Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
KNOX
“Yeah, if you can resend that invoice tomorrow, I’ll be sure it gets paid Thursday,” I assured our feed vendor, making a note on my calendar to follow up in the morning.
“I apologize for the misunderstanding. Things have been a little crazy here the last few months. I’ve been wading through a backlog of receipts, and—”
A flash of movement caught my eye, and I looked up to find Goodman standing behind his desk with his arms stretched toward the ceiling in a Sun Salutation.
The move made his T-shirt ride up and his shorts ride so far down they barely caught on his lean hip bones and revealed the thick black band of his boxers.
I adjusted myself surreptitiously under my desk.
Goodman had gotten incredibly fond of yoga in the four days since we’d been back from Boston.
These days, he stretched constantly—leaning over couches and countertops to stretch his lower back, bracing himself on doorframes to stretch his pecs, lunging up the stairs to our shared apartment when I was right behind him so he could “stretch his quads.”
And for a twenty-four-year-old, the man was a mess of aches and pains, from the trapezius muscles he’d asked me to knead in the kitchen Sunday morning to his “old hamstring injury” flare-up—which, in a weird anatomical twist, was located in the front of Goodman’s thigh, though most humans kept their hamstrings in the back.
He’d also developed a strange insecurity about his clothing.
He’d asked me at least three times to check the fit of his T-shirts over his shoulders, he’d begged me to tell him my honest opinion about the way his ass looked in his tight jeans, and—my personal favorite—he’d made me solemnly swear to give him “friendly erection checks” on a daily basis to make sure I couldn’t see a dick print in the loose basketball shorts he wore around the apartment so he didn’t “make you uncomfortable, Knox.”
Seriously.
From a guy with a degree in applied mathematics, you’d expect at least a subtle nod toward logic in his attempts to drive me insane, but no.
I knew exactly what Goodman was up to. This was payback for putting his drunk ass to bed alone Thursday night after his gin-tastic hurl into a trash can outside Bar-Z and then leaving him to wake up alone while I’d grabbed a very quick cup of coffee with Rick, who’d been way too distracted by some problem at the office (“Nothing you need to worry about, Knox! You’re on leave, for fuck’s sake”) to actually tell me how things were going.
Did knowing it was payback mean that I could stop my eyes from tracking every single movement Goodman made as he dipped into a Downward Dog or stop my dick from responding to it?
Did it mean that I hadn’t jerked off literally every single night since then, thinking about Goodman’s eyes on me as I’d changed clothes at the hotel and the feel of his body undulating against mine on the dance floor?
That would be a solid no. Goodman was un-ignorable, and reciting all Dr. Travers’s mantras couldn’t change that.
I knew because I’d tried.
The good news was, all the orgasms were working better than any medication ever had to help me sleep. Five or six hours at a stretch made me feel like a new man. I hadn’t thought about the situation at Bormon Klein Jacovic much at all since we’d gotten back either, which had probably helped, too.
“Knox?” the voice in my ear said.
Fuck.
I squeezed my pen more tightly in my hand. “Sorry, Wayne. I was just contemplating that backlog of receipts and feeling sorry for myself.” I forced a laugh. “I appreciate your patience and your continuing to supply the hay despite the mix-up.”
“No worries, Knox. You know we’ve been supplying Sunday Orchard since your dad’s dad was running the place. My wife can’t get enough of Webb’s heirloom apples. Let me know if I can help with anything.”
Goodman let out a restrained groan as he bent over and touched his toes—facing away from me, naturally, so I had a prime view of his ass—and I had the bizarre urge to laugh.
Well, Wayne, since you asked… what would you advise me to do when my extremely young but painfully sexy officemate and roommate wants me to have sex with him, which is a thing I also want, but which feels irresponsible for reasons that are probably incredibly important even though I forget them whenever he walks in the room?
“Yeah, I’ll do that,” I told him, averting my eyes from Goodman’s luscious ass once more.
“Good to have you back, Knox.”
“Good to be back,” I replied automatically.
But as I disconnected the call, I realized that the words weren’t just polite; they were kind of true. I was kind of enjoying my time at the orchard. More than I had at first, anyway.
I felt good. Truly calm. I hadn’t had even a fluttering of a panic attack in a couple of weeks. I wasn’t foolish enough to think I’d never have another one, but I was definitely getting better.
And even though Goodman was the bane of my existence—and I was still almost positive I wasn’t going to sleep with him—his open, cheerful nature made life fun. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d woken up interested to see what the day held like I had recently.
