Page 22 of Service Included

“Sorry, that wasn’t a very good joke.” His smile tilted, higher on one side than the other, creating a regretful look that seemedto reflect his embarrassment. “I remembered. No avocado. It’s turkey and brie. I think it also has cranberry spread.”

Hehadlistened. A little bubble of happiness, small because it had to float up from the pit of hunger, tickled her throat as she looked into the bag. Along with the wrapped sandwich, he’d purchased a bottle of Italian sparkling water, which enticed her as much as the food, and a silver-wrapped square she recognized as an artisanal chocolate made in Portland.

“Mint chocolate, for you.”

Just for you, the fictional Mr. G had said, and Nico’s echoing words triggered her heart so forcefully that she’d swear the thudding muscle hammered through to her spine.Do it, the rapid ba-bump ordered.Ask him. Say something.She could, but more importantly, she would.

She opened her mouth, unsure how to pose her question, but knowing she had to take the chance.

Her phone chirped.

Her teeth clacked shut on the unformed request. Instead, she grabbed the familiar rectangle from where she’d left it on the arm of the couch. It filled her hand and mind with a tangible distraction that wasn’t Nico, wasn’t risky.

Naturally, the caller was the architect of this sneaky plan.

She set the lunch bag on the bare floor next to the couch while she answered. “Hello, Mother.” Despite wanting to accuse her parent of meddling, with Nico in the room, Megan could do nothing but emphasize each syllable to convey her knowledge of the subterfuge.

In front of her, Nico opened the bag of cherries.

Her brain processed a pause on the other end of the phone. Belatedly, she registered that her mother had asked about taking Callie to a spray park. “Sounds like fun,” she agreed.

During the eternity that passed while he selected a perfect fruit and lifted it to his mouth, she stared at his forearms and halflistened to her mother describing the morning they’d had with Callie.

“Your daughter really knows how to have fun. You could try it sometime.”

“I am perfectly capable of having fun too.”

The dark hair that patterned his sun-bronzed skin grew denser near his wrists, but not so impenetrable as to be labeled hairy. She wished she could press her arm alongside his and compare the thick coarseness that delineated his masculinity to her own lightly freckled smoothness.

“You’re like your dad, confusing doing your job for having fun. Forty-two years and I still have to loosen him up.”

She hoped that Nico couldn’t overhear, especially after the box of costumes they’d discovered, but her mother had never learned to speak at a normal volume into a phone. “Mom, I work for a game company. They literally make fun.”

“Your misuse of that woefully overexposed word will not distract me!”

“Apologies for literally saying literally.” She knew when Nico swallowed the cherry because the column of his throat vibrated. Instead of spitting the pit into his palm, he touched his thumb and first finger to his lips, then the tip of his tongue pushed the brown seed nub into his waiting fingers. His fingers were tanned from working outside more than inside, and his nails were clean and trimmed, making it easy to assume he took care of the rest of himself too.

“Megan? You seem…distracted. Am I interrupting something?”

Busted. “Uh, not really.” No way she answered honestly, but she was a thousand percent aware that the man in front of her could hear every word she said. “Nico brought me lunch. You know Nico, don’t you?” She made sure to enunciate each word. “Your friend Greta’s son.”

The man in question grinned and slowly put another cherry in his mouth. Damn him.

“Oh,thatNico!” Her mother was an atrocious liar, all falsetto giggle and weird emphasis. “I’d heard he helped out at a moving company.” Truly atrocious.

“So he does. At the one you hired, coincidentally.”

When he plucked another cherry pit from his lips, his third finger rolled it in a slow circle against the pad of his thumb. And kept rolling it while the smile dropped from his face and his mouth flattened into a line. The only movement in the entire room seemed to be those fingers circling the cherry pit over and over. Such a tiny gesture, but it made her skin feel a size too small for her frame. All she could do, standing across the room with the phone pressed to her ear, was try to time her breathing. The high-tech weave of the shirt fabric gliding across her shoulder blades was the opposite of how she imagined the calluses on his hands would drag across her office-life-smooth skin.

“Can your father and I keep this lovely girl overnight?” Her mother’s voice intruded, almost teasing. “We’ll do an early dinner and then the swim-in movie at our complex. We’ll be wild and spontaneous.”

If she hadn’t comprehended that hiring Nico was a deliberate ploy, her mother’s emphasis onwild and spontaneousmight have triggered alarms. However, the knowledge that no one was coming back to the house turned her own dial into the red zone. “Sure, that’s great.”

While she’d been listening to her mother, Nico had selected another cherry and turned to study the remaining furniture. She noticed a slight bulge in his cheek where his tongue worked at the fruit.Bulge,damn, another word that she had no business thinking, let alone checking out, but since he’d looked away fromher, she could let her gaze descend to his jeans.Softdescribed the denim, but not the thighs covered by the faded fabric.

She managed to answer her mother’s next question barely a beat late, something about staying at the house overnight. “I’ll be fine.” Deliberate focus kept her breathing quiet and measured. “More time to get stuff done.”

“Good, you should do that.” It sounded like her mother snickered. “Get done.”

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