well, no worries on that count with me.”
He studied me for a beat, like he was trying to figure something out, but couldn’t. So I was completely caught off guard when he suddenly said, “Go out with me.”
I stopped breathing. “Um, what?”
He smiled. “You looked like I just suggested flying to the moon without a rocket ship.”
Why was my pulse racing? Impending stroke, maybe? He wanted to go out? On a date? With me? Was he nuts? Who in their right mind would want to date me? And then there was the fact I’d given up dating. “You know it’s not a good idea to mix work with pleasure?—”
“Of course not. But…” He gave me a cat-in-cream smile. “We’re not at work right now.”
I looked around, including behind me, on the off chance I was being punked. Then I gestured to myself. “You can’t seriously want to date…” I waved at myself. “ This .”
That smile of his went positively filthy and positively leaked testosterone and pheromones. “Oh,” he said in a sex-on-a-stick voice. “I most seriously do.”
At that, my body was utterly onboard, no questions asked. My brain not so much. “But…why?”
Ry closed the space between us, then tilted his head as he slowly took me in from my bare feet, up my legs—did he just slow down at their juncture?—to the strip of bare belly exposed by my cropped tee, before meeting my gaze. A slow smile curved his lips.
“Who wouldn’t want to go out with Wonder Woman?”
My pulse pounded in my ears so loudly that surely he could hear it. And why was my heart threatening to secede the United States of Penny? “I don’t actually…date.”
“Do you eat dinner?”
“I mean…” I had to laugh. “Yes.”
“So let’s call it…just dinner.”
“Just dinner.”
“Just dinner,” he repeated in a soothing voice I knew could persuade a nun to sin. “Your choice of when and where.”
Okay, I could do “just dinner.” Right? Oh my God, was I listening to myself ?
My mind was getting on board now too? What the hell.
I had valid reasons to fight this, a whole bunch of them, even if I couldn’t think of a single one at the moment.
Yes, I’d been burned. Yes, I’d sworn off emotional attachments.
But the thought of just one night, no expectations, no promises, where I could have fun and let my guard down and just be…
I wanted that. I wanted that bad.
“Louder, please!” Grandma yelled from the small downstairs bathroom window.
Dear God. “ Grandma, what are you doing? ”
“Taking my constitutional.”
I grimaced. “Stop eavesdropping!”
“Sure thing, honey!”
“And shut that window!”
Ryder was smiling when I turned back to him. “Not funny,” I said.
“Agree to disagree.” He tilted his head. “So…is there a night that works for you?”
“Tonight,” Grandma yelled out the still opened bathroom window. “She’s free tonight. She’s actually free every night. She’s cute, but she don’t get out much.”
“Thanks, Grandma.” But I shook my head. “I’m sorry, tonight’s out.” I had plans with Vi and Renee to eat our weight in chocolate and bitch about life. “And tomorrow night I’ll be busy with Wyatt, who’s got a science project due the morning after that, which he probably hasn’t started, so?—”
“I’ll help Wyatt,” Grandma said, thankfully this time from the kitchen window. “I’ll just be here staring up at the sky for the Legend of Star Falls anyway.”
Ryder smiled. “Your grandma will help him.”
“She’s fibbing. She hates science.” All I knew was that this venture felt like something I needed to obsess over for at least a week first. “Maybe next weekend?”
“Next weekend then,” he said, calm, patient, but also…smiling.
“Maybe.”
He knew I was stalling. What he apparently didn’t know was what a terrible, no good, very bad idea this was. “For just dinner,” I reiterated
“Just dinner,” he said comfortingly.
Which had the opposite effect.
“Anywhere you want to go,” he added.
“Anywhere?”
“Yep.” Then he smiled the sexiest, most trouble-filled smile in the history of smiles.
Okay, maybe this would work. All I had to do was remember I wasn’t on the Man Train, and no matter how good he looked—and smelled, dammit—or what his smile did to certain body parts that I was not speaking to, it’d be fine.
Fine .
And maybe if I kept repeating it to myself, I’d actually believe it. “I’ll think about it.”
“Take as long as you want.”
Since overthinking was my true superpower, I had no doubt I’d think of little else.