Page 5 of Follow Your Bliss

I knew this man. Or I knew that boy, a long time ago. Time must’ve had a crush on him. Why was he so goddamn hot? My brain and mouth were slow to catch up with the situation and even slower to attempt a response.

I tried not to let my gaze dip below his eyes. But in a spectacular fail, I clocked the mountain range across his chest, veins down his muscled arms, the stretch of delectable yumminess below his belly button that made my lady business actively clench, and athletic shorts hanging low off unreasonably toned hips. My hormones were Christina Aguilera and her “Dirrty” background dancers.

Isaac, with his sickly Victorian goth mystique, didnotlook like that naked. I sucked my tummy in and pulled down on my short shorts.

He cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. “Wait, aren’t you…? Rose Guidry? Is that you?”

He took a step closer. Yep—Jason Soniat. Becca’s little brother.

Fuck me, he’d grown up.

“Jason? Ohmygod hi!” I pushed a curl out of my face, no doubt smudging even more dirt onto it. Unbearable heat from inside and out made my face as hot as a crawfish in a boiling pot and probably twice as red. I crossed my arm across my braless boobs. “What’re you…did Lily…are you here for the necklace too?”

But no, it didn’t make any sense that Lily would’ve called Jason to help me. And by the confused, pissed look on his face, that was not why he was out here.

He shook his head, brows furrowed. “What necklace?” His gaze followed the flashlight’s bright spot into the hole and over the piles of dirt around it. “Why are you digging a hole in my garden?”

His irritated tone tightened my chest and sent my heart racing like I’d been called into the hot principal’s office. New kink unlocked. We stared at each other, and I gripped my shovel with white knuckles. “Yourgarden?”

“Yeah. This is my property.” He gestured at the mess I’d made with a deeper frown. “What are you doing out here?”

“I’m so sorry, oh my God I’m so embarrassed I didn’t know this was your—Lily asked me to come and dig up the time capsule we buried in summer camp because she put the other half of her best friends forever necklace Becca gave her in it.”Big breath.“Because Lily’s in Oregon until tomorrow and if she doesn’t have it at the shower tomorrow night, Becca’s gonnakillher…”

My voice petered out as he pursed his lips and scratched the back of his head. Surveyed my vandalism in total silence.

I swallowed hard. I would die right here in the mud of hot face, tachycardia, and wretched cringe, and Lily would owe a debt to my ghost. A fancy casket. Maybe a marble tombstone with an awkward statue of a weeping angel putting her foot in her mouth so everyone would remember me accurately.

“A time capsule? Um…” He turned and looked back toward the church, then back to me. He sighed, and his frown smoothed out into straight-lipped resignation. “Hang on. I’ll grab a shovel and help you.”

“Oh no, no, no. I wouldn’t dream of asking you to help me.”

“You didn’t.” He wedged his flashlight onto the statue of St. Dorothy between her basket of roses and flowing robes. “I’ll be right back.” He walked off toward the old rectory.

Goddamn that ass. Fuck. Me.

I resumed digging, whisper-cussing myself out. “What the fuck? Why are you such a horny dumbass?”

My crush on Jason started in science class on the first day of sixth grade. And the last time I saw him—oh God, prom. He took me to my senior prom. Nobody else had asked me, and I was so desperate to go that I let Lily ask Becca if one of her brothers would take me. Even though they went to a different high school, and I hadn’t seen them in years.

I’d asked for Jason.

And bless him, he went with me, even though he had a girlfriend at the time. But he must’ve been so miserable all night—I was so shy and quiet back then. Becca must’ve owed him a favor as big as the one Lily owed me now.

Jason came back with a shovel and a bigger work light on an extension cord. Ohmygod he’d actually been serious about helping me dig up his yard.

He handed me a cold bottle of water, and the condensation dripped down my arm to my elbow, splashed on my flushed chest. “You must be dying out here.”

The cold water bottle and the visible sweat on his muscles made my nipples pebble and my throat extra dry. “Thank you.” His skin looked smoother and more luxurious than mulberry silk. I bet he exfoliated.

“I didn’t know there was a time capsule here.” He dropped his phone in his pocket, and it dragged his shorts even lower on his hips. Holy smokes.

I downed half the bottle before answering him. “There used to be a plaque for it.” I set my bottle on the statue’s base and walked around to the opposite side of the hole for a new spot to dig.

Then I tripped over my own feet and slammed into him with a yelp, grabbing his shoulders with my dirty gloves.

He threw his hands up at the last second, and one landed squarely on my boob.

“Oh God!” He immediately moved his hand to my waist with an “I’m so sorry are you okay?” as he helped me steady myself.

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