Chapter 3
3
B rynn bobbled her fork. “What?”
“You’ll stay here,” he repeated and raised one tawny eyebrow. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
She wasn’t sure how she was looking at him—probably like he’d lost all reason. Because he clearly had. “I can’t stay here.”
“Why not?” he asked. “There’s plenty of room, and not to put too fine a point on it, you’ve been staying here.”
“When you were on vacation,” she pointed out. “You’re home now, and I’ll be in your way.”
He shrugged. “I’m going to be working on getting into shape for the season, so I won’t be around much.”
She tried not to do it, she really did, but her eyes seemed to be taking direction from her brain without her input. Before she could stop them, they were skimming over his body—strong shoulders and firm pecs and bulging biceps and corded forearms. His shorts weren’t as tight as last night’s blue boxers and covered him almost to his knees, but she had very clear memories of his thighs.
“How much more in shape can you be?” she blurted out and immediately blushed.
“You’d be surprised,” he said drily.
She didn’t know what to say to that, and she was still thinking about his thighs, so she forced herself back to the topic at hand.
“Well, you can’t work out all the time,” she said, poking at her food. “And when you get home, you’re going to want to relax. You can’t do that with me here.”
“Why? Are you messy?”
She kept her eyes on her eggs. “No.”
“Play loud music in the middle of the night? Throw drunken parties?”
“Of course not.”
“Clip your toenails while you eat?”
She reared back to stare at him in horror. “Ew, no!”
“Then I doubt you’ll bother me,” he said with a shrug.
Yes, but you’ll bother me. She reached for the salt shaker. “You don’t know that.”
“We can leap off that bridge when it’s on fire.”
She blinked. “Isn’t the phrase ‘we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it’?”
He shrugged. “Potato, tomato. If you don’t want to stay here, that’s fine. I’ll book you a hotel room.”
She wanted to say she didn’t feel right about him paying for a hotel room, but that would’ve been for show—she felt just fine about him paying for a hotel, or any other damn thing he wanted to pay for. And taking him up on the offer would be the professional, logical thing to do.
But she didn’t want to.
“I cleaned out the guest room last night,” he said, then frowned. “Well, I cleared all the boxes off the bed, anyway. And I ordered a dresser.”
She blinked. “You did?”
“It’s being delivered this afternoon. Along with bedding,” he continued, rising from his stool, plate and fork in hand. “And new pillows.”
She watched him take his dishes to the sink and tried to think of something to say. Not a single thing came to mind.
“I need to go through the boxes and stuff, figure out what to keep and what to donate. I think most of it is old hockey equipment.”
“It is,” she said faintly. She was the one who’d packed it all up in Grand Rapids. She’d tried to convince him to donate it all then, but he hadn’t been ready.
“Oh, and I need you to do something for me today,” he said, his back to her as he stood at the sink.
“Okay,” she said and tried to pay attention to what he was saying and not to the way his back muscles flexed.
“Find a cleaning service.”
Her cheeks heated immediately. “I can keep doing it,” she said, pleased that her voice didn’t reflect the knee-jerk shame she was trying not to feel. “It’s no problem.”
“No,” he said and slapped on the water. “You can’t.”
He sounded pissed off again, and it put her back up. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“I didn’t say there was.” He turned the water off and turned to look at her, the sharp look in his eyes giving way to curiosity. “Do you want to keep doing it?”
She almost said yes, just to be contrary, but she wasn’t that foolish. “No.”
“Would you have done it if you hadn’t needed the extra money?”
“That’s why people work, Jude,” she said, trying not to snap. “Because they need money.”
He just stared at her, waiting patiently, and she sighed. “No.”
“Then hire someone else to do it.”
She wasn’t sure why she was so annoyed—it wasn’t like she wanted to scrub his damn toilets. “Fine. Anything else I can do for you, boss?”
He raised an eyebrow but only said, “Could probably use some groceries.”
She bit back the sour retort. “Sure. What do you want?”
“I have to up my protein intake, so get a lot of chicken. Skinless, boneless breasts. Some salmon, too, and lean steaks. Stuff that can be stashed in the freezer. Plus vegetables. Lots and lots of vegetables.”
“This is a boring grocery list,” she commented, making notes on her phone.
“Welcome to the diet of a professional athlete,” he said drily. “Get some oatmeal, skim milk, and whatever fresh fruit looks good. Berries would be best, but whatever looks good. And plain Greek yogurt.”
“Seriously boring.” She looked up from her phone. “Anything else?”
“That’ll do for now. I’ll give you my credit card.” He turned to walk out of the kitchen and almost tripped over Tilly.
“Jeez, dog, don’t do that.” He crouched down to give her ears a scratch. “If I get injured before the season even starts, we’re all fucked.”
Tilly simply rolled onto her back to present her belly for a rub.
He laughed and obliged her. “Such a good girl, aren’t you? The best girl.”
He’s talking to the dog, you slut , Brynn silently admonished her vagina, which was reacting the way any reasonable vagina would react to Jude crooning good girl in his rough, rumbly voice—with delight and hope. Her nipples had gone hopeful, too, making her grateful for small boobs and oversized t-shirts.
