Chapter Four #3
“Pleasure,” he said, giving Bailey a grin and a nod before turning to give Gwen the same.
“Gwen’s going to be moving into the apartment next door,” Chloe supplied.
“You’ll have to give me your number,” Jesse said. “We’ll need to get your input on the new cabinets and flooring.”
Gwen blinked. “Really?”
“Mo said you get to pick,” Jesse told her, then turned at a knock on the door. “In here!” he hollered back, and Knox opened the door and stepped in.
“I need you on the cabinets,” he told Jesse, then his eyes lit on Chloe. “Morning, Chloe.”
“Knox,” she managed and just stared.
The man who looked so at ease in a smart suit was looked equally at home in the garb of a laborer.
His mane of silver hair was caught back in a short, stubby tail, his face just as grimy as Jesse’s.
He wore a gray T-shirt and worn jeans with work boots.
A mask hung around his neck, and his smokey hazel eyes were bright in his filthy face.
“My husband, Knox,” Jesse said, drowning out Bailey’s reverently whispered holy shit. “This is Bailey and Gwen, friends of Chloe.”
“A pleasure, ladies,” Knox said with a respectful nod.
“Likewise,” Gwen said faintly.
“Gwen’s moving in next door,” Jesse explained.
Knox’s eyes warmed with his smile. “Great. We’ll have to get together to look at your cabinet and flooring options.”
Gwen’s gaze darted between Knox and Jesse. She looked shell-shocked, a feeling Chloe was very familiar with. “Okay.”
“Sometime this week?”
“Ah…I’ll have to check my work schedule. Can I let you know?”
“Sure.” Jesse turned to Knox. “You got a card?”
Knox frowned. “Don’t you?”
“Must’ve left ’em in my other jeans.”
With exasperated affection in his eyes, Knox dug a leather holder out of his hip pocket. “I don’t know why I bother ordering them for you.”
“Me neither.” Taking the card from Knox, Jesse passed it to Gwen. “Just let us know what works.”
Gwen took the card, holding it like it was made of crystal. Or dynamite. “Okay.”
“We’ll get out of your hair. Nice meeting you, ladies.”
Bailey found her voice. “Nice meeting you, too.”
Jesse’s eyes flicked to Chloe, warming with his smile. “See you later, Chloe.”
“Later,” she echoed.
“If it gets too loud for you, just let us know,” Knox told her.
She nodded. “Will do.”
He waited a beat, as though he expected her to say something more, then nodded. “Ladies,” he said to Bailey and Gwen, then turned to nudge Jesse out the door.
It closed behind them, and for a moment there was silence. Then Bailey exhaled loud and long. “Holy shit balls.”
Chloe gave in to her wobbly knees and sank to the sofa. “I told you.”
“I knew they were hot,” Bailey continued, coming around to sit beside her. Her eyes were wide, her cheeks flushed. “But that wasn’t hot. That was…I don’t have words for what that was.”
“Welcome to my world,” Chloe said.
“It smells like him,” Gwen said dreamily and Chloe looked up to see her friend holding the business card Jesse had given her up to her nose, her eyes closed. “Like sweat and soap and…and…”
“Basil,” Chloe finished.
Gwen’s eyes flew open. “Yes!”
“Jesse always smells a little like basil. I don’t know why.”
“What does Knox smell like?” Bailey wanted to know.
“He smells like basil, too, but I think that’s because it rubs off Jesse and onto him.”
Bailey’s eyes went hazy and unfocused. “Fuck, that’s hot.”
“You can’t live like this,” Gwen declared.
“I know.” Chloe raked her hands through her hair, grimacing when the bra shifted and pinched.
“I’m serious. This much unexpressed sexual energy is toxic. You have to get rid of it.”
“What do you suggest, meditation?” Chloe demanded. “An exorcism?”
Gwen dropped next to Bailey on the sofa. “You have to have the threesome.”
Bailey nodded. “She’s right. It’s the only way.”
Chloe stared at them, then nodded. “Give me the phone.”
* * * *
Next door, Jesse pitched his voice over the whine of the electric screwdriver. “A pushup bra, Knox.”
Knox grunted, his shoulder wedged under the cabinet Jesse was unscrewing from the wall. “It doesn’t mean anything.”
“I swear, I don’t know how you ever got laid before I came along.” Tossing the screw aside in disgust, Jesse moved on to the next. “No woman just hanging out at home with pals puts on a pushup bra. I’m telling you, that was for our benefit.”
“You’re talking out of your ass, and this thing is cutting into my neck,” Knox complained. “Hurry up.”
“Last one,” Jesse said and set the screwdriver whirling. When the screw fell away, they lowered the cabinet to the ground. “These cabinets are ugly, but they’re solid wood. Somebody will be able to use them.”
