Page 52 of The Grumpy Side of Paradise

He takes it from me and pulls off the lid. “Thank you. I need it today.” Steam pours out of the cup, and his Adam’s apple bobs when he takes a long sip. “You taking pictures of the house to show Georgia?”

I take my own sip while I consider how to answer. “Yes, but also to put on Instagram. Is that okay?”

“You’re putting pictures of me on your Gram?” His mouth twitches like he might smile, which is unexpected. “Should I be flattered or feel objectified? I’m okay with both, by the way.”

I laugh. This is going so much better than I’d expected. “Flattered. I’m going to post about the house and all the work you’re doing on it, if you’re okay having your picture public. It’s free advertising for you.”

He shrugs and almost grins. “Sure. Why not?”

“Really? You’re sure you don’t mind?” I can barely contain my surprise and my excitement.

“If it means I get to see more of you, then yeah. Take all the pictures you want.” His gaze locks on mine. His eyes are clear blue, almost transparent. There’s nothing hiding behind them. They are as open and endless as a cloudless sky on a summer day.

“It does mean that.” I smile wide, mirroring his openness. “Do you want to see the video I already took?”

He rolls his eyes and scoffs. “The last thing I need is to look at pictures of myself all day. You do it for me.” Now he breaks into a grin. A smoldering one. Like he knows I might just look at any pictures of him more than I need to.

I pull back my smile. He doesn’t need to know how much I’m enjoying this. That would be flirting.

In fact, I may have already broken my no flirting rule. That’s a problem in itself, but the even bigger problem is how fun it was to break my own rule. There’s not really an immediate consequence if I break it again. What am I going to do? Ground myself?

I think I’ve already established that grounding myself from Adam does not work. Plus, he’s given me permission to use his pictures in my content, which would be hard to do if I grounding myself actually worked.

“Do you at least want to know my handle so you can follow me?” I ask, making sure I’ve covered all my bases.

He waves off my question. “I’m not a social media guy.” He puts on his hard hat, then tugs on his gloves. “Are you ready to help or are you playing photographer all day?”

“I’m ready to help.” I slip my phone into my back pocket and follow him to his truck. “Can I use the nail gun again today?”

“Do you remember how, or do you need me to show you again?” Adam’s lip twitches again, and I think I’ve figured out that this is his flirting smile.

Which is good to know because now I can use the knowledge to avoid flirting with him. In fact, alarms are already going off in my head, warning me not to return flirt.

And next time, when I’m really in danger, I’ll definitely listen to those alarms. This time, though, I toss my hair over my shoulder and answer, “I think I need another tutorial.”

Chapter 24

Adam

I enjoy having Evie around. The past few days have gone a lot faster with her at the job site. Not only have we gotten more done with an extra set of hands, but she also makes the job more fun. Blaine and Hector both like her. She makes them laugh—something I haven’t seen Blaine do in years—and they both blush every time she compliments their work. Which she does a lot.

Maybe I’ll take a page from her playbook and tell them good job more often. They’re working faster and harder than they ever have, even with the weather growing colder.

Sure, I’m going slower. I get distracted talking to her, and we have a lot to talk about. Like today. We spent hours talking about our favorite places to eat in New York, the weirdest things we’d encountered while living there, and the most fun Christmas activity in the city. Most of our favorites were different, but we agreed the best thing at Christmas is the lights in Dyker Heights. So touristy, but we both loved it. And we wondered if we’d ever been there at the same time.

The nicest part of the day, though, wasn’t the talking. It was when we stopped talking and neither of us felt the need to fill the silence with words. We were comfortable just being together.

Maybe, subconsciously, I’m moving slower because I don’t want to finish framing. Once it’s done, I’ll move onto another job and Evie will stay here to finish the decorating part. Once that’s done, she’ll leave Paradise.

The more time I spend with her, the less I want that to happen. She fits here. Not just in my arms—I could show her how to use a nail gun every day of my life and not get tired of it—but in the whole town. The entire valley, even. Usually, I like things to stay the same, but she’s a change I’d like to be permanent.

The person I don’t enjoy showing up at my job site is my brother Zach. I don’t care if he is the contractor and, technically, my boss. He’s got no business being here until I’m completely done being mad at him. And there’s no end date in sight for that as long as he keeps trying to tell me what to do.

He shows up on the day we’re finishing the ground floor. Evie and I are working on putting the last wall together while Blaine and Hector are putting another one up.

“Looking good, bro.” His eyes dart between Evie and me, and his mouth threatens to slip into a smile. I stop it with a glare. “Working on this project from the ground up, Evie?”

Evie brushes the dust from her hands onto her jeans. “I usually come over for a few hours in the morning to see how things are going, then work on the design part the rest of the day. You’ve been watching the progress, right?”

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