Page 15 of The Problem with Dating
A box in my hands, I headed back and stepped off the trailer. “Yeah?”
“You can’t be doing that, man,” said the guy who hadn’t been checking out Echo’s ass. “There’s insurance issues and-“
Something about this girl and this situation and how I’d been a compete asshole to her last night, but she still told Mom I’d been a great help to her, had me all fucked-up because I found myself saying, “I’m her boyfriend, so it’s okay.”
“Oh, uh…”
“Are you insane?” Echo asked, her voice implying that she really did believe I must be crazy. And maybe I was, because this was some crazy ass shit I was doing.
Ignoring her question, I walked past her, and headed towards her house as if calling the police wasn’t an option. I passed the guy who she wasnotgoing to shake the walls with as he exited the kitchen, giving me a strange look.
I placed the box that was labeled ‘kitchen’ on the counter and turned around to go help some more. However, that plan was nixed when a very pissed off Echo grabbed me by my arm and drug me through the kitchen into the backyard.
Once we were outside, she slammed the sliding glass door shut, and, boy, did the little hellfire light my ass up. “Look, I don’t care if you really are crazy or not,” she snapped. “I need you to take your ass back over my property line and stay there.” She planted her hands on her hips again. “I don’t know what you’re doing or why, but-”
I looked down at her and told her the truth. “I’m apologizing for being a jackass last night.”
Her brows shot up and those beautiful brown eyes of hers nearly popped out of her head. “You’re apologizing for being a jackass last night by being a jackass today?”
“I am not being a jackass,” I lied.
“Oh, but you are,” she argued. “And I don’t care what fifteenth-century gender notions you have inside that insane head of yours, but I don’t need your help, Gideon.” Well, at least she wasn’t calling me Mr. Hayes anymore. “I don’t need your help or your guilt or whatever else is your goddamn problem.”
Since Echo was completely in the right, it was time to play dirty. “You either let me finish helping the movers, and quit shaking your ass for Cecil, or I’m calling my mother over here and telling her you lied to her face and won’t let me apologize for my behavior last night.”
The woman looked murderous. “You wouldn’t?” she hissed.
I bore down on her. “Wanna bet?”
“I hate you, Gideon Hayes,” she spewed. “I really, really hate you.”
Yeah, I probably had that coming.
Chapter 9
Echo~
Itruly felt exhausted.
After the movers had finished yesterday, I had spent the rest of the weekend putting everything away, and I still wasn’t finished.
Saturday evening had been spent putting the kitchen and living room away. And while I had finished those two rooms successfully, it had been almost midnight before I had gotten them all set up.
Sunday was spent putting together the rest of the house, and since I really didn’t have too many belongings, I had made a lot of progress. The only thing left was converting the third empty bedroom into a home office.
Since I hadn’t found a contractor yet, I set up the second bedroom as my own, and had put everything away, ready to live out of it. The only thing that sucked was how I couldn’t get the image of Gideon Hayes putting my bed together out of my head.
After his very serious threat of calling Louise, I had relented and let the man help Donald and Cecil finished unloading the moving truck. I could have easily stuck to my guns, but I had caved for the same reason I had lied to her in the first place; she was a nice person and I didn’t want to cause her any grief.
And if I hadn’t already been thrown off my game by Gideon’s overbearing ways, watching him insist on putting together my furniture, therefore sending Cecil and Donald on their way, had really thrown me for a loop. Two hours after Cecil and Donald had left, my bed had been put together along with my desk. I had mumbled a reluctant thank you while I had been shoving Gideon out of my house, and to my surprise, he had left peacefully.
Now, it was Monday afternoon, and my office was coming along nicely. But as the room came together, I realized I didn’t own any plants. And plants were nice, right? I always thought they had a way of turning a house into a home, and that got me to thinking about the outside of my house.
I didn’t have much of a green thumb, so I wasn’t planning on doing much with either my yards, but I knew I wanted to keep them up in appearance. I was on a mission to make new friends-apart from Gideon-and I didn’t want to be that neighbor who ruined the beauty of the neighborhood by letting my grass turn yellow or overgrown.
Because Aunt Charmlee had hired lawn service, I had kept them on until I had sold the house, so I didn’t have a lawn mower, or hedgers, or anything like that. And since I only had one car for my two-car garage, it’d be no problem to house all those things along the empty stall. I just had to make a trip to the hardware store again and purchase all those things, and hope they delivered since I didn’t have a truck.
But to get a better idea of what I’d need and what I wanted to do with my yard, I grabbed my phone and headed outside to take some pictures. I was going to need some advice on maintaining the hedges and some advice on whether or not to just pull out to bushes if they were going to be a high maintenance accent.