“I’ll just clean up in here and go see what needs to be done in the guest room,” she said, stealing one last glimpse of straining thighs before picking up her plate.
He nodded and rose. “I’ll leave the credit card on the counter. If you have any trouble using it, call me.”
“Okay, thanks.”
“No problem,” he said and walked into the bedroom. When the door closed behind him, cutting off the view, she went back to work.
Brynn spent her morning lining up a grocery delivery, setting up appointments to interview cleaning services, clearing out the guest room, and trying to get her best friend on the phone.
The groceries were easy. Probably the best thing about a post-Covid world, in her personal opinion, was the wide availability of grocery delivery services. She normally would’ve spent some time searching for a coupon or a first-delivery-free offer, but it wasn’t her money and Jude already had an account with Meijer. She was able to click buy-again on almost everything, so the whole thing took less time than it took to condition her hair.
She had more trouble with the cleaning service. An internet search of Detroit cleaning services netted over three million results, so she pivoted to a much more reliable local resource—Angela Mitchel.
The PA for one of Jude’s teammates and a born-and-raised Detroiter, Angela knew the city inside and out, and she had connections everywhere. Within two minutes of asking for a recommendation, Brynn had the names of three companies, complete with references, and had appointments set up with all three for the next afternoon within another thirty.
Which left clearing out the guest room as her remaining task.
“And where the hell,” she asked Tilly, standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips, “am I supposed to put all of this?”
Tilly waddled into the room, skirting the bed, three hockey bags stacked one on top of the other and a broken desk chair to get to the giant black leather beanbag shoved under the single unshaded window. Sunlight pooled in its center, and Tilly managed to settle into it with only a few scrabbles and one awkward slide backward.
“Thanks for your help,” Brynn muttered. She wondered briefly if she should nudge the dog off the beanbag, then decided not to worry about it. There were deep scratches in the leather, and the sun had bleached it gray—a little dog hair wasn’t going to lower its value any further.
With Tilly snoring away, she surveyed the rest of the room. The two dozen boxes that had been on the mattress were now stacked between the bed and the closet, and there were two more hockey bags, bringing the total to five. There was also a stack of sticks in the corner behind the bed, an old box fan, and three garbage bags that were filled with Jude’s old clothes.
She looked around the room, assessing. It looked chaotic, but it wasn’t that bad. She didn’t want to throw anything out without checking with Jude, but she could organize it. If she stacked the boxes along the wall closest to the door, she might be able to get everything else into the closet. Well, everything but the bean bag and the broken desk chair. Those might have to go into the living room until she could confirm with Jude that she could throw them out.
She was just shoving the last box into place when her phone chimed the ringtone she’d assigned to her best friend. She snatched it off the top box on the pile, shoved her sweaty bangs off her forehead, and answered on speaker. “It’s about damn time.”
“Sorry,” Amy said. “I was covering a class for someone. What’s up?”
“My life is hell.”
“The same hell it’s been for the last six weeks, or a new one?”
There was nowhere to sit except the bed, and she couldn’t sit there—it might smell like Jude. So she perched on the floor with her back to the bean bag, Tilly’s rumbling snore turning it into a vibrating chair. “Jude came home early last night.”
“Uh-oh. Busted?”
“I was asleep in his bed.”
“Big busted. What happened?”
“I fell out of bed and hit my head, so he put me through concussion protocol.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I was a little dazed,” Brynn admitted. “But that was because he was wearing boxer shorts. Only boxer shorts. And he grew a mustache.”
“Ooh. Does he pull it off?”
“It doesn’t look bad,” Brynn said, forcing herself to sound casual.
“Uh-huh,” Amy said, clearly not buying casual. “How were the thighs?”
“He’s not skipping leg day,” Brynn said with fondness.
“Let’s have a moment of silence for leg day,” Amy said reverently, then after a few seconds, said, “Okay, how’d you play it?”
“I mostly just stared.”
“Not the thighs, the getting caught.”
“I thought I played it off—told him there was a burst pipe in my building, and I just needed a place to stay for a night or two, but he didn’t buy it.”
“So, he knows you’ve been squatting.”
“Don’t say squatting. It sounds so sordid. Accurate,” she admitted, “but sordid.”
“Sorry. Did he fire you?”
“No. I figured he was going to—I mean, I would fire me—so when he asked me why, I kind of…let him have it.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. I told him he was a cheap bastard who could find someone else to buy his sweaters and stock his fridge.”
Amy let out a delighted laugh. “Seriously?”
“No. I was too scared.” Brynn confessed. “But I did say that five hundred a week wasn’t enough to live on, and the whole not paying me in the off-season thing was a dick move.”
“Atta girl,” Amy cheered.
“I was feeling pretty righteous,” Brynn said. “Then he said I was supposed to get a raise in February and I kind of deflated.”
“What?”
“Yeah.” Leaning her head back against Tilly’s flank, Brynn laid it out.
