Page 73 of The Fix-Up

Oliver stamped his foot. “Yes. You have to go back inside.”

“But—”

“Right now, Mommy.”

“Alright.” I held up my hands in defeat. “I get it. I’m going.”

Once I was back inside, I peeked through the curtains and watched the scene before me. Oliver hovered near Gil who wasstill under the car. Although I couldn’t hear what he was saying, I knew he was jabbering a hundred miles a minute. Knowing that kid, he had probably already asked seven thousand questions.

After a few minutes, Gil slid out from under the car and stood up.

My mouth dropped.

Mr. Gilbert “Buttoned-Up, Hair Always Combed, Pants with Creases” Dalton was none of those things at the moment. He had on worn blue jeans—there was even a hole in one of the knees—and I watched while he grabbed the back of his black t-shirt and whipped it over his head.

I sucked in a breath. “Oh. Mama.”

This Gilbert Dalton was dirty and messy, his hair all over the place. His back was facing me. I now understood why the hero in a Regency romance novel is overcome with desperate attraction when some saucy woman flashes her ankle at him. In this case, those ankles were Gil’s back and, oh my stars, his arms!

Big, strong arms attached to wide shoulders that tapered down to his waist. I’d only seen a flash of this a couple of weeks ago. But now, he had no idea I was watching, and I could look my fill. He wasn’t overly muscled or a rippling mass or made of two percent body fat and protein shakes, nor did he resemble a marble statue. But that made it even better because he looked real and…and touchable.

And then there were the tattoos. Principal Gil had tattoos, or rather one large one. I could see it clearly from my vantage point hiding behind the living room curtain. It looked to be a bundle of colored bluebonnets and Indian paintbrushes off-center of his back and reaching up to touch his neck. A butterfly frozen in flight fluttered above the flowers as though it was about to land. I wanted to see it up close and discover what it meant, and could I touch them, please and thank you.

This was not good. Men with tattoos that took up half their back were nothing but trouble. Been there, done that. No, thank you. But tattoos on Gil…that was next-level temptation. That’s what it was.

“Oh, no,” I whispered. I might need an emergency session with Sunny.

Oliver began walking toward the house. I raced to the couch and threw myself down, trying to look like I hadn’t been drooling at the window mere seconds ago.

Oliver burst in. “Mommy!”

“Where is your shirt?” I asked.

He puffed out his skinny chest. “I tooked it off. So did Mr. Gil. ’Cause it got hot after all our hard work.”

“I see.” I stood up. “We should get you some sunscreen.”

“Later.” He grabbed one of my hands and tugged me toward the door. “Come see what we did.”

“Coming.” I fussed with my hair, trying to calm the flyaway bits, as I made my way outside. Oliver skipped ahead, his steps light with excitement.

Gil was leaning against the door of my car, still shirtless. My crappy, twenty-something-year-old car with more than a few dents and dings, one taillight that needed replacing every six months or so because there was an electrical short somewhere, and at least one tire that needed to be replaced soon, had never looked so good.

Don’t stare. Don’t stare. Do not stare. I pulled my t-shirt away from my chest to let a little air in. It wassuperhot out here.

Oliver ran ahead and mimicked Gil’s stance. “Guess what? Guess what? We did a…” He turned to Gil. “What did we do?”

“An oil change.”

“An oil change,” I repeated.

Gil crossed his arms. Don’t look. Don’t look. Don’t—I looked. I looked and I looked. There was another tattoo on his chest, thesimple outline of a heart. Just above it was what appeared to be stylized birds in flight, two of them. Each was a different color. Gil didn’t have the frat boy, drunken night of debauchery and blurry trips to a tattoo shop feel about him. He was methodical about hislaundry. Surely, he’d put even more thought into what was put permanently on his skin.

“It was on one of your sticky notes.”

“Hmm?” Pay attention. I dragged my gaze back up to his face. One corner of his mouth inched up a tiny bit. But his cheeks were pink and something about the tension in his body screamed nervous energy.

“One of your sticky notes said you needed an oil change. So…” he rubbed at the back of his neck which, in turn, made the muscles in that arm bulge which, in turn, distracted me “…it’s been up there the whole time I’ve been here. I thought I could take care of it.”

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