Page 8 of Worthy

“Avoiding the house, it was a little noisy there. You probably want your truck,” he starts to dig in his pocket for the keys.

“If you give me back the keys, how will you get home?” I stop him.

“The bus?”

“Is that a question?” I cock an eyebrow.

He starts to answer then stops, and I know I’ve caught him.

“You don’t know which bus to take.” I can’t stop the grin pulling at my lip. There are several ways to play this, and all of them will endear him to me.

“I can figure it out,” he grumbles, looking around to get his bearings as a small shiver ripples through him.

“I’m sure you could. But fortunately, you don’t have to. Not tonight, anyway,” I shrug out of the flannel shirt I’m wearing over my t-shirt and hand it to him. He hesitates a moment before accepting.

“What’s tonight?” He threads his arms through the sleeves and fastens the buttons one at a time with fingers that look both strong and gentle.

“I’d say you could join me for a drink—" I smile when he inhales sharply “—but I already know you won’t. So, I’m here to tell you to keep the keys. Until next week anyway. I can’t get the trailer moved until then.”

“I can’t keep your truck all weekend.” His eyes grow dark, like the color of the sky during a thunderstorm, when he frowns.

“It’s that or get a drink with me now and I’ll drive you home later.” I rest my forearms on the side of the chair and lean forward.

“Again with the hospitable stuff?” he grumbles despite the corner of his mouth creeping upward. My persistence is getting to him.

“Just giving you the options as I see them.” Somehow, I manage to keep my eyes on his instead of dwelling on how good he looks wrapped in my clothes.

“Hey Cade, get you anything?” Lennon, the owner of this fine establishment, holds his fist out for me to bump.

“Hi Len, busy today?” I drag my eyes away from Maddox and turn to look at him as we bump fists. The smirk he’s wearing tells me he’s angling for the scoop.And so it begins. Not to be left out, Beckett picks that opportune moment to join us, looking at me with an expression which can only be defined as hero worship.

“The usual,” Lennon shrugs. “Who’s your friend?”

I’m tempted to be vague, to play with his head since he obviously doesn’t know my history with these two, and the little frown on his face is one I really want to interpret as jealousy. But I have a niggling feeling this is a guy who needs to be wooed, not toyed with, so I decide to go easy on him.

“This is Maddox, Rick Gerome’s nephew. Maddox, this is Lennon, the owner of Murphy's Pub, and Beck, the little brother I never had. You can call him Beck.”

Madd’s eyes bug out for a second before he regains his composure and shakes their hands. “It’s nice to meet you,” he says.

“You’re staying at Rick’s place over the summer?” Beck asks. “I always did like that house. It’s so imposing from the outside but so cozy inside,” he rambles, overexcited as always.

Maddox nods along almost absently. “That’s the perfect way to describe it.”

“Well, Cade and his dad do good work.” I dodge Lennon’s hand as he reaches out to slap my shoulder.

“You built the house?” Maddox gawks at me.

“My dad mostly, but I worked on it quite a bit, yeah,” I nod. “I guess this makes now a good time for you to apologize for wondering why on earth Rick would hire me to work on his latest project,” I bait him.

“I didn’t wonder that.”

Are his cheeks looking a little pink?

“Yeah, you did. But I probably would’ve too if someone blocked my car in on the first day,” I wink.

“Jeez, Cade.” Beck shakes his head at me. “Is that why he’s driving your truck?”

“How did you…?” Maddox starts.

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