Page 2 of Blue Collar Hotties

“Cade Armstrong.” I nod at the nearby wreck. “This is my cabin, and like I said. You’re trespassing.”

She frowns, her confusion obvious. Either that, or this squatter is the world’s best actress.

“Yourcabin?”

“Uh-huh.” I glance at it again, swallowing down my embarrassment at the grubby windows and cracked wooden boards. Fuck, but Luis left it in a state. No wonder he kept saying he’d leave it to me with that shit-eating grin, like he was having such a great joke with himself. Now I know why: that joker has left me the ultimate fixer-upper. A final prank from beyond the grave.

“Luis…” I jolt at the name of my dead friend on her lips, staring at the girl with fresh eyes. She knew him? “He left it to you? I didn’t—didn’t remember seeing it in the will.”

Her shoulders slump, and now I feel like the biggest piece of shit who ever lived, because this is clearly no squatter. Was she his girlfriend? Did they live here together while he was on leave?

Luis never mentioned a lover, but a stab of irrational jealousy lances through me all the same. He had a girl like this, and he never said a word? Fuck me.

If this angel was mine, the whole damn world would hear about it.

“I guess I just assumed…” She trails off, clutching the towel around herself like the fabric might hold her together. The poor thing looks so, so tired, and I wish I never woke her up. She’ssmall with all the air gone out of her, those slender shoulders curving in on herself. The breeze nudges at those tiny braids.

“I’m sorry,” the girl rasps, so much pain in those words that I stumble back a step. “I’ll clear out of your way.”

“Wait.”

I thought she was a squatter, or a figment of my troubled imagination. I definitely didn’t stomp up here to toss my best friend’s grieving lover off his deck. Jesus, I’m not a monster.

But she’s bending over to snatch up a loose white t-shirt, fumbling with her towel as she dresses quickly, avoiding my eyes, and those exhausted shadows on her face make me feel about three inches tall.

“Wait,” I say again. “Hang on a second. You knew Luis? You were his girl?”

There’s a loud snort, the unladylike sound taking me by surprise. “Ew,” the angel says flatly, dressed now in denim shorts and her t-shirt, the towel bunched in one hand as she slides on a pair of dusty flip flops. “No. I’m his sister, Riley.”

Present tense. Even though Luis has been gone for months now.

But then, you never stop being family, do you? Not when the love is real. That shit lasts forever.

I should know. Luis was my brother in all but name—we bled together, laughed and talked and cried. Had each other’s backs, and saved each other’s lives more than once. When the nights got hard and the demons closed in, I confessed the shadiest, most shameful parts of my soul to that man, and he never turned away from me. Not even for a second.

Then he left me this rotting lump of a cabin. Hey, nobody’s perfect.

“His sister?” Relief floods through me, and I feel bizarrely lighter. Can’t examine that. “Shit, I’m sorry. I never would have come if I’d known you were here.”

Riley waves a hand, but her face has closed. Shut up shop. It’s like the light has gone from her brown eyes as she says, “Hey, it’s your cabin. No hard feelings.”

She’s walking now, striding past me on the deck, and I snake out a hand. Grab her arm without thinking, keeping her next to me with a loose hold, because all I know is: she can’t leave yet. She can’t go, not like this. Hurt and rigid with grief.

“Wait—I’m not kicking you out. You can keep the cabin, Riley. I don’t even want it, okay?”

She scans my face, expression doubtful. There are flecks of gold in those brown eyes, and it reminds me of the honeycomb chocolate I used to obsess over back before I signed up, before I had to worry about pull ups and time trials. Damn, I could go for a bar of honeycomb chocolate right now.

“You don’t want your own lakehouse?”

My turn to snort. I nod at the wreck Luis left me. “No offense, but have you seen it?”

Her mouth twitches. She glances over, too, and we stare at it together. The sagging roof; the crack in one window pane. The rotted boards in one corner of the deck.

“He was messing with me,” I tell her quietly. “You know what he’s like.”

I can’t bring myself to talk about Luis in the past tense, either. Guess we’re both in denial. But his sister sucks in a shaky breath then blows it out in one go, and gives me a wobbly smile that shocks me down to the marrow of my bones.

I’m still touching her arm. Feeling her warm skin against my palm.

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