Chapter 6
Scrot chasesthe Frisbee for over twenty minutes. I try to outrun him a few times, but I fail. Koen’s grin swells a little more each time I return empty-handed and out of breath.
“One more chance,” I say, bent at the waist, catching my breath.
“You’re really going to race him again?”
I nod since I can’t talk.
Koen chuckles. “Okay.” He fakes a throw, so Scrot heads off in one direction, and then he flings the Frisbee in a different direction to give me a head start.
“I threw it too far. Let it go!” he yells.
I have the edge. Why would I let it go? With a big jump, I nab it out of the air.
Victorious!
Except, the ground disappears and it’s replaced with water.
Icy water.
Air fills my lungs when I surface, but they won’t release it again.
“Shit! Scottie, I’ve got you.” Koen holds out his hand, and I take it while Scrot barks. He pulls me out of the pond, which appeared out of nowhere.
“C-cold.” I shiver, and everything smells fishy. I don’t know if I’m tasting or smelling it.
“Crap. I’m so sorry.” He removes his hoodie and his shirt.
“What are y-you d-doing?”
He removes his jeans. “We need to get you out of these wet clothes. It’s only forty degrees tonight.”
“I’m f-fine.” I hug my shaky fists to my chest.
“You don’t sound fine. Here.” He peels off my sweater.
“My shirt—” I try to keep it from going over my head with my sweater.
“It’s wet, too.” Koen overpowers my weak resistance. “Can you put your arms through?” He works his shirt over my head and helps guide my arms through the holes.
“Ko-en …” I fail at protesting as he peels my jeans down my legs, sliding off my sneakers and depositing the wet denim beside me.
“Can you hold the waist to keep them up?” He guides my hands to the waist of his jeans once he has them up my legs.
I nod quickly. “You’re naked.”
He guides my feet back into my sneakers. “I’ve got on underwear. And I’m not wet.” He holds my clothes in one hand while wrapping his other arm around my shoulders as we walk back to my trailer.
Me in oversized clothes.
Him in black briefs and brown leather boots.
We garner more than a few looks over the mile walk. It’s night, but it’s hard to miss a man in his undies. Lord knows I can’t stop taking a peek.
Abs. Sculpted quads and calves. Tight glutes.
Then Scrot does his part to make the night a little worse. He stops to take a dump.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Koen grumbles.
I snort despite my chattering teeth.
“The uh …” He wrinkles his nose. “Poop bag is in the pocket of my jeans.”
“Oh. I’ll hold the waist; you grab the bag.”
He tries to fish the bag out of the pocket like he’s on the verge of winning a game of Pick-up Sticks. “I’m trying really hard not to enjoy this.”
“Just get it.” I roll my eyes.
“I don’t want to touch you the wrong way accidentally. As a rule, I never fondle someone when their lips are blue.”
I giggle. “Just get it.”
Koen scoops poop, and we continue on our way.
“I’m sorry,” I say when we reach my trailer.
“Why are you apologizing?”
“Because you told me to stop, but I didn’t. And you,” I giggle, “walked all the way back in your boots and underwear.” When we step into the trailer, I pull off my wet shoes.
“No big deal. It’s not my first time.”
With my teeth still chattering, I glance up at him. “It’s not?”
“Okay. It is. I just didn’t want to make you feel bad.”
“I’m going to step into the shower. I’ll toss your clothes out to you, and you can go. If you never want to see me again, I understand.”
A tiny grin pulls at his lips while Scrot sits at his feet. “I want to see you again right now, but I’m trying to be a gentleman.”
“Did Herb fix me up with a pervert?” I cock my head to the side and buy time to take a quick scan of his nearly naked body. He’s wrapped in lean muscles. Hairy, but not too hairy. I’m the perv.
When he doesn’t answer with more than a conspiratorial grin, I quickly open the door to the bathroom and slide inside to remove his clothes. “Here you go. Again, I’m so sorry,” I call, cracking the door just enough to toss his clothes and jacket onto the floor. “Goodnight.”
Once I stop shivering and wash the pond water from my hair, I wrap up in my robe and open the bathroom door. “Oh. You’re still here.”
Koen smiles, glancing up from my kitchen table and my thousand-piece puzzle of the colorful buildings along Cinque Terre, Italy. “Just making sure you’re okay. Thawed out.”
“Are you working on my puzzle?” I ask, even though I know the answer because he’s finished adding the blue pieces of the water.
“Sorry.” He sits back, folding his hands in his lap.
I grin, combing my fingers through my hair. “You like puzzles?”
“No.” He bobs his head. “Well, that’s a hard question. I’ve never purchased a puzzle, and I don’t sit around thinking about puzzles. And when I’m gifted a puzzle,” he squints, “which is oddly quite often, I never open the box. However, if my mom or grandpa opens the box and spreads out the pieces, or if I’m at one of their houses and they have a partially constructed puzzle on the dining room table, I become obsessed with putting them together. Last year, on New Year’s Eve, my mom went to bed at midnight, and I said I would find one particular piece before heading home. She woke up at three in the morning to use the bathroom, and I was still there.”
My eyes widen, as does my grin.
