Page 10 of Handy

I pry my hand off of my dick and put my foot on the gas when the light changes. The heat in my gut cools a little as I manage to focus on those practical thoughts. I haven’t been touched in too damn long and, for whatever reason, Ledger wants to touch me. I’m not going to argue with that, but I’m not going to read any more into it than I need to either. We’ll scratch an itch while I work on getting his place back in order and that’ll be it. Simple.

As I near the worksite, the wildflowers growing along the side of the road remind me of the vase of flowers that came yesterday, still sitting on my kitchen counter because I haven’t had time to check with either of my neighbors to see if they might have been meant for them. Maybe it’s not worth the effort. By the time I get around to it, chances are the flowers will have died. And I’m sure when the sender realizes their delivery didn’t reach the person they were meant for, they’ll get a refund or another bouquet from the flower shop. No harm, no foul.

Like most mornings, by the time I pull in, the lot is already full of all the other trucks. Do these guys just spring out of bed and sprint to work? They’re all happily coupled up, shouldn’t they be rolling in late with bed head and satisfied smiles from leisurely morning sex? Then again, at least half of them have kids, so I guess that throws a bit of a wrench into things.

I climb out of my truck and luckily my dick is finally under control. As long as I can avoid thinking about Ledger or his vague, teasing promises about tonight, I should be able to make it through the day without popping wood in front of everyone.

Just like every other morning, I’m met with the sound of pounding, the whir of drills, and loud laughter and voices. Have I already considered the idea of noise canceling headphones so I can just focus on work in peace?

“Hey, Griff,” West shouts over the rest of the noise, and everyone else looks up from what they’re doing to greet me too. Why do I feel like I’m working inMr. Rogers’ Neighborhoodor some shit?

I grunt in reply, which does nothing to deter the beaming smiles on any of their faces. Everett sets down his drill and waves me over.

“Here, I got you a cherry fritter.” He lifts up a flap of plywood covering the floor beams and pulls out a crumpled paper bag to hand me.

“Hey, you said there were only donut holes,” Apollo complains.

“Therewereonly donut holes for you.” Ev chuckles. “Griff only likes fritters.”

I frown. With my hand outstretched to reach for the bag, I pull up short. How did he know I only like fritters? And why the hell did he go out of his way to get me one?

“Here,” Ev says again, thrusting the bag at me with an easy smile. “Eat it before these vultures can swoop in.”

I take the bag and grunt a thanks.

“So, what, if we only speak in grunts and scowls, we’ll get special snacks?” Miller says lightly, winking at me to make sure I don’t take his ball busting the wrong way. Not sure how I could. It’s a pretty accurate description of me.

I shrug and bite into my fritter with a happy rumble in my throat.

“I tried that for the first year I was here, and I never got fritters,” Apollo grumbles.

“That’s because you’re adorable when you scowl,” Ridge, Apollo’s husband, flirts, giving him a hearty smack on his ass.

Apollo grunts, missing the nail and bringing his hammer down on the wood instead. Flirting like that has to violate workplace safety standards, doesn’t it? I shake my head and wolfdown the rest of my breakfast, then ball up the bag and carry it into the next ‘room’ where we have a small trash can set up to keep the place free of all our garbage. There’s a makeshift table made out of plywood right next to it, with a carafe of coffee and the nearly empty box of donut holes that started this argument to begin with. And next to the breakfast spread is a vase of flowers. The flowers themselves are different from the daisies that came to my doorstep, but the vase is the same.

I stop in my tracks and my heart sinks. Those flowers couldn’t have been some kind of prank, could they? I figured they weren’t meant for me, but what if it’s worse than that? What if I’m the butt of some humiliating joke?

“Everything okay?” Stone comes up behind me, patting me on the back as he passes on his way to pour himself some coffee.

“Yeah,” I rasp, still staring at the flowers.

“Kind of cheesy, right?” he says, noticing my gaze and nodding at the flowers. “Demetri sent them to Miller for their anniversary.”

“It’s not cheesy,” Miller shouts from the next room over.

“Did anybody notice how hot the delivery guy was?” Stone calls back instead of responding to Miller’s protest. He grins at me and fans himself dramatically. “Those thighs were made for those skimpy brown shorts. Whoever designed those uniforms deserves a Nobel Prize.”

I grunt, only half listening to him, still staring at the flowers. I guess it makes sense that whoever sent the other flowers used the same florist, right? I mean, how many florists can there be in Fall Crosse?

“You okay?” Stone asks again. “Are you allergic to flowers or are they giving you some kind of PTSD flashback to being stood up on prom night?” He inches to stand in front of the vase, like breaking my sightline will keep me from losing itCarriestyle.

I snort and shake my head. My instinct is to brush off the question or ignore it altogether, toss my garbage, and get down to work. Maybe it’s the sugar from the fritter loosening my tongue that makes me blurt out the answer.

“It’s nothing. I just got a flower delivery yesterday and there was no sender listed, so I’ve been running myself in circles trying to figure out where they could have come from.”

Stone gasps. “You have a secret admirer?”

I huff and shake my head again. “No.”

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