12. The Accidental Innuendo #2
He sighs like this is all too much for him. “You gonna come for me, Chloe?”
I stop.
He freezes. He must hear it at the same moment I do. The accidental innuendo.
I clear my throat. “Nah. Your shirt is safe for now,” I say, then spin around, suddenly hot under my shirt.
I dip my brush again, hyper-focused on the next wall I need to work on.
With supreme focus too, he dips a new roller into the tray of white paint.
I brush the corners. He tackles another coat near the floorboards.
I stop for a second, fanning myself. It is hot in here.
It’s late June after all, and the windows are open so we can get some air on the paint.
When I return to my work, he’s a few feet away, rolling with intense diligence.
After a few minutes, he exhales, mutters something under his breath, and sets his roller down.
“Fuck it,” he says, then lifts his hand to the first button of his shirt.
Oh.
Ohhh.
There goes the second.
I’m totally not watching. I swear I’m not. Except my eyes are glued to every movement as he unbuttons all the way, taking it off. He’s down to a white undershirt, and it is tight.
It hugs his chest, clings to his biceps, and outlines his abs in ways that make me forget what I was doing. It’s like suit-hot and handy-hot had a baby, and it was this moment.
He bends—slowly—and slides his roller through the white paint. Smooth and steady. It’s basically foreplay with paint supplies.
Does he know? Is he putting on a show for me?
I swallow roughly as I work. When it’s time for me to paint the highest corner, I reach for the step stool I brought in, but he’s already striding over, palm out. “Let me help.”
Three little words that do something inconvenient to my insides. August was never a helper. He was a taker.
It reminds me, too, of how Sawyer talked to me in bed. Confident. Capable. Commanding. Come here, Chloe. Turn around. Put your hands against the wall.
I shiver from the white-hot memories crashing into me, and I go with it, handing over a brush.
Sawyer takes it, climbs the step stool, and starts carefully painting the top corner.
Do not stare at him painting.
Do not ogle him as he stretches.
Do not gawk at the way his shirt rides up, exposing his lower abs.
I do all of it.
I’m caught mid-eye-fuck when his gaze turns, slow and deliberate, a cocky smile curving his lips. “Enjoying the view?”
I snap my eyes away as my cheeks heat. “Nope. Just checking out your…technique.”
“Do you approve?”
“It’ll do,” I rasp, because it’s way too warm in here.
When he climbs down and wipes his hands, he checks his watch. “I should…go.”
“Right,” I say, and he’s helped more than I’d expected. “Probably need to get back to your…computer, and your Zoom calls, and all your…boss stuff.”
He does seem like a computer guy—running spreadsheets, checking sales, crunching profit and loss.
His eyes shift. “I have…someplace to be.”
Huh. That someplace sounds…secretive? Or is it just me? “Okay,” I say.
He checks his watch again, nods like he’s agreeing with himself. “Yeah. I better take off.”
He doesn’t say goodbye. Just grabs his shirt, heads through the doggie daycare, and exits a minute later before anyone else notices.
That was a fast goodbye.
Probably has a hot date. It is a Thursday night, after all.
My jaw tightens at the thought—and stays tight as I finish painting the last corner alone.
* * *
As I clean up, I don’t think about his date.
I think about the message Linus sent earlier this evening, letting me know the meeting with the producers will be sometime next week and to hang tight for details.
I think about my new clients and the info I researched on them last night—they’ve both been cast in the new Webflix show that’s coming to town.
I think about the skills I want to teach their dogs, if they don’t know them already.
And the whole time I don’t at all imagine Sawyer walking into Prohibition Spirit or Clementine’s Tapas Bar right now, striding up to the counter, planting a sensual kiss on the neck of some woman he met online.
And…crap.
I nearly crush the paintbrush handle.
Where is a calming app when you need it? But the universe hears my prayer, since my phone trills as I’m sealing the caps on the paint.
“Darling, you’ll never guess who I ran into,” my mom says when I pick up. She wastes no time when it comes to drama or gossip.
In the background, I can hear the tinkle of a piano. She’s probably still at the theater. “Sutton Foster? Jonathan Groff? Audra McDonald?”
She laughs. “A woman can dream. But close. I ran into that actress, Saffron Morgan.”
“Oh! She’s one of my new clients. Veronica referred her. I have a session with her next week,” I say. “With Ava Hartley too.”
I’ve been following both their careers for a while now.
Saffron was born in Persia and moved with her family to Hollywood when her parents had an opportunity to practice entertainment law there.
Ava grew up on a horse farm in Calgary and visited California for the first time in high school.
They became friends when they met doing a play in Los Angeles.
“We had such a lovely chat. I told her all about my fundraiser, and she was thrilled to hear what we’ll be doing,” my mom says, then chatters on about how much Saffron loves the stage, and conversations with my mother about theater are always the perfect distraction.
Soon enough, I’m finished, and she says, “My cabaret club is here tonight. Want to join us and play piano?”
Cabaret clubs don’t help and then vanish. They don’t leave you with questions you’d rather not contemplate. They are what they are—part of my life. Fun, dependable, and mine.
I say yes.