“Hnghhhhhhhhhh,” Goodman moaned, lifting his flip-flopped foot onto the edge of the desk and leaning his body weight into his leg.
I wasn’t sure what that move was supposed to stretch… besides my self-control.
“Y’okay, Goodman?” I demanded without looking at him. I shuffled some papers on my desk and grabbed one at random so I could pretend to be making crucially important notes.
“Yeah, no, I’m great. Never better.” His eyebrow twitched. “I actually got a huge chunk of the scheduling software customized this morning, and Webb is thrilled. But for some reason, my muscles just feel so… hnghhhhhh… so very, very tight these days.”
“Dehydration from last week?” I suggested sweetly.
“What? No!” His outrage was adorable. “I wasn’t even hungover.”
“You sure? ’Cause you vomited a lot. Like, a lot,” I lied. “I wasn’t sure someone could puke that much and live.”
Goodman let his foot fall to the floor. “It’s not dehydration.” He sounded sulky, and I felt the urge to laugh bubble up in my throat.
“Maybe it’s the change of seasons, then,” I said mildly.
“Gammy Sunday used to be a slave to her arthritis, especially when she was underdressed. She used to wear a scarf religiously come fall, and she swore by her raw-onion liniment recipe. I think Webb might have some of Gammy’s liniment in the cow barn if you’re interested. ”
“I’d literally rather die.” He jumped to his feet and began pacing the length of our front-to-front desks. His gorgeous, bare, golden-tanned legs ate up the short distance.
“Or you could put on warmer clothes, maybe.” I tugged at the drawstring of my Hannabury College hoodie. “Protect yourself from the chill. Maybe a blanket for your lap. Maybe not wearing shorts when it’s fifty degrees, or—”
Goodman rolled my chair back from my desk and inserted himself in the space he’d created, his bare knee an inch away from my jean-clad one. “Why don’t you want to fuck me?” he demanded.
I blinked. God damn. Was he actually asking me that flat out? “Goodman—”
“Don’t do that. Don’t Goodman me. Look, I told myself it’d be fine if you weren’t interested in me.
Plenty of people aren’t. But then the other night at the club, you and I danced, and it…
you… We kissed, Knox,” he blurted. “You kissed me. I didn’t imagine that.
” He frowned. “Wait, I didn’t imagine that, did I? ”
“No,” I agreed softly. “You didn’t imagine that.”
“And you were hard,” he accused.
I sighed. “I was.”
“And you were jealous of John.”
I rolled my eyes. “Did I tell you about the text I got from Teagan? About what happened between the two of them?”
“Yes. And stop trying to change the subject.”
I tapped my pen against my thigh. “Yes. I was jealous.”
“So, then…?”
It was hard to think clearly when he was so close, so warm, and smelling so damn good.
I slid my chair back further and stood up.
“Come with me up to the Pond Orchard,” I said impulsively.
“Gil suggested regrading the access road out there this year, but Webb’s hoping we can get away with just another load of gravel until after next year’s harvest. I told him I’d give him my opinion. ”
“But…”
“Please, Goodman.”
“Are there cows up there?”
He wasn’t nearly as afraid of cows as he’d once been. I was pretty sure he and Diana were besties. But I couldn’t tease him about it anymore.
After all, my attraction to Gage scared the shit out of me every bit as powerfully and irrationally as cows scared him, so who was I to judge?
“Not a single bovine. I promise.”
“Yeah.” He sighed lustily, waving an arm. “Yeah, okay, fine.”
We didn’t speak a word as we walked to the big garage on the far side of the farmhouse, got one of the 4x4s, and headed up the long access road that led to the orchards at the rear of the property.
The sky was the perfect blue that only ever happened in Vermont in autumn, and the hardwood trees were a riot of color as we bounced up the road.
I went faster than I needed to, mostly for the thrill of it but partly to see the way Goodman’s eyes sparkled as the wind whipped his hair and T-shirt.
Only when we crested the rise that overlooked the farm did I slow down a little.
“Is this still Sunday Orchard?” Goodman asked. “We’ve been driving for miles.”
“More like half a mile as the crow flies, though the road is loopy. The original place was just over three hundred acres, and my parents added another hundred seventy when they married. Not all of it’s cultivated—a good bit of it is wooded. I’m not sure how much of the place you’ve seen so far—”
Goodman counted off on his fingers. “The barn, the farmhouse, the U-pick areas, the pumpkin patch, and the area near the road that the elementary school manages for the kids’ science classes.”