Page 21 of Take My Hand

Walker and Hayden join us in the kitchen, both eagerly grabbing the bottles of water.

“It’s hot as hell in here. Do you have AC?” Walker asks, pulling his shirt away from his body in an attempt to get some air moving against him.

“Sorry.” I cringe, pointing to the fan I have going in the corner of the living room by the open window, trying to circulate the slight breeze outside. “That’s all I got.”

“No need to apologize. Our first place here didn’t either.” Without a moment of hesitation, Walker tears his shirt over his head and tosses it by the front door.

Scar’s eyes glaze over slightly, something that he definitely takes note of. He raises a single brow at her, and she purses her lips, refusing to break his stare.

I look away, the moment feeling intimate between them.

But a flash of movement draws my attention that way as Hayden also pulls his shirt over his head, ruffling his hair. He folds it into a neat square and sets it on one of my barstools, and as if he can sense me watching him, he meets my eyes and blushes.

He fucking blushes.

“Sorry. If we’re going to be building, gotta get a little more comfortable,” he says softly.

Now it’s my turn to tell him there’s no need to apologize. Because by the way I can’t stop staring at his chest and arms, he’s the one doing me a favor.

I’ve seen the tattoos on his arms and legs before, but never any of the art he has underneath his clothing. His entire torso is covered in ink, black and white, with barely any untouched skin in between.

My fingers twitch, and I wish I had my camera in hand to photograph each of them. To capture the art he has decorated himself with and then ask him about the pieces one by one. Do they have meaning or are they just because they look cool? I can imagine him having some of each.

Hayden clears his throat and it’s then that I realize I’ve been standing here just staring at him like an idiot.

“No, o-of course,” I stutter, feeling the smirk he’s giving me as I go back to my phone, finishing the pizza order. “Food should be here in forty-five minutes.”

“Sounds good,” Walker says behind me. “Just let us know where we need to start.”

I’m about to turn and answer him when my eyes zero in on the way Hayden’s throat bobs as he greedily chugs from the bottle. And it’s then that I realize that his neck is also covered in a tattoo. A new one. It has to be. I would’ve remembered him having one before.

It’s beautiful. The way the butterfly wings stretch up and frame his jawline, making it sharper and more pronounced. And the skull at the center brings just enough edge to the piece.

Between his new ink and the existing art he wears, the dark wavy hair that hangs over the front of his forehead, sometimes partially obscuring those warm brown eyes and sharp features, he’s a walking muse. One that my eye can’t get enough of.

9

HAYDEN

“Shit!” I shake my hand out, my thumb pulsating with a heartbeat of its own.

“Are you alright?” Carter asks, sitting beside me on the floor and trying to hide a laugh.

We’ve been attempting to build her new dresser for the last twenty minutes and have yet to have anything to really show for it. The thing I’ve been most successful at so far has been crushing my fingers between the heavy wooden pieces and making Carter laugh at my expense.

“Can you hand me the directions again? I don’t think these pieces are right.”

She passes the paper booklet over to me and our hands graze each other in the process, which she quickly pulls away from. I try not to overthink that reaction, but I can’t help it.

I’ve been waiting for the right time to say something to her, and I’ve finally found it while Scar and Walker are busy out in her living room putting together her bookcase.

From the sounds of it, they seem to be having just as much success as we are.

I flip through the directions half-heartedly as I start, “I owe you an apology for the last time I saw you.”

“You don’t have to apologize.” Carter picks at the frayed edges of her shorts, twirling a loose strand around her finger.

I wait for her eyes to meet mine. When she lifts them, I say, “I do. I was rude to you, and you didn’t deserve it.”

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