Page 15 of When Fate Breaks
“Your mom.”
“Oh,” I blurt. “She’s, uh, good. I think.”
I don’t even have to look at Blake to see his one raised brow.
“I haven’t talked to her in awhile,” I confess.
“You need to call your parents, Evangeline,” Blake shakes his head at me in a faux-patronizing kind of way.
“I know, I know,” I swallow. “I’ve been a little crazy lately.”
“Pretty sure you were always crazy.”
I punch Blake in the shoulder like it’s the most natural response in the world. “Shit,” I wince, shaking out my hand, my fingers having been crushed into themselves, sending a shooting pain up my arm. That had to have been a bone I hit on accident. There’s no way his shoulder muscle is that hard.
What even is a shoulder muscle?
Blake’s shuddering figure catches my attention out of the corner of my eye. When I look at him, I see he has his tongue pushed into the side of his cheek, his hand partially covering his face as he stifles a laugh. I punch his shoulder a second time despite the pain still pulsing through my fingers.
“Shut up,” I say, rolling my eyes but breaking into my own laughter as Blake's composure crumbles all together.
We laugh so long that I’m pretty sure we’ve forgotten what we’re even laughing about. A part of me feels like we may have both just been pent up ticking time bombs of emotion waiting for a release. My cheeks and gut both begin to ache as I somewhat aggressively lay on the brakes to make a left turn, having nearly missed it in the distraction of laughter and my own thoughts.
Happy with how the ice has broken thus far, I carry on. “How’s work?”
“Oh,” Blake replies, shifting in his seat. “It’s been good. Gotten lots of big projects recently. I was contracted to redo Lake Placid High School’s entire landscaping over the summer. Did some work on the mayor’s garden. But, most recently, some crazy lady flew me all the way across the country to renovate some old greenhouse.”
My lips pull up at the corners. “Did she now?”
“Yeah,” Blake mutters. “What do you make of that?”
I turn my head to see Blake staring at me thoughtfully. My body instantly responds, sitting up straighter in my seat and eyes shooting back to the road.
“It sounds like she really cares about seeing her greenhouse restored. And like she knew the best man for the job.”
“Yeah,” he says, his face and tone neutral. “Clearly.”
I roll my lips into my mouth, diverting back to the original subject. “Well, I’m glad everything’s going well. You must really love your company having been there for…what? Nearly a decade now?” I shake my head at the realization.
God, where has the time gone?
“Yeah, well, I love what I do. But, actually–Holy shit, Evangeline.” My breath catches at Blake’s sudden movement as he braces one arm on the back of my seat, dipping his head to get a better view out of the windshield. “This isyour house?”
I can feel the redness blossoming across my cheeks as I put the truck in park. Blake is nearly leaned across my lap at this point, ogling at the house through my driver’s side window, the heat from his body radiating into my own.
“Yeah,” I swallow. “It’s our house.”
Blake’s brows, that had just been raised in wonder, fall suddenly. He tears his gaze from the house, turning to meet my eyes, our faces mere inches apart. I try to push my head further back into the headrest, but it doesn’t have any room to give. His gaze flicks down to my tightly pressed together lips, his throat bobbing once before his eyes meet mine again.
“Right,” he says. His eyes burn into my face for several more seconds, both of us completely still apart from my rapidly rising and falling chest. My heart pounds in my ears as I stare back at him. Just as I begin to think Blake has truly frozen in place, something flickers in his eyes and he breaks the trance, pulling away. He unbuckles his seat belt and pushes out of the truck in one fluid motion. I instantly slump into my seat, releasing a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. I let my eyes fall shut for one full second before I hear Blake’s voice.
“You coming, Jacks?”
“Coming,” I respond, definitely not at a volume audible to Blake, who is outside of the truck with his suitcase already in hand and heading for the front door.
I pull out my cell phone, checking for any messages from Remy letting me know he’s on his way back; there are none. I blow out a breath, shoving the phone back into my pocket and hopping out of the truck, ignoring the weakness in my knees when my feet hit the ground.
I stop a few feet away from the front porch when I notice Blake’s suitcase is really more of a tool trunk. “You got tools in there?” I ask, nodding towards the hard plastic case.