Koen is not that sorry that he worked on my puzzle without permission because, in the time it took him to tell me that story, he found three more pieces.
He hums. “I guess I don’t like unfinished projects. Or clutter. Or loose ends.”
My gaze shifts to the dirty dishes by my sink and my unmade queen bed littered with clothes and bins of essential oils and stones. There’s no way he hasn’t noticed my clutter and unfinished projects. And yet, he’s still here.
Price Milloy thrived on order. I bet he’d say I was a terrible influence on him. Why am I attracted to the tidy ones?
“Want some pistachios?” I pluck the open bag from the counter and scatter some on the table next to the puzzle pieces.
Koen’s brows jump up his forehead while he stares at the shelled nuts. “Thanks,” he murmurs, plucking one from the table before gently sliding the rest away from the puzzle pieces.
He’sa puzzle, a bunch of pieces that seemingly don’t fit until you stare at them long enough. He has calloused hands and fingernails that look clipped at best. He wears a baseball hat to hide his unkempt hair. Those dirty brown boots are probably the same ones he wears to work every day. His flannel shirt is missing two buttons, and his jeans have a small hole in the knee that’s not there on purpose.
But he’s not a fan of unfinished projects, clutter, loose ends, or pistachios scattered on the table.
“Is your dad alive? Or are your parents divorced?” I ask.
He makes a quick glance up at me before returning his attention to the puzzle. “Divorced.”
“Is Herb your dad’s father or your mother’s?”
“Dad’s.” He finds another piece that fits.
My lips part to vomit my next question, but I swallow it.
“I’m going to get dressed.”
“Do you want me to leave?”
“Uh …”
“That was a stupid question.” He stands. “You’re too nice to ask me to leave.” He whistles for Scrot to head to the door.
“I haven’t had dinner. So I’m going to get dressed and eat something besides pistachios.”
Koen nods before adjusting his hat. “I get up at five, so I should head home.”
“Well—” I start my goodbye.
“But I don’t want to go.” He bites his bottom lip, which wrinkles his nose. This is the first time he’s shown anything short of absolute confidence.
We hold each other’s gaze for a long moment. I don’t know what this is, but it’s something.
My lips twist. “It’s the puzzle, isn’t it?”
“It’s you.”
I fight my grin.
“My Frisbee skills? My fancy home? The dirty dishes in the sink? Or the catastrophe on my bed?”
“I hadn’t noticed?—”
“Liar.” I laugh.
His smile gives him away. “Why don’t you get dressed while I get you something to eat? We can work on the puzzle for a little longer.”
“Are you going to wash my dirty dishes while I get dressed?”
“Absolutely.”
“A lesser woman would feel embarrassed. Horrified that a man she’s been with on only two occasions is cleaning up after her. I am not that woman. The dish soap is under the sink.” With a flirty smirk, I squeeze past him to the bedroom.
I slip into lounge pants and a soft, long-sleeved tee and clear off my bed, which takes longer than expected. When I open the door, he’s back at the puzzle. The dishes are clean and put away, and a bowl of leftover pasta salad sits next to the puzzle, along with the pistachios, which are now in a bowl.
“Thank you,” I say, sitting across from him again. “Have you had dinner?” I take a bite of the pasta salad.
“I did.” He lifts his gaze from the puzzle, setting aside the piece in his hand. “Is now the right time to mention I was engaged.”
I pause the fork at my mouth. What? Did I hear him right?
His eyes focus as if he’s visualizing something. “She left me because I enjoyed drinking until I blacked out, just like my father.”
I force myself to take a bite of pasta and chew it slowly to hide any knee-jerk reaction.
A flinch.
A hard swallow.
A tiny gasp.
“I didn’t help out around the house. I slept in my clothes most nights. My truck was littered with trash from takeout food and empty bottles of booze. So, order and routine have become important to me. Necessary.”
Staring at my bowl, I nod several times.
“That was five years ago. And I still have to think through things. Plan not to drink. Walk Scrot instead of going to the bar. And if my grandfather knew I was telling you this before or even on our first date, he would clock me upside the head. But the anxiety of not telling you is torturous. So there you have it.”
I catch myself nervously tapping the bowl with my fork. “Should I run?”
He bobs his head a few times. “Probably.”
“Do you think you’re unworthy of love?”
“No. But I wouldn’t blame anyone for feeling worthy of someone better than me—less risky. Less fun, too, but definitely less risky.”
“Well,” I set my bowl and fork in the sink, “that makes you an honest man, Koen Sikes. And I’m a huge fan of honest men. Besides, I landed in a pond tonight. You might have to lower your expectations of me.” I turn, resting my butt and hands against the counter.
He stands so that we’re incredibly close in this tight space. My heart lurches into my throat. I’ve never wanted to be kissed so badly in my life. He wets his lips, and I swear he’s going to kiss me. The shivers attack me for the second time tonight when he brushes his knuckles along my cheek before his palm skates down my neck.
“You’ve already exceeded all expectations by a landslide.” He smiles. “Goodnight, Scottie.”
His hand disappears. And in the next blink, he’s out the door with Scrot, leaving me puddled on the floor of my trailer.