“Wow,” Amy said when she’d finished. “So your money problems are over, then?”
Brynn drew a deep breath, realizing for the first time that the awful tightness that had been living in her chest for the last several months was gone. “Once it gets straightened out, however long that takes.”
“Babe, that’s great .”
“Yeah.”
There was a delicate pause, then Amy said, “And yet, you sound like your dog just died.”
“I don’t have a dog.”
“Is this about your crush on him?”
“I object to the term crush,” Brynn said with all the dignity she could muster. “I’m a grown woman, not a twelve-year-old girl.”
“Fine, I’ll use grown-up words. Is this about you being in love with your boss?”
“On second thought, let’s go back to crush. I’m not in love with him.”
“Close enough.”
“Close only counts in hand grenades and horseshoes.”
“As far as your career is concerned, being romantically and sexually obsessed with your boss is a hand grenade.”
“Obsessed is a strong word,” Brynn objected.
“Who do you think about when you masturbate?” Amy asked.
“None of your business.”
“Yeah, I’m sticking with obsessed.”
Brynn scowled into the phone. “You’re one to talk. You’ve been in love with Isaac since the tenth grade.”
“Yes, but I’m not trying to blow up my life over it.”
“Maybe you should,” Brynn muttered.
“What?”
“Never mind.” The topic of Amy’s unrequited love for Brynn’s older brother had been declared off-limits years ago, and she could tell by her friend’s tone that wasn’t about to change. “I don’t know why I talk to you about this stuff.”
“Because I’m your best friend, and you love me.”
Brynn nestled deeper into the bean bag. Tilly snuffled, shifted, and settled back down with a rumbling snore. “I’m getting new friends.”
“Okay. Until you do, do you want to stay with me? Just until your paycheck gets straightened out and you can get your own place?”
“I can’t do my job in Detroit if I’m living with you in Adrian,” Brynn pointed out.
“You never heard of remote work?”
“I can’t,” she said, ignoring the little voice in the back of her head saying you can, you just don’t want to. “But thank you.”
“Well, you can’t stay there now that Jude’s back,” Amy said. “Do you need me to get you a hotel?”
“No, Jude offered to cover it,” Brynn said and told herself that, technically, it was the truth.
“Least he could do,” was Amy’s opinion of that. “When are you supposed to hear about your paycheck?”
“I don’t know. They’re working on it.”
“Well, let me know when you hear. And when you find a place, I’ll clear a weekend to help you move.”
“That would be great, Ames. I miss you.”
“I miss you, too. Don’t fuck your boss.”
“I’m seriously getting new friends,” Brynn said and hung up on Amy’s cackling laugh.
She sat there for a moment, listening to the dog snore. It was oddly comforting, even if it did come with the smell of hound and dog farts and more drool than she’d known one mammal could produce. Maybe she’d get a dog when she got a place of her own—or better, a cat, since they didn’t need walking.
“Speaking of which,” she said, giving Tilly a nudge. “Time for yours. C’mon, get up.”
Tilly opened one eye, huffed, and closed it again.
Used to Tilly’s lazy ways, Brynn didn’t bother to cajole. There was only one thing that could get Tilly to move when she didn’t want to, so Brynn went straight to the deli drawer in the fridge to get them.
When they walked back into the apartment twenty minutes later, Tilly was full of organic dog treats and empty of pee and Brynn was even sweatier. More than ready for a shower, she made sure Tilly had enough water in her bowl and headed to the guest bath, where she’d already put the toiletries she’d cleared out of Jude’s bathroom.
Hosing off the heat and sweat made her feel a hundred times better, as did a quick spin with the hand-held shower wand. It didn’t have as many settings as one in Jude’s shower, but using this one didn’t come with a vague sense of guilt along with the orgasm, and that more than made up for the lack of variety.
It was bad enough she was thinking of Jude when she came, doing it in his shower added a layer of ick she wasn’t prepared to morally wrestle with. The fact that she’d been doing so since she’d moved in was neither here nor there.
She dug a sundress and fresh panties out of her suitcase and made a mental note to do laundry before Jude got home. She was going to have to make a trip to the storage unit for more of her clothes soon, but she was hoping to put it off until she was in her own apartment and could move everything all at once.
She’d checked her bank account, and though there hadn’t been a deposit yet, she was surprisingly un-anxious about it. She should’ve been, especially since her checking account was in the red. But knowing that money was coming meant she could see the minus sign and the account alert banner flashing on her banking app and still breathe.
Money might not be able to buy happiness, but it was better than Lexapro for easing anxiety.
Dressed, she combed her hair and left it to air dry, then put on her glasses and checked her phone. The grocery delivery was on its way, and the link Jude had forwarded her told her the dresser and bedding would be delivered before five. She needed something for lunch, then she’d get out her laptop. She had some ideas for punching up Jude’s social media for the season, and she wanted to get her thoughts written up and organized before presenting them to him. And focusing on work was the best way to remind herself that their relationship was a professional one—no matter how much she wished otherwise.