“Let’s get the countertop up, then we can get the lower run and load them up into Sam’s truck. He said he’d drop them by Habitat for Humanity on his way home.”
In concert, and with the ease of long practice, they moved to tackle the ancient laminate. “A pushup bra,” Jesse said again.
“You’re not going to let this go, are you?”
“It’s a sign.”
Knox whacked his mallet into the underside of the counter. “Maybe it’s a sign that her other bras were in the laundry.”
Jesse snorted. “You don’t know shit about women. She wanted her tits to look good, and that was for our benefit.”
“Then why didn’t she come looking for us?” Knox demanded, giving the laminate another whack.
“I don’t know. Maybe she was going to later. It’s still early. Grab that side.”
Knox got a solid grip on the edge. “Got it.”
They lifted together, and the counter came up with a wrenching crack. They carried it over to the hall, set it down, then went back to remove the lower cabinets.
“We’re really not going to do anything about this?” Jesse demanded.
Knox scooted inside the lower cabinet and put his screwdriver to work. “She’s a client.”
“Mo and Carrie are clients,” Jesse corrected, his screwdriver humming alongside Knox’s.
“Same thing.” Shifting to the next cabinet, Knox examined the back wall. “Got some water damage here.”
Jesse wedged in beside him to look. “Looks like they had a leak at some point.”
Knox gave the drywall a testing poke. “We’ll have to take this down, make sure there’s no mold.”
“Bet there’s brick behind there, like downstairs.”
Knox thought he might be right. “Let’s hope it’s in good shape, or this just got complicated.”
They worked in companionable silence, taking apart the cabinets and carrying them downstairs to Sam’s truck.
The forecast was calling for several inches of snow by early afternoon, so when they had everything loaded up they sent Sam ahead to drop off the cabinets—and make a coffee run on the way back—and went back upstairs to tackle the carpet.
Jesse eyed Chloe’s door as they walked past, slowing down a little, and Knox grabbed him by the elbow. “Don’t even think it.”
“You’re so stubborn,” Jesse muttered but stomped obediently into the empty apartment next door. “Do you ever take that stick out of your ass?”
Knox shot him an amused look. “You find one when you were in there last night?”
For a moment Jesse’s eyes lit with laughter and remembered lust, then he was frowning again. “She wants us, Knox.”
Knox sighed, knowing Jesse wasn’t going to let it go. “I know she does.”
Surprise did what Knox so rarely could—rendered Jesse momentarily speechless.
“I’m not blind,” Knox continued, taking advantage of his love’s shock. “I see it when she looks at you, when she looks at me. I see it.”
“Then what—”
Knox shook his head. “She’s a client. Or close enough,” he said, anticipating Jesse’s next argument. “And wanting…it’s not enough. It’s not enough, Jess.”
He saw the truth of that hit, the acknowledgment of it in Jesse’s dark eyes. “There could be enough,” Jesse protested. “I really think there could be, Knox.”
Knox felt the same, but he shook his head. “And if there’s not?”
Jesse looked poised to protest, to argue, then raked a hand though his hair, sending drywall dust flying. “Shit.”
Knox reached out then, wrapping his hand around the back of Jesse’s neck. He tugged him in, pressing close so their hearts beat against one another. Jesse’s arms came up, his breath sighing out against Knox’s neck. “This sucks.”
“I know, babe.” Ignoring the sweat and the grime, Knox pressed his lips to Jesse’s temple. “For me, too.”
They stood there a moment, wrapped in each other, in comfort and love. Then Jesse sighed again, and eased back.
“Okay?” Knox asked.
Jesse offered a small smile. “Yeah.”
There was a sadness in Jesse’s eyes, lingering in the chocolate brown. “You sure?”
Jesse shrugged. “I will be.”
Knox searched those soft eyes for a moment, then nodded. “Okay.”
“I’m still going to flirt with her,” Jesse warned.
Knox found himself smiling. “I’d expect nothing less.”
“And I’m going to want blow jobs,” Jesse went on, the sadness fading into a lusty sparkle. “You know, to keep my morale up.”
Knox swallowed a laugh. “Not before you shower.”
“I didn’t say I wanted to get the blow job,” Jesse said.
Letting the laugh loose, Knox planted a smacking kiss on Jesse’s smirking mouth. “God, I love you.”
“I know. I love you, too.”
Knox kissed him again, lingering over it, then drew reluctantly away. “Come on, let’s get this carpet up.”
“Then I’ll blow you in the bathroom,” Jesse declared.
“You will not.” Refusing to laugh again, Knox fixed a stern look on his face. “We do not fuck in client spaces.”
“We fucked in the municipal building remodel,” Jesse reminded him.
“And almost got caught, which is why we made a rule that we do not fuck in client spaces.”
“Fine. But when we get home, I’m blowing you in the bathroom.”
“Make it in the shower, and I’ll blow you back.”
“Deal.”